Question: I am just starting out learning to program C++. Visual Studio is nice but its so picky and its caused a lot of problems for me getting my code to compile. So I heard code blocks is a good one. Does anyone know of any others that are simple and hassle free? I tried to create a hello world program in VS 2010 with the instructions in my book and of course it went crazy and said you can't do this that and the other. =/

Answer: 
The syntax is language specific. There's no (good) programming language that allows you to type your code loosely.  

Nevertheless, take a look at [my answer on another question.](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8368649/how-to-get-started-learning-mingw-c/8368720#8368720)
Not sure what you mean by picky – if you don't mean the compiler but the IDE (that it gets to much in your way in the writing process) I suggest you try it with a general-purpose text editor and standalone compiler instead. I like kate best, when forced to use Windows I take Notepad++. As the compiler you could e.g. continue using Visual, go for gcc (MinGW on Windows), or the Intel C++ compiler.

All that is IMO much easier on a Linux, so my recommendation would be [K/X]Ubuntu + kate + gcc. (You can still easily port the programs to Windows, much easier than it is the other way around.)