Re: Code Completion
Re: Code Completion
- Subject: Re: Code Completion
- From: Andy Satori <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2003 11:27:06 -0500
Actually, I think this is an opportunity for a third party developer.
It appears that the PB environment supports extensions. Including syntax
highlighting. If you have access to the syntax highlighting engine, tacking
on something for code completion isn't impossible. It appears that there is
already one attempt at this, but the documentation is poor, and it doesn't
seem to work with my installation (bummer).
The problem in my eyes, is not the lack of functionality, but the lack of
documentation of how to extend PB. A published API for the extensions, and
PB becomes more than the sum of it's parts through the 3rd party development
community.
It's much like the situation with BBEdit, which is a great package, but it's
real power comes from it's users, who have created the additional language
and extensions via it's exposed and documented API. Project Builder could
take advantage of the same process.
For example, for Java Cocoa apps, PB is great, but with a little extension,
it could also be an outstanding EJB environment using the Ant build system.
With the ongoing development of Mono on Mac OS X, the constant improvements
we see in Python, Ruby and Perl, PB could host everyone of these languages
through Syntax plugins and modified build steps. It already has the console
redirection built in, GDB is a redirected debug environment.
I've used VB, Delphi, C++ Builder, Optima++, Visual Studio, Visual Cafi,
Eclipse, CodeWarrior (BeOS), Watcom C++, and a few others over the years.
The best of them all shared the same characteristic. The user community had
access to the documentation and tools to extend the environments beyond what
the creators originally designed. The ones that didn't died.
I just spent 30 days with the CodeWarrior for Mac trial, and concluded that
PB is $800 less, and is it's equal if you don't require Classic targets (and
the only reason I have for even considering CW was to target Windows from my
Mac, and possibly extend BBEdit for C# language syntax), but given my
preferences, I'd rather spend my time on PB, which I view as a good product,
which with the proper documentation, and the obviously active user
community, could be one of the best IDE's around. One smart enough to shell
out to other editors when needed, for Images, NIB's, ASPX/HTML/JSP, XML,
etc.
All that's required is some documentation of the API, even in rough form.
Give us partially documented .h files, let the community fill the gaps, and
make a little money along the way. The Dev Tools addon market has always
been a profitable one, and by paving the way for groups like Omni, and the
small dev's to make money, you lure a lot of fresh eyes, and fresh devs.
Andy Satori
On 3/6/03 10:34 AM, "publiclook" <email@hidden> pounded the
keyboard to produce:
>
I would like auto-completion in PB as well.
>
>
However, the "tone" of John.MacNamara's "demand" seems a bit harsh. I
>
wonder how much he paid for Project Builder compared to Visual C++,
>
CodeWarior, or Visual Basic. I assume he has never edited source code
>
with ctags and vi.
>
>
Over all, Apple's tools for software development are very nice and
>
quite productive. You just can't beet the price either.
>
>
Since he rants about the missing auto-complete feature and says that
>
the features that do exists aren't "better than nothing", I wonder if
>
he goes to the Visual C++ lists and rants that they don't have
>
Interface Builder and MFC is slow, buggy, poorly designed,
>
inconsistent, and uses a language that is so huge, inconsistent, and
>
irrational that even its creators can't understand it and years after
>
the ISO/ANSI standard was completed there STILL isn't a single
>
compliant compiler in the world. Nevermind that the ISO/ANSI
>
"standard" leaves so many holes that even standards compliant compilers
>
are free to either not compile supposedly standard code or silently
>
change the semantics of the code.
>
>
>
On Thursday, March 6, 2003, at 06:42 AM, email@hidden
>
wrote:
>
>
> F5 will only finish a word based on words you have already typed...
>
> It is NOT even a pathetic attempt at code-completion...
>
> What we NEED is proper code completion (such as code-insight from
>
> Microsoft, or code completion as seen in Eclipse)
>
>
>
> If you have never seen these, than perhaps it is ok, that you think
>
> that
>
> F5 is "better than nothing"
>
>
>
> In fact not it is not "better than nothing", because people would not
>
> be
>
> able to point to it and dismiss calls for proper code completion.
>
> I don't care what they have to do, borrow it from the open source code
>
> of
>
> eclipse, come up with their own competitive version... But it is as
>
> simple
>
> as this VB has had code-insight for close on 7 years (if not longer),
>
> and
>
> we are still waiting for an attempt at copying it from apple...
>
> John.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Marc Weil <email@hidden>
>
> Sent by: email@hidden
>
> 03/06/2003 11:25 AM
>
>
>
>
>
> To: MAGDELENAT Philippe
>
> <email@hidden>, Cocoa Digest
>
> <email@hidden>
>
> cc:
>
> Subject: Re: Code Completion
>
>
>
>
>
> On 3/6/03 5:37 AM, "MAGDELENAT Philippe"
>
> <email@hidden> wrote:
>
>
>
>> Hi,
>
>>
>
>> New to Cocoa and ObjC (and then to PB), programming in Java for a
>
>> living, I am seriously scared by the lack of code completion in PB.
>
>>
>
>> I might have missed something but the PB's capabilities in this domain
>
>> are seriously limited. I know that, once, code completion wasn't even
>
>> an option but still, when used to develop using Idea (for those of you
>
>> who know it) where everything is done to improve your code quality,
>
>> your speed and your re-factoring when needed, I wonder about how
>
>> painful it is to type ObjC code.
>
>
>
> Actually, it DOES have code completion. Just type in the first few
>
> letters
>
> of the symbol (variable name, method, class, etc.) and press F5. It
>
> isn't
>
> *real* code completion, meaning that it isn't going to complete every
>
> symbol
>
> in the current file, but rather, it will complete symbols as you have
>
> already manually typed in. If it guesses the wrong symbol when you
>
> press
>
> F5,
>
> just press it again (and continue to press it) to cycle through all of
>
> the
>
> guesses it has. It works about 80-90% of the time, but it's better than
>
> nothing!
>
>
>
> Marc Weil
>
>
>
> --
>
> "Software exists to solve your problems. We exist to make the
>
> problems."
>
> Microsoft
>
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