From: Curt Sampson <cjs@...>
Date: 2005-11-08T11:57:13+09:00
Subject: Re: Investigating Ruby - key limitations ?

On Tue, 8 Nov 2005, Kev Jackson wrote:

> Programming Ruby with notepad/vi/vim/emacs is perfectly possible.  Instead of 
> intellisense, actually *read* the docs and learn what methods and properties 
> are available.

Actually, I'd find some better interactive support for exploring methods
and properties available on objects to be a big boon in the ruby world.
All the time I find myself getting back an object from a method and
thinking, "what the heck is it, and what can I do with it?" Ruby, with
no type information and poor documentation, and often no easy way to
recreate the situation in irb or whatever without going through a lot of
steps, is quite painful in this way.

Not that I like Intellisense much. In particular, I tend to be a
"top-down" programmer, I write the functions I wish existed, and worry
about actually implementing them later. That gets you into battles with
the IDE which wants your (not-yet-extant) functions to be ones that do
exist, or at least wants to create them before you're sure that you want
to.

Easiest thing to do in these circumstances is just to open up an editor
window in a standard text editor somewhere and type there, until you've
worked out what that bit of code or DSL or whatever really ought to look
like.

But here's an interesting opinion on Intellisense:

     http://charlespetzold.com/etc/DoesVisualStudioRotTheMind.html

cjs
-- 
Curt Sampson        <cjs@cynic.net>         +81 90 7737 2974
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