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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> OK, so apart from syntax hilighting, what does an IDE actually do?
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Visual_Studio#Features
>
> ...so an IDE is a text editor, debugger, profiler, UI painter, VC
> interface and doc-gen tool, except that it's one program instead of
> several?
An IDE is an integrated development environment. I offered a list of example
features that an IDE might integrate. It doesn't mean it's all one program.
It doesn't mean that all IDEs have that particular list of features.
> For example, I've seen IDEs that can generate pages of useless
> boilerplate that you don't want at the touch of a button, but I've never
> seen an IDE that can write *useful* code for you. Certainly I've never
> seen an IDE write GUI code, and I've never seen an IDE that has any
> functionallity of any kind even slightly related to database access.
Well, go download one. ;-)
> I also haven't personally seen an IDE that can handle version control -
> although it seems like an obvious and easy feature to add, so I can
> believe that one.
Well, go download one. Visual Studio 2008 is free and pretty much
top-of-the-line, altho the free one integrates fewer tools.
> That sounds more like a CASE tool. (Does anybody still use those?)
Sure. And if you integrate it into your development environment, what do you
have?
> goes that if your language doesn't suck so much that you need to write
> so much cruft in the first place, you don't need an IDE. I am not
> entirely convinced by this argument.
It's a decent argument, but it sounds like it's being made by someone who
thinks "development" means "coding." Boilerplate has nothing to do with
ensuring that unit tests run before you check in the code, nor with making
sure that the right version of the documentation is distributed with the
release you pressed to the disk.
> Every IDE I've ever used has made my job harder, not easier. Then again,
> maybe they just means that an IDE is overkill for small projects.
Or your IDE sucks.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
The question in today's corporate environment is not
so much "what color is your parachute?" as it is
"what color is your nose?"
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>> ...so an IDE is a text editor, debugger, profiler, UI painter, VC
>> interface and doc-gen tool, except that it's one program instead of
>> several?
>
> An IDE is an integrated development environment. I offered a list of
> example features that an IDE might integrate. It doesn't mean it's all
> one program. It doesn't mean that all IDEs have that particular list of
> features.
Sure. But the saliant point is, an IDE is something that integrates
several features /such as/ the above into something which is notionally
a single "product"?
> Well, go download one. Visual Studio 2008 is free and pretty much
> top-of-the-line, altho the free one integrates fewer tools.
Hold on, let me check...
...yeah, thought so. It's already installed on my home PC. (I attempted
learning C++ a while back, remember?)
>> That sounds more like a CASE tool. (Does anybody still use those?)
>
> Sure. And if you integrate it into your development environment, what do
> you have?
Heh. Roses are Rational...
>> goes that if your language doesn't suck so much that you need to write
>> so much cruft in the first place, you don't need an IDE. I am not
>> entirely convinced by this argument.
>
> It's a decent argument, but it sounds like it's being made by someone
> who thinks "development" means "coding." Boilerplate has nothing to do
> with ensuring that unit tests run before you check in the code, nor with
> making sure that the right version of the documentation is distributed
> with the release you pressed to the disk.
There are all sorts of tools I can think of which can do these things.
But they're not "integrated". You'd have to set them all up one at a time.
>> Every IDE I've ever used has made my job harder, not easier. Then
>> again, maybe they just means that an IDE is overkill for small projects.
>
> Or your IDE sucks.
They tell us that Borland JBuilder and Microsoft VisualStudio J++ are
supposed to be the best of the best. To me, they both seemed slow and
buggy. (That was a while ago, obviously.)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Sure. But the saliant point is, an IDE is something that integrates
> several features /such as/ the above into something which is notionally
> a single "product"?
Yes.
> ...yeah, thought so. It's already installed on my home PC. (I attempted
> learning C++ a while back, remember?)
Well, now yo uknow, then.
> There are all sorts of tools I can think of which can do these things.
> But they're not "integrated". You'd have to set them all up one at a time.
Yes. You have a development environment, non-integrated.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
The question in today's corporate environment is not
so much "what color is your parachute?" as it is
"what color is your nose?"
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On 02/27/10 11:51, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> I also haven't personally seen an IDE that can handle version control -
> although it seems like an obvious and easy feature to add, so I can
> believe that one.
Really? What IDE's /have/ you seen, then?
--
Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember, it didn't help
the rabbit.
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Neeum Zawan wrote:
> On 02/27/10 11:51, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> I also haven't personally seen an IDE that can handle version control -
>> although it seems like an obvious and easy feature to add, so I can
>> believe that one.
>
> Really? What IDE's /have/ you seen, then?
Borland Turbo Pascal 5.5 for MS DOS (if that even counts as an IDE).
Borland JBuilder.
Microsoft VisualStudio.
So yeah, I haven't used very many...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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> OK, so apart from syntax hilighting, what does an IDE actually do?
TBH syntax highlighting is one of the least useful features of an IDE for
me.
Things I find most useful:
1) Auto-complete with popup help
2) The debugger
3) The GUI Form designer
4) The red underlining of compiler errors as you're typing (in MS C# IDE)
5) Auto compile/link/run with one keypress
6) "Template" projects for a Windows app
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> Microsoft VisualStudio.
Even the free version of VS has a GUI for setting up and accessing local and
remote databases from your code (Data -> Add New Data Source gets you
started). It also writes the GUI code based on what you design in the Form
Designer GUI. It also will create distribution packages for you with
installers etc automatically. I think you need the paid version to get all
the version control stuff, but I could be wrong (never looked into that
myself).
This sounds familiar to your argument that 3D Studio Max is rubbish because
you only figured out how to work 1 feature of it (out of 10000) :-)
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scott wrote:
> TBH syntax highlighting is one of the least useful features of an IDE
> for me.
>
> Things I find most useful:
>
> 1) Auto-complete with popup help.
I found this to be possibly the most irritating feature of IDEs. It
*sounds* like it should be useful, but it isn't.
The whole UI slows down while it opens and populates the list of
options. Sometimes it doesn't show up when you want it to. If you're
trying to invoke a method of the current class, no matter what you do it
won't populate the list. (Even once the source is compiled. Even though
you can *see* the damned property pane right next to the code window,
showing all the class properties. It still won't offer to autocomplete
them.) And even when it *does* work, there is apparently no way to say
"please use the currently selected alternative to complete what I'm
typing", other than by using the mouse. If you press enter, it inserts
the selection AND A NEWLINE. This is extremely annoying.
(And then there's the fact that every IDE I've seen refuses to let you
indent your code correctly... but that's nothing to do with
auto-complete as such.)
> 2) The debugger.
That's useful.
> 3) The GUI Form designer.
After the horror of building a GUI the hard way, I always use a GUI
designer if I have a choice. (Like I've said, you don't need an IDE for
that necessarily.)
> 4) The red underlining of compiler errors as you're typing (in MS C# IDE)
That's useful IF IT WORKS CORRECTLY, which it doesn't always do IME.
> 5) Auto compile/link/run with one keypress
I usually leave a CLI window open. To compile, just press the up arrow
and enter. But sure, I'm certainly not *against* such a feature! ;-)
> 6) "Template" projects for a Windows app
What does that do?
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scott wrote:
>> Microsoft VisualStudio.
>
> Even the free version of VS has a GUI for setting up and accessing local
> and remote databases from your code
Even the Java version from 10 years ago?
> It also writes the GUI code based on what you design in
> the Form Designer GUI.
I saw that you can select "Java Applet" or something like that, and it
generates a class with 200 miles of boilerplate that you will never ever
need or want, which you then have to manually delete. Alternatively,
"blank Java project" generates a class file with much less boilerplate
in it to delete. (Mostly just verbose comments.)
I didn't try using the UI painter, so I couldn't say whether they
implemented it for Java, whether it was any good, or whether it writes
code for you.
> It also will create distribution packages for
> you with installers etc automatically.
Yes, I recall there were a whole bunch of options for how to package up
your project when you're done. (This was in the early days of Java. I
believe you could compile it down to a Windows executable, or just a
normal Jar file.)
> I think you need the paid
> version to get all the version control stuff, but I could be wrong
> (never looked into that myself).
I haven't looked either. Presumably you need a 3rd-party VC system
before this will work? (I.e., there isn't VC capability build into VS
itself.)
> This sounds familiar to your argument that 3D Studio Max is rubbish
> because you only figured out how to work 1 feature of it (out of 10000) :-)
Well, it was an old version of Max. But, as far as I could tell, it only
renders triangles. (There's probably a way to move the points around; I
didn't look too hard for it.) The texturing options seemed pretty
extensive though...
As for VS, it was a struggle to figure out how to make it compile Hello
World and run it. You would have expected this to be the most trivial
thing, but no... Given the difficulty of doing this, I didn't exactly
hunt around for the button that embeds SkyNet into your program.
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>> 1) Auto-complete with popup help.
>
> I found this to be possibly the most irritating feature of IDEs. It
> *sounds* like it should be useful, but it isn't.
>
> The whole UI slows down while it opens and populates the list of options.
Not here.
> Sometimes it doesn't show up when you want it to.
Not here, unless you made a typo (it's actually a good indicator to know
you've typed something wrong if the pop-up list doesn't appear).
> If you're trying to invoke a method of the current class, no matter what
> you do it won't populate the list.
Seems to work fine here...
> (Even once the source is compiled.
...even without the source compiled.
> "please use the currently selected alternative to complete what I'm
> typing", other than by using the mouse. If you press enter, it inserts the
> selection AND A NEWLINE. This is extremely annoying.
Not here it doesn't.
BTW this is with VS C# express edition (it's free), your experience with
other IDEs may vary :-)
> After the horror of building a GUI the hard way, I always use a GUI
> designer if I have a choice. (Like I've said, you don't need an IDE for
> that necessarily.)
It's helpful that it's integrated though, apart from the obvious reasons of
not having to load and switch programs and save etc, it means if you for
example rename one of the icons or something it can update the references to
it in all your other code files. Also when you add an event handler the IDE
can automatically auto-insert the method skeleton into your code and
register it to be called for that event, so all you need to type is actually
what you want to be done for that event.
>> 4) The red underlining of compiler errors as you're typing (in MS C# IDE)
>
> That's useful IF IT WORKS CORRECTLY, which it doesn't always do IME.
Which IDE? in VS C# Express it works flawlessly IME.
>> 6) "Template" projects for a Windows app
>
> What does that do?
You can go "File -> New -> Windows App" and it generates all the necessary
code and resource files for a ready-to-compile form application. You then
simply add in whatever extra bits you need. I guess you could do the same
by creating all the files by hand first, and then copying&pasting in
explorer and renaming everything everytime you wanted to start a new
project.
I remembered another one:
7) Code refactoring. Like if a function is getting a bit long, you can
select a block of code and say "extract this to another function". All
parameters and return values will be handled automatically. Or if you type
a function name that doesn't exist yet, you can click and say "generate the
boilerplate code for this function". Or you can go to "Insert -> New Class"
and it will create a new file with the new class template in it. Or rename
a variable and get the option to rename all instances of it in all files.
Sure, each of the above are fairly small things, but in total it makes
programming way faster.
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