Things I Don’t Like About Borland C++ Builder 6
- Default tab width of 8 spaces
- No “bulk indent” functionality (that I could find)
- Random window pops up every time it checks for updates (or something… This can be disabled)
- Errors come up in realtime after typing valid code too fast. I type void somefunction(), and if I don’t wait a second before closing the parenthesis, I get this error: [C++ Error] filename.cpp(1): Unable to invoke Code Parameters due to errors in source code… What the heck!
- No brace matching
- No code collapsing, but I can live without that
- Tabs don’t close on middle-click
- Does not remember last selected tab
- You have to take extra effort to work with header (.h) files, which are an integral part of C++. What the heck?!? It’s not in the default file types list, so you have to click on “Any file (*.*)” to see them.
- As far as I know, it’s not possible to select a whole line at a time. If you click in the margin, it sets a breakpoint instead of selecting the whole line.
- Anywhere you click in the editor, the insertion point is placed there. This can get annoying.
- When I open a project file, some seemingly pointless .bpr file is the only file loaded. The user does not create this file, and I did not have it open when I saved the project. All it contains is a sentence that includes “This file is used by the project manager only…” and the word “main.” No other files from the project are loaded when you open one.
I’ll list more as I think of them.
My recommendation: For a C++ IDE, a great free choice is Bloodshed Software’s DEV-C++. For a more generic and lightweight solution, I highly recommend the PSPad text editor. It has the capability to integrate with a compiler; however, as far as I know you won’t get fancy debugging features such as breakpoints without a full-featured IDE. PSPad is definitately worth checking out anyway.