Re: Emacs and Gud

[Sebastian Tennant <sebyte@smolny.plus.com>]

Quoth Chris Gordon-Smith <use.address@my.homepage>:
> [...]
> Thanks for your comments. Regarding IDEs such as Eclipse, I have been using
> KDevelop for several years. I have found it very good, but want to try
> Emacs. Reasons for this include:-
>
> *   I want to take control of the Build / Make process. IDEs like KDevelop
>     and Eclipse tend to do this for you. That is very useful, but I now
>     need to control it myself. (I am using Makefiles to enforce
>     separation of subsystems by using CFLAGS to determine which include
>     files a subsystem has access to.)
>
> *   More generally I want to get closer to the Linux programming
>     environment. Again, an IDE tends to shield one from this
>
> *   I want to understand why Emacs has such a legendary reputation!

Because it's simply the most universally useful program ever written.

> So far I have been pleasantly surprised by Emacs. One thing I like is the
> ability to switch easily between buffers.

Have you discovered iswitchb-mode yet?  You won't look back.

> KDevelop opens up all of the files for a project, which makes
> switching more difficult since so many files are open. In practice you
> have to go via the code browser each time.
>
> I see a code browser as essential, and would not consider using Emacs
> without something like ECB. Now that I also have GDB working (although with
> the minor drawback that if I want its full functionality I have to
> deactivate ECB), I have a good development environment based on Emacs.

Congratulations!

> Its taking a while to get used to the editing style, but there are a number
> of aspects I like. I seem to be able to get more on a screen, and I like
> the fact that everything is configurable.

Yup... that's Emacs for you.

> For example, I have configured Emacs to disregard mouse wheel clicks
> within 0.5 seconds of scrolling. This means that I don't accidentally
> paste (yank) text into a file while scrolling. This is very annoying
> in KDevelop.
>
> Perhaps I will go back to KDevelop one day, 

Na.... not once you've glimpsed the beauty of the unerlying simplicity
(and power) of Emacs :-)

> or perhaps not. For the moment I am enjoying using Emacs and getting
> to know the powerful features that it has.

Keep going.  Your investment _will_ mature in the most pleasing way
imaginable.

> I have also tried Eclipse / CDE. It looks good, but as mentioned above, I
> want to get away (at least for a while) from an environment that tends to
> shield one from the underlying operating system and programming
> environment. I want to get 'close to the bare metal'.
>
> One other thing about Emacs; by comparison with KDevelop and Eclipse its
> more responsive.

I'm not surprised to hear that.  I only ever use a mouse for browsing,
so I run emacs22-nox in gnome-terminal.  The emacs22-nox executable file
is just 4.9 Mb and the contents of /usr/share/emacs and
/usr/share/emacs22 combined is just 75.4 Mb, so we're talking ~80 Mb all
in.  I wonder how that compares with Eclipse and friends?

> One thing with Emacs I want to look at is syntax highlighting. Its
> working, but I haven't yet figured out how to control all of the
> options.

No one seems to have said it so I will... on behalf of the list, thanks
for what sounds to me like the beginnings of a ringing endorsement of
Emacs-as-IDE

Sebastian