Favorite IDE?

[whiteflags]

So, what is the "real work" of a programmer... Producing code... right?
I don't care to mess with all the manual tools and their added difficulty.
I also don't want to spend my time doing recompiles over typos that syntax highlighting will show me on the fly.
I also don't want to make some gargantuan effort about brace matching when the IDE can do it for me.

I don't want to thnk about a messy, drawn out process...
I want to think about the behaviours I'm leveraging and the best way to accomplish my goals.

A good IDE's lets me do that...

Just to play devil's advocate, about every text editor on the planet will do most of those. Eclipse has been mentioned and I don't think it fails to do anything you mention at all. The one place the tool chains truly get messy is the long, drawn out process you alleged to in your reply. People use makefiles just like an IDE does though. Personally I never stuck with the approach to make my own, but that's what's efficient.

My holy grail is the debugger in an IDE. I can't be arsed to invoke gdb myself, although I definitely know how.

GDB is pretty cool, btw, but I am kinda disappointed with all the pointer values I end up looking at. MSVC dereferences those, so it means fewer watches I have to set.

[rogster001]

I use the mouse in a very limited way even on the gui, i am not into pushing a pointer all around the screen when a few keystrokes can do the job, but i do like the view you get of all your work and ability to map and access tools in a common interface, project window view in a way you dont get otherwise, and I have to log onto damn modem and vpn sessions on client servers in Korn or Bash Shell to accomplish half my tasks, there is plenty of auto completion of course, its still a pain in beehind though and not worried about how shiny interface is, just so long as i get a decent view of the workspace, turbo c was fine for me on that count.

[CommonTater]

Just to play devil's advocate, about every text editor on the planet will do most of those.

Well, except for creating a "one click" build environment, that frees me from messing with complex toolchains, yes I'd agree...
About the only editors that don't do syntax and brace matching these days are Notepad and it's silly cousins...

I will also agree that the debugger is a definate advantage, although I personally don't use it that much.
I've got to be pretty far down the "WTF is going on" road before I go there.

[MK27]

Not at all... I understand it perfectly.

You are convinced that hard work is better work ... and most often it isn't.

No, WRT to the car it's because I pay more attention that way, and enjoy it more (altho driving in general is not something I particularly enjoy).

But that is admittedly not a good analogy anyway, except in the sense that when I drive automatic, I don't find it significantly easier. Using a shift and clutch comes very "automatically" to me, I don't have to think about it much. The exception would be tractors and some old trucks, where the stick is cumbersome, or some clutches.

WRT to the "integrated compiler" concept, as I've said repeatedly, it's because I don't find the command line hard work but:

my hunch is the windows terminal and shell are both such decrepit pieces of tish that in fact, your only choice is point and click -- ie, it's you that does not understand the alternative, not me

Your experience using a shell is negative. Mine isn't. Of course, it did take some time to get to the comfort level I have now, which is probably very worthwhile for some of the work I do (on remote linux servers).

[CommonTater]

I use the mouse in a very limited way even on the gui, i am not into pushing a pointer all around the screen when a few keystrokes can do the job, but i do like the view you get of all your work and ability to map and access tools in a common interface, project window view in a way you dont get otherwise, and I have to log onto damn modem and vpn sessions on client servers in Korn or Bash Shell to accomplish half my tasks, there is plenty of auto completion of course, its still a pain in beehind though and not worried about how shiny interface is, just so long as i get a decent view of the workspace, turbo c was fine for me on that count.

Check this out... POIDE and Code::Blocks

That's some serious convenience going on there...

[rogster001]

Not sure i follow you there tater mate, i do use Code blocks its smashing super great, I said earlier, I just meant turbo C as in despite no shiny shiny goinng on it still offered basic 'convenience'... :->

[Elkvis]

the old saying "work smarter not harder" applies here, methinks. obviously I'm not going to convince the hardcore command-line-compiler/text-editor users, but many of us find that we are more productive when we can type a few letters of a long function or type name, and have it pop up a list of suggestions. I don't understand why you wouldn't want that. of course this doesn't stop anyone from going to the command prompt to run the compiler. I just don't understand why anyone would want to give up productivity and convenience. if someone is employed as a software developer/computer programmer, and they're not self-employed, I can imagine that their employer would prefer that they use something that makes them more productive, regardless of their preference.

[MK27]

a decent view of the workspace

Not to keep bashing windows, but I again think some of this stuff is a consequence of the OS. Eg, multiple virtual desktops are not native on windows. There are third party things to do it, but the ones I've tried have been very primitive compared to what I have on linux.

Going back and forth to a taskbar,* cycling through windows, etc, is all slower and more awkward than just switching desktops. I'd rather have 4 separate applications running on 4 separate desktops than cram them all into one window.

But to each their own...

* yeah, I find taskbars irritating and ridiculous too. Apple really brought that silliness to new heights.

[CommonTater]

Not sure i follow you there tater mate, i do use Code blocks its smashing super great, I said earlier, I just meant turbo C as in despite no shiny shiny goinng on it still offered basic 'convenience'... :->

Oh... okay... I've used Turbo C as well and frankly found it's IDE to be a pain in the arse to use... of course Turbo C got dropped like a hot potato when I realized it was 16 bits.

Same IDE they used to supply with Turbo Pascal and I just couldn't wait to get it hooked up in TextPad so I could do some real programming.

Then came the Delphi IDE which lasted about 40 seconds with me... I spent the next week and a half prying the compiler and RTL out from under Delphi's load of crap and getting it conencted into (I think it was) ConText which at the time had a nice Pascal highlighter.

Then I found Pelles and well... still there.

[MK27]

many of us find that we are more productive when we can type a few letters of a long function or type name, and have it pop up a list of suggestions.

That's not limited to IDE's. There are various way to do it in vim and I presume other code oriented editors.

So it seems to me that the issue is really that some of the IDE die-hards simply haven't used a decent editor much, and have some mis-conceptions about it.

Vim is a pretty unique piece of software tho, I don't think there is anything else even remotely like it, so maybe it deserves it's own kind of category.

[Elkvis]

So it seems to me that the issue is really that some of the IDE die-hards simply haven't used a decent editor much, and have some mis-conceptions about it.

you're probably right about this. I used to be an editor/command-line kind of guy, and in some cases, I still am. I haven't used VIM, so I can't speak to that, but a lot of the text editors I've used don't do any syntax highlighting or autocomplete of any kind, so I guess it's also hard for me to judge. what I do know, however, is that an IDE provides all of the features I like when writing code. I'm absolutely not saying that some other type of tool wouldn't, but rather that I prefer an IDE, and for many of the same reasons, so do many others.

[Elysia]

I honestly believe in large measure the appeal of a lot of GUI stuff has nothing to do with convenience. It's because people like glitzy interfaces. I can understand for people who simply don't use a computer to do work much, and hence don't want to learn or remember commands or keystrokes. But I do this all the time. To me it's about as hard as speaking English.

You are wrong.
It's all about your mindset. I find it easier to remember where things are visually than to remember command lines.
Yes, I do prefer "glitzy interfaces" before ugly interfaces, and I'm sure many would agree, but the point is that because it is visual, it's a lot easier for some to work with.
The reverse is obviously also obviously true.

Productivity all boils down to what one is used to doing and how one's mindset works. CLI works for some. IDEs work for some. There is no best.
It is also true that a "mindset" isn't static. You may be good at what you do now (eg using a crank and socket), but it doesn't mean you cannot learn to be more productive with something else (eg using an air wrench).
It's also about the time it takes to learn and get used to that.

BTW, I find gdb worth puking over. CLI debuggers are little better than no debugger at all in my opinion.

[MK27]

Productivity all boils down to what one is used to doing and how one's mindset works.

Yeah. "Individuality" has some more or less irreducible aspects. Discussion is productive tho. I am going to give eclipse a chance now, so I at least won't feel like I'm making a religion of anything.

But windows, which I use regularly, really and truly, I think went down the wrong path, as least WRT to what I like to do on a computer. OSX, even worse. If I were an artist of some sort -- musician, photographer -- I'd probably feel differently.

One of my big qualms about programming is that it is all I really do with a computer (that, and blab away on forums ). If I weren't into programming, I'd probably barely use the thing. So my perspective on software is sort of screwed up: except for the tools I use, I really find it boring. Like my friends will get all excited about some app and I just sit there thinking: I'd rather read a book. :/

BTW, I find gdb worth puking over. CLI debuggers are little better than no debugger at all in my opinion.

Maybe that is because of mindset again? I don't go to the debugger that often. Say a few times an hour at most, and only for a few minutes at a time. It's always because of a specific problem that I want a clue to solving. I get my clue and then I exit.

An advantage to CLI tools like gdb and valgrind would be that you can scroll back and check the result of previous runs (if you have enough scrollback in the terminal emulator).

Gdb does have some more elaborate front-ends, btw, but they are not pretty either. The full on graphical one I use very seldom. I think a reason for that is currently, I don't do teamwork in C or C++, so I rarely have to detangle someone else's code, or worse, someone else's buggy code. If that were the case I could see more of a need for visually tracking a lot of different information; the stuff I do collaborate on generally doesn't have much of a conventional debugger option, so I'm habituated to other forms of sleuthing.

[Elysia]

Maybe that is because of mindset again?

Definitely. My mind is just suited for graphical things, hence command line stuff is usually things I don't enjoy.

[MK27]

Definitely. My mind is just suited for graphical things, hence command line stuff is usually things I don't enjoy.

I do find it easier to remember a word and the meaning of a word than a symbol. Of course, GUI menus are usually more word than symbol, but what I find slow about that is the mouse. I've tried rollerballs, etc, doesn't help. Worst of all are Synaptic touchpads, which I think are a very nice, refined piece of technology in context, but no one prefers it on a desktop AFAIK (maybe: gesture fetishists?). No matter how much I tweak the settings, the touchpad is a drag.

A touchscreen would be good, except then my hands would be even further from the keyboard, so and putting a keyboard on the touchscreen is no good for serious work. If instead, someone built a normal keyboard with a touchscreen built into it above the F-keys, so you had a bar with all the currently visible clickable icons on it (you'd still use the mouse for cursor movement, etc) -- I'd place an order today. But from what I know of GUI programming, that would require fundamental changes to the underlying interface...

Some kind of wii like finger thimble, made of thin fabric, would be good. A glove that activates when your hand is a few centimeters off the keys.

I'd go for the Matthew Nagle device if they could make it external

Matt Nagle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I can't put it into words. It's just—I use my brain. I just thought it. I said, "Cursor go up to the top right." And it did