Comments on: Bruce Eckel doesn’t get IDEs?

By: AndrewR

AndrewR — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 05:04:31 +0000

A Good IDE keeps your head out of the API docs and keeps it on your code, where it belongs. It does this by letting you look up method names, parameters etc without making you open a browser/book.

Eckel’s point is that because Python has less syntax to remember, the benefit you get from using an IDE isn’t as great (and may be small enough that you might as well not bother).

I’m not sure I agree. Any reasonably sized Python app is going to require the use of some 3rd-party API that you won’t be able to remember all the class names for.

By: Nicola Piccinini

Nicola Piccinini — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 12:04:47 +0000

I’m happy to be an “IDEA developer”,
Brian McCallister used this term in http://kasparov.skife.org/blog/2005/11/11/#good-enough

By: Daniel Berger

Daniel Berger — Sat, 18 Feb 2006 00:55:05 +0000

“In one particular case, we wanted to change all calls of form StringBufferExpr.append(StringBufferExpr) to StringBufferExpr.append(StringBufferExpr.toString()), where the StringBufferExpr are expressions returning StringBuffer.”

A scenario like this just isn’t going to happen normally in say, Ruby, because of the dynamic nature of the language. A global sub/replace would work just fine in the scenario you present, afaict.

I should ask Rich Kilmer his thoughts, though. I think he has the unofficial ‘record’ for largest Ruby project that I can remember.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 17:18:27 +0000

In my opinion there is no comparison between an AST aware IDE and plain text text editor.

In one particular case, we wanted to change all calls of form StringBufferExpr.append(StringBufferExpr) to StringBufferExpr.append(StringBufferExpr.toString()), where the StringBufferExpr are expressions returning StringBuffer. IDEA has this feature called Structural find and replace. We managed to do this in less than 15 mins (500K lines of code). It made over 600 such replacements.

I can’t imagine a plain editor or EMacs ever doing that.

By: Rob Sanheim

Rob Sanheim — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 02:09:50 +0000

I think that folks who haven’t really used a refactoring browser just can’t understand how it changes the way you code. Your design becomes so much more malleable and fluid, you can very easily try out different approaches just to see how it works. A good text editor that can find/replace across files just does not compare to all the things that IDEA or Eclipse (or Smalltalk!) give you with their refactorings.

By: Bill de hOra

Bill de hOra — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 01:21:08 +0000

“I still don’t get the “refactoring” bit that Java types go on and on about. ”

A refactoring Java IDE call find all callers. That’s the main thing. Reflection heavy code being the exception. Essentially refactoring java code is a big deal day-to-day and good IDEs make it natural to do. Also if you are using IDEA (in particular), it knows the semantics of the java language, ie it has a parse tree representation of your java packages as opposed to a clump of text files. All said as a heavy Python and Java user.

“I think that Emacs *is* an IDE :)”

I agree. But for *Java* work, something like IDEA or Eclipse bets Emacs hands down. For heavy Java editing, IDEA is simply a better Emacs – lots of key-fu, but combined with parse tree awareness of the language. For example, nxml-mode+schemas is for XML roughly what IDEA 1.0 was for Java.

By: Dion

Dion — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 21:17:33 +0000

Hi Daniel,

I think that Emacs *is* an IDE :)

It is the most flexible one around.

The project management is key. In an IDE I don’t have to File – Open … hunt for file.

Rather I can hit a key sequence and type “MCT” to load “MyCoolThing” class.

By: Daniel Berger

Daniel Berger — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 21:12:35 +0000

I’m pretty sure Obie is coming from a Java background, so I wouldn’t take his opinion on IDE’s as representative of the dynamic language community as a whole. I still don’t get the “refactoring” bit that Java types go on and on about. With Ruby I just use sub/replace.

What I personally use IDE’s for (mainly Eclipse) is:

1) Project management – helps me keep my files organized.
2) Version control – I can never remember the command line options
3) Debugging – Although I rarely need it, sometimes there’s no substitute for a GUI debugger.

Sometimes I’ll use the RDT editor (I prefer its code folding to gvim) or the test suite tools (right-click, run test suite), but for most of my *editing* needs, I use gvim.

However, some people can get by without an IDE just fine. That, or they’ve effectively configured their emacs client into a defacto IDE. :-P