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Programming IDE's . . .


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Okay. Someone explain this to me. I'm more or less ranting here, so I don't expect any form of conclusion or anything.

How in the world do so many 'needed' features slip past the eyes of IDE developers, specifically, Microsoft.

Visual Studio 2003 is my prime example. Do they not have people that USE these products that notice the need for these features?

Brace Matching, variable renaming, syntax coloring, TEMPLATE EDITING?

Seriously. Does Microsoft really think everyone wants to use their default templates? Borland is even worse (with the templates). You CANNOT even make a BLANK C# FILE in C#Builder.

Brace matching. Oh come on. How can ANYONE excuse this? Do their developers just ....not think or something?

Every single plausibly useable IDE I have EVER seen except for Visual Studio has implemented brace matching ( Shortcut keys? Give me a break . . . That's not a feature, that's a chore. No one wants to have to hit a key everytime they want to see a brace. That's retarded ).

Variable renaming. Honestly it's another feature I cannot comprehend how it got overlooked several years ago in old Visual Studio with C++ and Visual Basic. Search and Replace ...is a joke. Developers should't have to use podunk workarounds for obvious solutions.

Auto-generated code. Surely others of you have qualms with this. I have nothing against Visual Studio writing some code ... but not when it always OVERWRITES my own code! How freaking hard could it have been to spend the extra 15 minutes with the development team to say "Hey, this feature sucks, let's re-think it so we don't royally **** our end-users!".

And this one really ticks me off. Rather than providing us information about code, we're just linked to the MSDN library so we can sort through a slow-as-Christmas loading database of documentation that never really takes us to where we want to go!

So many of these features are FINALLY being implemented in Visual Studio 2005, yet when you find wonderful new ideas they just say 'We'll 'consider' it for the next release'. What does that mean? Visual Studio 2007 or 2008? 'Consider'? I understand that developers alone cannot yay or neigh a feature right off the bat. A LOT has to go into adding any feature ...but can they not SEE the need for easier development environments? Artists get better Photo tools, 3-D Modelers get more advanced modeling tools, writers get better word processors ...why do programmers have to get jipped with cruddy IDEs?

Is anyone besides me irritated with the current state of available development environments? Even competition can barely get its act together. I'm speaking mostly from a C# standpoint ,but Visual Basic and C++ IDEs are pathetic too. . . and don't even let me approach Java. A good language ruined by lack of a GOOD IDE!

Anyone else have an opinion on this? I Know I've only listed about 4 features here, but stating my whole list would take a while, and this is more of a rant than a logical discussion. . . . Feedback is welcome!

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IDE?. Sure anjuta has some nice feature. So does eclipse.

But weird enough most of the really good coders use vim

or emacs.

Don't ask me why. But I guess their feature rich self-defined keys and macro options are just the selling point. Maybe it's also because they are free.

I have to admit, as beginner one gets hooked up on IDEs way faster than on: here take notepad and copile from command line.

At the most UNIs (at least those I know) they use Emacs mostly thoughout the java CS lessons.

kindest regards,

Moritz "neofeed" Angermann

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I suppose. Perhaps the command line is the best tool ... perhaps I am just a little too picky. I just believe that if so much is so focused on development , then the tools we're given should be a little more than sub-par.

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Do they not have people that USE these products that notice the need for these features?

There might be a few, but the MS devs I've talked to use VIM or EMACS.

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All an ide does is make it easier(I speak loosely) to make a project(makefile).

I've said it before and I feel the need to say it again: I love using PsPad.

I have heard great things about vim but I am afraid of taking a year or so to get used to it. It'd be nice if there was like a book on it or something.

and yes, d.thornton even for C#.

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IMO it makes sense using notepad and emacs...etc while learning to code... but one has to admit that the IDEs are a big time saver once you move onto real world coding and big projects.. one thing though.. know the language inside out .. b4 movin onto IDEs so you can change the auto generated code according to your needs... and i agree with problems in some IDEs netbeans for instance doesnt allow you to chnge auto gen code.. :crazy: .. and i recently have strarted using VS.NET and was irritated by no auto brace closing.. which any other editor offers.. oh well.. if u love to code.. u find a way.. or learnt to live .. :)

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I'm excited about VS 2005. It looks to be very useful. Refactoring is a wonderful addition to any IDE ...

Right now, I need to use ReSharper to even make VS2003 useable ...

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Features about VS.net 2005:

Seriously. Does Microsoft really think everyone wants to use their default templates? Borland is even worse (with the templates). You CANNOT even make a BLANK C# FILE in C#Builder.

Templates are stored in a folder for easy editing, deleting, and adding.

Brace matching. Oh come on. How can ANYONE excuse this? Do their developers just ....not think or something?

Every single plausibly useable IDE I have EVER seen except for Visual Studio has implemented brace matching ( Shortcut keys? Give me a break . . . That's not a feature, that's a chore. No one wants to have to hit a key everytime they want to see a brace. That's retarded ).

Matches are highlighted. Also, there is an EXTENSIVE customization section reguarding everything from braces to parantethes. Just off the top of my head, you can customize braces to have a space after a method name, class name, how far to tab over, tab over the end brace, keep the end brace on the last line etc... You should be able to get it how you like it.

Variable renaming. Honestly it's another feature I cannot comprehend how it got overlooked several years ago in old Visual Studio with C++ and Visual Basic. Search and Replace ...is a joke. Developers should't have to use podunk workarounds for obvious solutions.

Refactoring. Kicks ass. :D
Auto-generated code. Surely others of you have qualms with this. I have nothing against Visual Studio writing some code ... but not when it always OVERWRITES my own code! How freaking hard could it have been to spend the extra 15 minutes with the development team to say "Hey, this feature sucks, let's re-think it so we don't royally **** our end-users!".

I've just been wrestling with this. This is one of VS.net 2003's features that I HATE. Luckily, there are so many customizations (you can even customize down to each individual server control or html control) that it won't happen again.

And this one really ticks me off. Rather than providing us information about code, we're just linked to the MSDN library so we can sort through a slow-as-Christmas loading database of documentation that never really takes us to where we want to go!

What else do you want? IntelliSense shows a summary, as well as descriptions for each param. You can use MSDN exclusively online, which would speed up loading.

Give Visual C# 2005 Express a try. It owns.

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I go to a Uni and everyone in CS is a linux zealot. It's a war between emacs and vim. No-one gives a **** about fancy IDE's and all their features. Sure, it makes coding easier, but for some people (like me), those features can get in the way. One example is the auto-tabbing in Borland's Java IDE. It's annoying. Anywho, it's a matter of opinion and that's mine.

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I learned how to program using Vi/Vim. My first experience at using a real IDE was when I started programming on windows with Visual C++ 6.0. You may be ranting about Visual C++ now, but when I first used it I was blown away at how easy it made coding. The debugger alone was the holy grail of coding as far as I was concerned :) I never had to view another core dump again...

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I have tried Visual C# 2005 Express.

It's good, but it's still (extremeley) buggy. It just dissapoints me that we have to wait until 2005 to get a decent IDE.

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