From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Alan Mackenzie Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: What IDE features do we need? [Was: Please stop proposing changes in defaults!] Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:52:16 +0000 Message-ID: <20080422115216.GA2609@muc.de> References: <87ve2ac2eo.fsf@jurta.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1208864363 26534 80.91.229.12 (22 Apr 2008 11:39:23 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:39:23 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Juri Linkov , Richard Stallman Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Apr 22 13:39:47 2008 connect(): Connection refused Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1JoGqe-00020y-VH for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 22 Apr 2008 13:39:45 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1JoGpz-0002NV-CB for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 22 Apr 2008 07:39:03 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1JoGlT-0000zp-ET for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 22 Apr 2008 07:34:23 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1JoGlQ-0000yM-0U for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 22 Apr 2008 07:34:20 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1JoGlO-0000xy-1T for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 22 Apr 2008 07:34:18 -0400 Original-Received: from colin.muc.de ([193.149.48.1] helo=mail.muc.de) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1JoGlN-0007bp-At for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 22 Apr 2008 07:34:17 -0400 Original-Received: (qmail 23675 invoked by uid 3782); 22 Apr 2008 11:34:15 -0000 Original-Received: from acm.muc.de (p57AF6EEA.dip.t-dialin.net [87.175.110.234]) by colin2.muc.de (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Tue, 22 Apr 2008 13:34:12 +0200 Original-Received: (qmail 3040 invoked by uid 1000); 22 Apr 2008 11:52:16 -0000 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <87ve2ac2eo.fsf@jurta.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.9i X-Delivery-Agent: TMDA/1.1.5 (Fettercairn) X-Primary-Address: acm@muc.de X-detected-kernel: by monty-python.gnu.org: FreeBSD 4.6-4.9 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:95760 Archived-At: Hi, Juri and Richard! On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 12:40:31AM +0300, Juri Linkov wrote: [ Richard Stallman:] > > These proposals lead to big discussions and do not really advance > > Emacs. Please stop proposing such changes, and work instead > > on implementing new capabilities. [ .... ] > This is important to make Emacs attractive to more programmers. > I was shocked today when I observed as an unskilled novice programmer > wrote a small library at high speed using an IDE. I'm usually very fast > at using a large set of Emacs commands, but could hardly achieve this > performance because Emacs lacks many useful IDE features that make > programmers more productive. My opinion is that things like how to mark regions are not _that_ important in attracting new users. At least, not the sort of users that would be staying with Emacs anyway. I don't think it's that big a deal for newbies whether they use +arrows or C- to create a region. As long as it works well, of course. What is important is _features_. About 3 years ago, I was using hi-lock-mode to highlight some anomalies in a log file (found by a regexp). My boss (an ex-programmer) saw it, asked me what I was doing, and within an hour had Emacs on his PC and was using hi-lock-mode to look at other log files. However, the lack of certain features is critical. Juri, what were the features of that IDE that made the "unskilled novice" so productive? Recently, a colleague sitting next to me was using a proprietary editor, which was basically a code-browser with relatively basic editing stuck on. The codebase, of proprietary quality, was many thousands of C files, scattered over a directory "structure" of many hundreds of directories. She had her editor set up so that a second window instantly displayed the definition of the symbol at point in the main window. I don't think Emacs has anything to match this; ECB, possibly? I tried experimenting with ECB once, but it was just to difficult to get it installed and working. (OK, maybe I wasn't in a persevering mood at the time). By contrast, using etags, it could easily take me over a minute to locate a definition; firstly, M-. took about 4 seconds (on a 2.8 GHz processor), because the TAGS file was so big. Very often, I'd have to do C-u M-. many times to actually locate the definition. Etags needs improving. For example, by sorting the TAGS file by symbol name. And having a command which would display all matching tags in a *Completions* buffer. Improving etags this way would be more of a stop-gap than a solution. It just isn't powerful enough for that sort of proprietary environment. > Juri Linkov -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).