Experienced Developer, but new to Amiga

[HenryCase]

Thanks for the reply.  I'm really looking to get this working under Windows as I have a wonderful and comfortable development environment set up on my Win7 workstation through my CBM 8-bit work.  What would be great for me is getting VS 2010 working with the appropriate version of gcc and so any help in doing so would be greatly, greatly appreciated.

Hi plbyrd,

Getting AROS running under Windows is easy enough, you have two main options. Either you can run it in a VM (such as VirtualBox) or you can try out the Windows-hosted build. The Windows-hosted build is built every day, so you can always access the latest version of AROS (if you need to). You can get it from here (download the mingw32-i386-system option):
http://aros.sourceforge.net/download.php

This guide to Amiga programming is work-in-progress, but worth a look:
http://code.google.com/p/guidetoamigacompatibleprogramming/source/browse/#svn%2Ftrunk%2Fenglish

As for tools for assisting in creation of GUIs, some exist, some are in development, though to be honest, like Piru said, they're not used that much. MUIBuilder was recently updated on AROS, worth a try:
http://aros-exec.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=437

[HenryCase]

The real pain-in-the-ass thing about developing 68k C/C++ code (GCC) is the lack of debugging tools.   I've had bugs that have taken me weeks to fix using loads of silly debug messages that would have taken me about 10 mins to fix with a modern step-through IDE intergrated debugger.

Here's something you might find interesting NovaCoder, wonder if you could do something similar with your debugger of choice:
http://agreppin.livejournal.com/2946.html

[HenryCase]

@plbyrd
Here's a useful guide to getting an Amiga cross-compiler running in Windows:
http://utilitybase.com/article/show/2008/05/12/240/Cross+Compiling+for+OS4+or+OS3+using+MS+Visual+Studio+2005

The whole UtilityBase website is useful for Amiga coders, that's who it's aimed at. Amiga Coding should be useful too:
http://www.amigacoding.com/index.php/Main_Page

[HenryCase]

I've pieced together the underlying development environment of Cygwin and GCC used by AmiDevCpp and now am compiling from BASH without a problem.  I've found a good generic makefile that doesn't require putting each source file in the makefile, so I don't have to manage the project in AmiDevCpp any longer.  Now I've just got to solve one riddle and I'll have Visual Studio 2010 doing builds using the make file.

Nice one plbyrd. :-) Have you got any ideas for projects you'd like to try out first?

[HenryCase]

Yes.  I have a game written down on paper to do.  I'm going to write it for the C64 first using CONIO and then port it to NCurses and then release it on the Amiga.  I know people prefer graphics for games, but this one will fit well in text, I do believe.

Sounds good, keep us posted. :-)