From: Brett Williams <brett_williams@...>
Date: 2004-08-31T01:30:27+09:00
Subject: Re: [ANN] aeditor 1.7

T. Onoma wrote:
> On Wednesday 25 August 2004 02:29 pm, Lothar Scholz wrote:
>
>>I think that there aren't so many different ways to edit a text. The
>>editor widget is one of the smallest part of an IDE.
> 
> 
> Good point.

But it's such an important part.  It's the reason I've yet to use any 
IDE for any length of time.  I know I'm not alone.

This, BTW, is just my two cents.  I have nothing but respect for all of 
the IDE and editor projects.  I just don't agree that the editor is "one 
of the smallest parts" of an IDE.

I realize I may not be typical, but on any given day I will probably 
edit files of all of these types:

ruby
verilog
c++
tcl
text
xml
bash
makefiles

Less frequently, I can add perl, scheme, DEF, LEF, html, C, and Python.

I don't want to change editors for all of these tasks.  So my editor 
needs to understand all of them.  The editor also needs to be powerful
(I can't imagine editing XML with nothing but CUA type operations, for 
example).

A powerful editor that understands all of these (and others) rarely 
(never?  opinion only I guess) is integrated well into an IDE.  It 
becomes a tradeoff.

So far I'm still waiting for the non-editor parts of an IDE to give me 
enough reason to outweigh the deficiencies of editors in IDEs.  This can 
come about in two ways:  the editors improve, or the IDE is just so cool 
that I can live with the frustration while editing.

Someday it will happen--but the editor portion is probably the most 
important portion for me in this decision.

Again, this is just my opinion--I certainly have never written anything 
as cool as an IDE or an editor!