Re: Dumbed-down

ThosRTanner wrote:
 > James Kanze wrote:
 >> ThosRTanner wrote:

 >> > Mind you C++ with an IDE is also a much better language than
 >> > C++ with an editor.

 >> And what is C++ with an IDE other than C++ with a particular
 >> editor imposed on you? If that editor happens to be better than
 >> the one you would otherwise use, it's an improvement. If not,
 >> it's anything but an improvement.

 > My experience with IDEs is that they provide
 > a) "Integrated" compilation which takes you to the point of an error o=
n
 > compilation

That's a feature of the editor. All of the editors I'm aware of
have it.

 > b) Code completion so that
 > i) when you are using an object of a particular class, you can select
 > an available method or member of the class

That's also a feature of the editor. All of the editors I'm
aware of have an automatic completion feature. On the other
hand, they generally don't understand C++ grammar and scoping
rules, so the completion set is all visible symbols, and not
just the symbols which would be legal in a C++ program at this
point.

I'm still up in the air with regards to the advantages of this.
It's certainly a plus that, having typed std::v, completion
finds vector, and nothing else. For user defined symbols, on
the other hand, it's less clear; it's certainly not rare for me
to conceptually add a member variable to a class because I need
it, and to start using it in the functions, before I've actually
edited the class definition to include it.

 > ii) syntax validation (or syntax deduction) when typing the code.

Again, most editors have this to some degree, e.g. matching
braces, automatic indentation, etc. Does syntax validation
beyond this point help that much? (It could, of course. When
you define a local variable which is in fact a function
declaration, for example, a really C++ aware editor could point
this out, and request confirmation. In the end, however, it's
not a question of IDE or not; it's a question of how much C++
the editor knows.)

 > c) Easier source modification when debugging

I'll admit that I don't get this one. How does the editor play
a role here? You have a log file and a post-mortem (core dump
or whatever), which you analyse with various tools. Does the
IDE understand your log file format, to be able to position you
directly at the line which produced the log? (The best I've
seen in non-IDE editors is that you position the cursor on the
filename in one window, enter a command, and a second window
opens on that file. Although it should be possible to create a
command script in vim which would parse something like
[abc.cc:123] to open a new frame at line 123 of file abc.cc.)

 > I realise that some editors and debuggers tend towards the
 > functionality of IDEs, but generally IDE's do it better. And
 > most IDEs can have their editing behaviour customised.

It's probably true that most special purpose IDE editors
understand more C++ than general purpose editors line vim or
emacs. On the other hand, they seem to be missing a number of
other features, many of which are, at least for me, more
important. (And of course, not a few IDE's use an external
editor.)

But that's what I said to begin with: the choice is the editor.
If the IDE provides a better editor, it is a win. If it
doesn't, it isn't (and I can't be bothered with the Unix IDE's
which use vim or emacs as their editor---I don't see any
advantage in them compared to using vim or emacs directly).

 > I am an incredibly bad typist, so anything that can reduce my
 > level of mistakes is all to the good

Any thing that can reduce the number of typing errors is all to
the good. Unless you're such a good typist that you never make
mistakes. And I don't think that anyone is that good.

--
James Kanze kanze.james@neuf.fr
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