X11 makedepend and GNU make for Windows

This page used to contain a description how to install and use the Visual C++ Toolkit 2003 to develop programs on windows. Since Microsoft discontinued this application I have removed the descriptions. If you want write code for the WIN32 environment you can try the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Express Edition. If you don't fear command line compilers you can try Digital Mars C++ or MinGW.
If you miss your favourite unix tool while developing on windows you should check the GNUWin32 Projekt which contains many unix tools ported to windows.

GNU Make

If your sources consists of more than 1 file you should use a make tool. If you know Unix developing you will know how to work with Makefiles. If you don't know yet you should learn immediately. I recommend you use GNU make. If you have trouble compiling GNU make yourself you can use the v3.80 binary I have built. And remember to place it somewhere is your path.

Microsoft ships a crippled version of make called nmake with their Visual Studio suite. But because MS wants us developers to develop with the Visual Studio IDE which has its own make system (via those .dsp and .dsw files), their nmake is not really useful and they show no effort to make it useful. If you want to build powerfull but thus small makefiles use GNU make.

If you find make difficult to master have a look at Jam.

makedepend

If you work with makefiles you have to provide the source dependencies for make. Writing them manually into the makefile is boring and error prone. Use a tool instead that generates the dependency rules for make. I often use the makedepend program from X Windows. I have made a port which compiles under UN*X or Windows. Get the source code for makedepend. To compile on a UN*X use GNU Make which automatically selects the GNUmakefile. To compile on Windows you can use nmake with the Makefile or the Visual Studio application with the project files.

Contact

Please send me your thoughts and comments: Dirk Jagdmann <doj@cubic.org>