It is by far one of the easiest to use, and understandable IDEs out there. If you don't know what an IDE is, it's a tool used by programmers that combines a compiler, linker, a workspace, possibly some debugging options, and an interface that ties it all together (think MS Visual Studio).
You can get it here:
http://www.bloodshed.net/
I downloaded the beta (version 4.9.9.2) and it runs flawlessly!
Here's a quick and dirty feature list:
* Support GCC-based compilers
* Integrated debugging (using GDB)
* Support for multiple languages (localization)
* Class Browser
* Code Completion
* Debug variable Browser
* Project Manager
* Customizable syntax highlighting editor
* Quickly create Windows, console, static libraries and DLLs
* Support of templates for creating your own project types
* Makefile creation
* Edit and compile Resource files
* Tool Manager
* Print support
* Find and replace facilities
* Package manager, for easy installation of add-on libraries
* CVS Support
* To-Do List
* CPU Window
On top of all of that, I've found that there are prepackaged libraries that are already setup for use in Dev-Cpp. They call them DevPacks, and you can find a list of them here:
http://devpaks.org/
The program has an active development community, has loads of features that come with it, and it's easy to use. I'm also pretty sure that you can use another compiler and linker (other than the MinGW compiler supplied - the Win32 port of the GCC compiler). So if you wanted to use Borland's compiler, you could have Dev-Cpp look for that, or if you wanted to compile FORTRAN, you'd write your fortran files (.f extensions) and set Dev-Cpp to look for the FORTRAN compiler.
I'm currently working on a side project using this. I will admit that getting things set up is pretty daunting at first, but once you figure out where stuff is, it's VERY easy. This is probably the one tool that I'd personally recommend a newbie programmer to look at, only because it seems to offer everything that MS Visual Studio does, yet costs 100% less.
