Re: Is EDE only intended to be used with languages which /require/ a 'compile' step? [was: Re: IDE]

[Alexis <flexibeast@gmail.com>]

Eric Ludlam <eric@siege-engine.com> writes:

> EDE's original intent was for handling compilation of compiled 
> languages.  Since then, it also forms a base for anything that 
> wants to  organize code into a 'project' so that support code 
> can say "what is the  current project" and then "does that 
> project have a language specific  detail I can use".  It doesn't 
> really matter if it compiles or not.

Thank you for clarifying! i would like to suggest that the EDE 
documentation be modified to reflect this.

For example, the opening paragraph of the EDE Info manual says:

    "EDE is the Emacs Development Environment: an Emacs extension 
    that simplifies building and debugging programs in Emacs.  It 
    attempts to emulate a typical IDE (Integrated Development 
    Environment).  EDE can manage or create your makefiles and 
    other building environment duties"

The third sentence could instead say something along the lines of:

    "EDE can help you manage your software projects and any build 
    environments they might have (such as, for example, Makefiles) 
    ..."

Additionally, the "Quick Start" section of the manual could have 
an extra example added, about creating a project in a language 
that doesn't require a distinct compile step, nor a Makefile (for 
example, a Python project).

Modifications such as the preceding might help make it immediately 
clear to potential EDE users that EDE is not solely for people 
programming in C, C++, Objective-C, or compilation-requiring 
languages such as Java, Ada or Haskell.

Ranking the extent of usage of various programming languages is, 
of course, fraught with methodological issues, but not only the 
TIOBE ranking:

http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html

but also the January 2015 Redmonk ranking:

http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2015/01/14/language-rankings-1-15/

and a 2014 IEEE ranking:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/static/interactive-the-top-programming-languages

puts JavaScript, Python, PHP and Ruby amongst the current top 10 
programming languages. i feel that if Emacs is to work towards 
becoming a more general-purpose IDE "out of the box", we should 
avoid giving programmers of such languages the impression that the 
tools provided by Emacs are Not Relevant.


Alexis.