A few comments on the archives

[Peter A. Friend]

On Fri, 14 May 1999 Hans-Dieter.Dreier@materna.de wrote:

> >can write code so much faster in vi, the GUI editor becomes
> >frustrating.
> 
> Interesting. In what respect are GUI text editors slower to use than vi?

I think this is only the case when you have been using vi for a while
and are used to all of its features. A lot of GUI editors don't have
support for regex search and replace. Even fewer allow me to restrict
that replace to a range of lines without taking my fingers off of the
keys. If I am going to have a lot of similar lines of code, but just
part of an argument name is different, I can copy and paste the exact
number of lines I need with only 4 keystrokes. Then there all of the
options for editing single words, an entire line, etc. I have just
gotten to the point where it takes me longer to lift my hand, move the
mouse, and select a menu item than it takes to just type in a short
command. Again though, most people would disagree with me vehemently on
this. Shame on me for bringing up a religious issue (editors). :-)

> > I also like the ability to pipe my code through indent,
> >lint, etc.
> 
> The intention is that you wouldn't need indent, lint, etc. anymore,
> because e.g. "indentation" already would be done automatically as you enter the text.

Good point. Any good code editor would have this. Which reminds me of a
Windows program called UltraEdit (I think that's it). A buddy showed it
to me and I was amazed. I believe it has a "plug in"type of facility
which allows you to add support for different languages.

> >I should also admit that I have a dislike of GUIs because I have had to
> >write a number of the things recently. :P
> 
> You're referring to writing GUI applications, not to GUI IDE's, if I
> understand right. Whereas creating a GUI might be involve a lot of
> work, actually using the product *should* save work (at least that was
> the reasons why GUI were developed in the first place).

Yes, I was referring to applications, not IDE's. I was thinking more of
our development of the IDE at that moment. I have started using Java a
lot because trying to write a multiplatform GUI was going to make me an
alcoholic. Ever try to write an X app? Yuck.

I agree that a GUI is pretty much pointless if it isn't designed well.

> Anyhow, if you got an idea of how it should be, let's discuss it.

I'll have to think about that for a while. You have actually seen a
good IDE, I haven't yet.

I should also point out that I have never worked on a really HUGE
software project like the kind tackled at MS. Perhaps in a project with
multiple coders and numerous files an IDE would be a lifesaver. I just
don't know.

My recent fascination with CWEB makes me ask if we want to build in
support for "literate programming" with Ultra. Not sure if this has
been brought up yet. A more recent example of this idea is Java's
javadoc spec.

Cheers,

Peter


---
Software Engineer
EarthLink Network