Is there a compiler or IDE for C on Windows that's regarded as an industry standard? [closed]
I'm surprised no-one's mentioned Pelles C. Great little C IDE for Windows; includes an LCC-based compiler. That said, NetBeans 6.5 has decent support for C and C++, and Code::Blocks is well worth a whirl.
Well, Visual Studio is the standard on Windows, and there are free versions available. However it does have a bunch of Microsoft specific extensions.For learning though, developing console apps are pretty easy and also fairly close to the standard K&R style C.
However, way back in the day I used to use Watcom, which was also pretty good for the time. It's a lot more sparse than Visual Studio, but that can be an advantage for a beginner.I believe it's also available for free these days at http://www.openwatcom.org/index.php/Main_Page
I'd probably recommend starting with that, if your main O/S is Windows.
Edit: new live url
Most people use Microsoft Visual Studio for development on Windows. You can get a free version here:http://www.microsoft.com/express/download/.
Usually GCC is used on Unix, and is typically included with the OS.
C and C++ are very similar, but C++ allows classes. Most C++ compilers will compile C code.