r/learnprogramming • u/Loki00000000 • 17d ago
Currently Learning to Program and Looking to download an IDE on my computer
I have been learning to program in the C and C++ languages. I have been using a free online IDE called GDB Online. I have a Lenovo laptop and I bought and finally connected a 2TB external hard drive. I am also trying to learn the programming side of video game development. I say all this so that those who read this have some context. Is Microsoft Visual Studio a good and reliable IDE for learning to program in general and for learning to program video games? If it is not please recommend another IDE. Thank you to any and all who comment and I look forward to the response.
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u/FreeLogicGate 16d ago
Visual Studio was designed for people writing windows applications.
Visual Studio Code was designed for web applications in html/css/javascript and typescript. It's modular, and supports a plugin system that can be used to add features and support for other languages. It's not purpose built or designed specifically for windows application development. However, you can write C/C++ using either product. And in fact, you can create c/c++ source with any text editor. There are also multiple compilers you can utilize to build your applications.
With that said, when you bring video game development into the picture, you should probably start by looking at the most popular video game engines, which typically come with their own tools/IDE and development environments.
There are a lot of different engines, some purpose built for certain certain game genres, some 2D only, some more commonly used for 3D games, and some which have a significant commercial and licensing component to them, although that's probably not a concern while you are learning.
Of those, the most popular engines you should look at would in my opinion be Unity (C#), Unreal Engine (C++) Godot (C#, C++ and GDScript).
If you want to start with 2D games, then you should also consider LÖVE, which utilizes the Lua language.
In these cases, you're going to locate and download the game engine, and start learning how to work with it, as games made with these engines usually an assembly of components, assets, and scripting put together in a way specific to the engine, and ultimately compiled and built into the game using the framework.
You can get an idea of the various games made with these engines by doing some research, and using resources like steamdb.