CLion is built on top of the IntelliJ platform, so it has a massive set of configuration options (and I think an IDE can never have enough options so this is a good thing). Normally the first thing I do with a new piece of software is go into Settings and see what I can customize. I was able to simply open its directory from CLion, hit Build and then Run, and had the tests run successfully without any hassle. I also downloaded the source of the C++14 Streams library ( ) which has a CMake build script. I added some code to main.cpp, and was able to get it compiled and running after adding a line to CMakeLists.txt (see Builds section below). The install went fine, I created a new project and CLion set up a minimal file structure. I hold up Visual Studio’s example as the best example of that.ĬLion works on Windows, Linux and Mac which is quite convenient for multi-platform projects. switching between declaration/definition or header/implementation).įinally, it needs to have a fast debugger which makes it easy to view program state. It needs to have easy project navigation, which includes switching between files, and context sensitive navigation (e.g. It needs to have good code completion, and ideally interactive error notifications (e.g.

It needs to have a good customizable editor (colors, fonts and code formatting). There are a few things I want from an IDE, and that’s what I look for every time I try out a new IDE.

It was particularly interesting to me as I mostly use a Mac but I haven’t looked at using XCode for C++ projects, so getting a familiar-feeling IDE on a Mac would be great. This IDE is one of the best that I’ve used, so I was excited to hear about the public release of an alpha version of their C++ IDE. I’ve been a loyal user of another IDE made by JetBrains - RubyMine, which I’ve been using for Ruby on Rails and Node.js projects. This post describes my first impressions from taking the new JetBrains CLion C++ IDE (currently in alpha) for a spin. JetBrains CLion C++ IDE First Impressions

Jet brains c++