Why not just use Xcode and xcodebuild from the CLI if you don't like the IDE? I write all my OSX projects in C++ using it. Learning to build projects and solv

Why not just use Xcode and xcodebuild from the CLI if you don't like the IDE? I write all my OSX projects in C++ using it. Learning to build projects and solve compiler and linker errors is part of the journey. Stroustrup's book takes longer to read than 5 minutes, so writing C++ will take longer. It is a rewarding journey, where you will suddenly find all other languages (Java, C#, C, JavaScript, Swift) very similar or simplified in comparison. To get you started you could install xcode and the commandline tools, write your file.cpp and use: g++ -o myprogram file.cpp This assumes no linker options, no preprocessor options or anything, and on OSX will use clang, which it secretly symbolic links as g++. You might find it easier to get your head around it by starting a project in Xcode, setting the options in the IDE and then observing the output that it runs. Note that installing a library on most Unix platforms isn't complicated - configure, make, make install.