Visual C++ Development Targeting Linux

Question

I've been a Visual C++ user for quite some time now, and in the following weeks, I will be joining a (C++) Linux-only project. It should be noted that I have absolutely zero development experience on Linux.

Currently, Visual C++ 9 along with the Visual Assist X add-in make Windows-based development rather enjoyable. Having looked at various C++ IDEs on Linux left me a little disappointed with the coding experience, however.

I'd love to be able to use my current tool set (see above) for Linux development, so I have a couple of questions:

1. Can the VS editor convert between CR+LF <-> LF in a reliable manner?
2. Is it possible to set up a system where if I press "Build" in the IDE all of my work gets transferred to another box (e.g., a virtual machine) running Linux that compiles my project?
3. How would debugging work? Is it possible to remote-debug an application running in Linux via something like gdb? If so, would the "advanced" features of MS's debugger (e.g., tracepoints, break-if-cond, etc.) be lost?

Is this even a sane thing to think of? Does anyone use a Windows environment for Linux development? If not, I guess I should just suck it up and move to a Linux environment all together...?

Any input is appreciated, as I feel a little lost right now.

Answer 1

It's probable you'll eventually want to suck it up and work on Linux. microsoft, for obvious reasons, builds their tools to be very Windows-centric and Windows-specific; there are even a few ways in which Visual C++ isn't quite standard C++.

That said, though, you can work with VC++ to some extent.

There are easy tools on linux that will translate to UNIX line endings from Windows. (called something creative like 'dos2unix')

You can set up a remote file system, like with ExpanDrive for Windows, to let you keep your files there.

You can run ssh or rsh from Windows to run makes on the remote Linux box.