I am a Computer Engineering Major and we're required to program in C++ for one of our courses and the compiler of choice is Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0. It's a nice program, easy to use interface, has all the bells and whistles, and compiles source code fairly quickly. I was satisfied with it until I noticed that the compiled file was terribly large. If you program one of your goals tends to be create the most efficient program with the smallest size possible and no matter what I did when I compiled a simple program that was maybe ten lines of code it came out as 500 KB executable. That's about half a MegaByte! I went to download.com and found a free C++ compiler called Bloodshed Dev C++ and it compiled my source code and the executable was 85 KB!

I found that if you specified the header files using .h instead of using namespace std in VC++ it compiles an executable of about 200 KB. Why such a large descrepency between the two compilers? I have no clue. I still use the VC++ environment to write my source code and such but when it comes time to compile I load Dev C++. It's an 8 MB download and free. If you're a college student who's broke (Hard to find one of those right?) and need a copy of a C++ compiler there are many free ones out there. DJGPP is a favorite of some but Bloodshed has a nice GUI and is simple to use and FREE.

This program is so overpriced I can't believe they are able to sell so many copies. Student discounts make it around $100 I believe but even then some students only need the program for a couple of semesters and are already struggling to pay for books, classes, and bare necessities. If you have the money and are a big fan of Microsoft products then feel free to purchase a copy of VC++, standard version would probably suffice, but if not look for one of the many free C++ compilers.

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