I'm fairly competent in various basics, unix shell, javascript and a bit of
perl, and now I would like to learn a big boy's language ;) I've been coding
in PocketC for PalmOS on my Palm Pilot which has taught me a lot about the
structure and syntax of C. I've got the PocketC compiler, which obviously
builds the code into an executable binary, and also a GUI toolkit called
CControls, which adds a whole load of GUI functions in the form of
#include-able source, eg Cbutton() for defining a button, Cdraw() to draw
the button and Csetcontent() to set the label of the button, and so on for
various GUI widgets.

Now, I would like to find equivalent applications for Windows. Assuming that
"normal" C works in the same way as PocketC, I need the following:

1. A compiler
Recommendations for a cheap (preferably free!!!) compiler, ideally one that
doesn't run in dos mode as I'm running XP so I'm not sure how well a command
line compiler would run. A Windows based compiler would be nice.

2. A GUI toolkit
Equivalent of CControls mentioned above, to add GUI building functions. Or
are these built in to "standard" C? If so how can I find out about them?

Thanks for any and all advice.

Firstly there is the ANSI C language itself. This is quite a small languge
with about twenty keywords and maybe twenty operators. I would be surprised
if Pocket C did not implement this language in the normal way.

Secondly there are the ANSI C standard libraries. These are enough to write
simple command line applications. They include the printf() family of
functions, a maths library, string functions, and so on. However you cannot
expect to write a Windows program using just the standard library - there
are no facilities for graphics for example. Pocket C may or may not
implement this standard library.

Thirdly there are extensions. For instance Microsoft Visual C provides a
rich set of function to open windows, send messages, draw fancy text and
graphics, add sound, and so on. Because there are so many extended
libraries, they are off-topic here.

Sorry if this is a little off topic here but it's difficult to search for
newsgroups containing the word "c" as there are thousands of newsgroups
containing the letter c :o) If these questions are not relevant here, maybe
someone could point me to a more appropriate group.

CBird hawk;
hawk.BirdID = 1;

CBird jay;
jay.BirdID = 5;

This is a really basic overview of some practical implementations of the OO
capabilities of C++. I personally leraned C++ as my first language and then
migrated to C (I still use both) for my current work. I use C++ for almost
all of my large applications (as well as most of my Windows programming) and
C for more low level stuff (like an Operating System I'm working on).

Personally, I reccomend MS VC++. It's the only Windows IDE I have used in
the recent past, so I can't make any great comparisons but I got the
Standard Edition for like $40 and it has done just about anything I've
needed. It also allows you to quickly create forms in a Visual Basic way
(drag and drop controls and position them visually).

Mingw (www.mingw.org) is the "native Windows" port of gcc tools.
It also permits, but does little to assist with, full Win32 (GUI) calls.

MFC is of course available only in C++ mode (or through the normal,
clumsy, C++/C interface) and it should be noted is not standard C++ either.
Its goodness is debatable, but it is indisputably well suited to Windows.