Re: Learning C++
On Jan 7, 1:56 am, "Balog Pal" <p...@lib.hu> wrote:
"James Kanze" <james.ka...@gmail.com>
There is a middle road between everything graphic and in menus,
and having to write every dependency yourself, or even write
some complicated code in make to generate them automatically.
Sure. Just like many people wrote here -- make & co. is used
to have "all the power" and to suffice the "I f...ing rule"
approach. While IDEs are built around pre-thought defaults
and use cases. And outrside that you're often hosed or
handicapped. But if the supported stuff is along your path,
you can sit back and enjoy.
Of course, it almost never is in practice:-).
This thread was about learning, I said that IMO in the phase
one learns the language -- or I could add, a system API, or a
library/framework -- there is no need for the excess power and
customization level.
That's what I generally used to think: you wouldn't really want
an IDE in a professional environment, but for learning, they
would permit you to abord one thing at a time. Now that I've
actually used one a bit, I'm less sure. (But maybe that's just
because of my frustration.)
The "new project" wizards' idea of a project layout may not
fit some expert's fine-tuned layout, but I doubt it is not
good to try out whatever is subject of learning. You won't
keep that stuff anyway, do you?
And while, as you told, make-writers do not speak with many
compiler-writers, the advice to use the resulting mess is IMO
only good for the lucky situation when they did. ;-)
Or for the situation where someone expert in make wrote the
global makefiles. At least with GNU make (and probably some
others), it's quite possible to create a situation where the
client makefile is no more than a list of sources, the name of
the binary, and a single include which does the rest.
Without such support, I guess I'd have to agree. (I was very
frustrated with the restrictions in the IDE when I wrote my
first posting.) On the other hand, can you really learn C++
effectively without some initial support?
Just like you have a selection of shells on unix, you can do
the same on windows. And certainly all the unix "tools" are
available.
Just appear much less needed.
Do they? I don't know any really good programmer under Windows
who doesn't use them.
What I wanted to say, they will be sitting there installed,
almost sure, but most time just collecting dust. (Hm, I
exclude the cases when they are invoked by specialized
scripts/programs made to cover some use case...)
I don't find that to be the case, at least not in professional
environments. Everywhere I've been before, most people worked
most of the time from the shells. Where I am now (the first
100% Windows environment for me), it's not so much the case, but
the shells are used for any number of scripts and other things.
And very often, when there's something more complicated that
needs to be done, I can get it done faster from the shell than
the Windows experts can do from the GUI.
There was a good joke about ATM with unix interface. ;-)
Unfortunately the keywords are not google-friendly, but I'm
sure you can imagine it.
Yes, but the target audience isn't the same.
Do you really think that interface dexterity shall count that
much in that kind of design? So if the most common use case
is "withdraw $50" it is put on a button only for "idiots",
while the experts are damned to type in the whole command and
the actual amount? Because they can, reliably? And may want
to fetch $3.1415 more often then others?
That isn't the issue. In practice, you really only want to do
one thing at an ATM. Developing software requires a large
number of different activities, from designing UML, writing HTML
documentation, writing code, compiling, setting up code reviews,
etc. Some of this is supported by the usual tools, but in
practice, you're almost always doing something a little bit
more than what they offer.
And the point is, that if you can carry out what you want with
a single keypress or click (sometimes with 2, other times with
0) why use more? Why re-type the info before you (or paste
it) if avoidable?
The point is that you can't. Regardless of the IDE. You
can't enter code with a single click,
I what? Thinking up and writing code was never the task of
the IDE (or any editor). It is environment to work, not
replacement of the programmer.
I don't expect code written. (Though simple editors do have
ability to insert common code fractions on up to 2 clicks or
keys).
But I do expect to
- have instant and easy access to most relevant information (like in code
definition windows, call/caller graphs, man/msdn pages)
- navigation around all the interesting locations (like mentioned before +
error spot from build)
- sensible management of windows and panes that present the stuff I am
working with
- easy access to most/all tools I need along the road (editors for different
kinds of sources, the build, debuggers, source control)
All of which is present with a good editor/shell combination
under Unix (or Windows, with bash and gvim). I suppose that you
could call it partially integrated, but if you invoke make from
vim, it will position you on the error. Plus a lot of other
things. (I find that when restructuring code, I make a lot of
use of :argdo g/.../... for example.) In fact, what I most
dislike about Visual Studios is that it doesn't support your
third point; it presents a lot of not particularly relevant
information, but still makes it very hard to find the relevant
information.
And I certainly welcome additional intelligent behavior, like
auto-checkout files I type into, collect TODOs, pending
checkins, etc.
We're using subversion, so there is no check-out. I'm not sure
I like this aspect, however. I don't like the fact that I can
accidentally modify a file I happen to be looking at. (Of
course, in vim, I'll open it read only, so there's no problem.
If Visual Studios has this option, I'm not aware of it.) For
the rest, it's all there from a normal editor and the shell.
and you can't do any advanced editing with a single click.
What is "advanced editing" mean?
Search and replace, for starters. You still have to enter the
regular expression and the replacement text. By the time you've
gotten the dialog box open and your hands back to the keyboard,
I've finished the command.
When editing (entering text), anything which requires using the
mouse is a minus, since it requires taking your hands away from
the base position on the keyboard. (When just browsing, of
course, other rules hold, and I do tend to use the mouse for
most browsing.)
Refactoring actions? I never used such an editor yet, but
would welcome -- it certainly sounds like an IDE
functionality and hardly doable by atomic tools.
Reformatting code? That is basic in most anything.
Search/replace in all project files? I can do it in IDE, not
sure how it is doable for a general case with make-build...
Especially ad-hoc and without pain.
One frequent operation for me is grepping for every place where
some function is used. Then invoking the editor on just those
files, running through the first modification, memorizing the
keystrokes in a macro as I do, then undoing it, and invoking it
on all of the files I'm editing (and only on those files---with
a bit of care in my original search string, I can only modify
specific uses of my function).
Please give some example what case were you thinking here.
As above. Or modifying all of the project files (in about
twenty different projects in the solution) in a similar way (but
the modification depends partially on the directory in which the
project file is found).
--
James Kanze