Linux Tools for generating a running program
=============================================

editor
------

.. describe::    pico

    Can be used with no previous experience, but absolutely no advanced
    features which make programming easier.

.. describe:: vi

    An old stand-by among programmers. It's separate command and input
    mode seem strange at first, but very natural and fast once the
    learning curve is mastered.

.. describe:: emacs

    Meant to be a little easier to learn than vi and has some extra
    features like multiple buffers which are better than native vi. The
    key bindings can be a bit hard to maneuver.

compiler
--------

cc is the standard Unix C compiler - use gcc instead.

    $ gcc prog.c

        Make executable file called a.out. System libraries are automatically
        linked into the executable.

    $ gcc prog.c -o myprog

        Make executable file called myprog.

    $ gcc prog.c -c

        Make an object file prog.o to later be linked into an executable file.


Other important options to gcc are: `-g` -- put debugging information
in the executable; `-Wall` -- more verbose warnings.

Errors reported by the compiler are called
*compile-time errors or syntax errors*.

linker
------

Two ways: ld and gcc. We will generally use gcc as in::

$ gcc file1.o file2.o -o myprog

make
----

Used to make it easy to compile a program. Makes all the calls to
gcc for you to save typing and manages dependencies so that the
everything that needs to re-compiled gets re-compiled. Especially
useful when more than one source code file are required to compile
the executable program.

Two examples of how generate to a Makefile will be given later.

debugger
--------

gdb is the native debugger that comes with gcc. Some systems also
have xgdb. IDEs also have debuggers. More on this later.