From: Jim Weirich Date: 2002-08-17T10:49:20+09:00 Subject: Re: IDE vs. editor >>>>> "Holden" == Holden Glova writes: Holden> I have always watched people comare using IDE's over Holden> straight text editing and they end up only ever comparing Holden> the editing ability of IDEs. I guess that is because that Holden> is about as much as the two have in common. What I think Holden> people avoid discussing is how much benefit a decent IDE Holden> can provide. Wow ... you are entering territory where angels fear to tread ... But I'll jump right in :-) For background ... I am a "give me Emacs or give me death" type of developer, who despite all expectations, started using Eclipse recently (for Java code). So perhaps I have some perspective (more likely I just have a warped viewpoint). Holden> I'm talking about things like: Holden> built in debugger Holden> built in unit testing which lets you jump to the failed line when a test Holden> fails Holden> built in source control Holden> built in refactorings - even simple things like rename method and having Holden> that propagated throughout your code base is a _huge_ help IMHO. Ummmm ... Emacs can do all of those things (except refactoring, and few IDEs are doing refactorings yet ... I expect that will change in the future). Holden> I find through using some sort of class browser it also Holden> helps me keep a better view of the overall object model Holden> because navigating within hierarchies is just easier Holden> (assuming you do one class per file). Agreed. Emacs does have a class browser (OOBrowser), but I have never found it to be that useful. On the other hand, I love the JavaBrowse view in Eclipse. Holden> Sure I love the editing power of ViM, but I find that the Holden> productivity I can get out of using a decent IDE like Holden> eclipse or IDEA outweighs the power of the editor. Now if Holden> someone could just write ViM bindings for eclipse I'd be Holden> pretty happy :) Even with Eclipse, there are times when I need the power of the command line. For many things, it is still faster than the IDE version. But there are things I would rather do in the IDE. Renaming classes, or even moving classes from one package to another is a breeze in Eclipse. The "organize imports" feature is slightly better than what I use in Emacs. Holden> [...] I'm curious how people that have used both IDEs and Holden> straight text editors decided on one or the other. What Holden> where the show stoppers? Currently I'm living in both worlds and feel little need to switch. For straight code writing, emacs (for me) provides a smooth platform writing code with little that gets in the way. Eclipse is great for Java-specific power edits and refactoring. Currently my source code lives on the Unix development box at work and I run emacs on the unix box. I also keep Eclipse open on my PC and can jump between the two environments with a keystroke. I've rambled on enough about Java specific things. On to Ruby topics ... Currently the Ruby plug-in for eclipse provides the bare minimum editing functionality. I haven't explored it fully, but it is not up to speed with the Java offering. To make Ruby development in eclipse more attractive, I believe you need (in rough order of priority) ... o Class Browser o Code formatter/indenter o Refactorings I haven't tried any of the pure Ruby IDEs yet. I've only used Eclipse because of the Java support. I would really like to see a pure Ruby IDE really take off, but in addition, good support for Ruby in Eclipse will help penetrate the Java-shops where Eclipse is already in use. Just my few cents with a lot of ramblings. -- -- Jim Weirich jweirich@one.net http://w3.one.net/~jweirich --------------------------------------------------------------------- "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." -- Donald Knuth (in a memo to Peter van Emde Boas)