Chris Green  wrote:
> I've never understood the big advantage of this sort of IDE over doing
> each of those things (edit, compile, run/test) in separate terminal
> windows.  I have a syntax highlighting editor that runs in a terminal.
>
> Again the *huge* advantage of running everything in terminal windows
> running a (bash) shell is that one is using the same working
> environment for everything, whether your compiling and testing code,
> doing some housekeeping, checking E-Mails or whatever.

Somebody asked what I'm looking for.  That's a good question.  Currently I
do what you say - edit most things in a terminal window, because that
environment is universal whether I'm editing locally or remotely (I probably
do >70% of my editing remotely, including most mail and Usenet).

So I suppose what I'm after is something that makes a compelling reason for
editing locally, where I will put up with the hassles of bringing the files
to me because it gives me something extra.

I'm not terribly bothered by being able to compile stuff from an editor - on
a terminal the shell is always the 'quit' keystroke away, and I can flip
back to the editor with up-arrow and Enter.  So that's a non-problem as far
as I'm concerned.  It is nice to be able to compile when looking at the
code, but two terminal windows give me that.

One good reason for a GUI editor is mouse-based selection.  I much prefer
the keyboard, but sometimes you're moving big chunks of text around (say
refactoring code or a document) and it's easier to point and drag than lots
of cursor manipulation (start-marker, end-marker, cut, move, paste, etc)
Almost very GUI editor does that (with the exception of gvim, which is a bit
weird) so it's not really a discriminating factor.

One thing I do appreciate though is being able to operate everything
smoothly from the keyboard when I don't need the mouse.  One wordprocessor
required me to use the menu shortcuts (something like Alt-E-F-S for
strikeout) and that was awkward.  Yes there was a button on the toolbar, but
switching keyboard-mouse-keyboard is time consuming.

Syntax highlighting is also a given, but with a wide set of rules.  I opened
a device tree .dts file in geany yesterday and was surprised it didn't
highlight.  It did highlight C code.

Another desirable feature would be code navigation - click on a function
call to go to its definition, bring up the API documentation in some kind of
popup, grep-style search where you get a list of results and can click on a
result to go to that file.

Similarly code folding - being able to collapse functions (or sections in
your Latex or whatever) so it's easier to skip over those you aren't working
on.  Saves scrollbar time.

Another useful feature is debugger integration - not just running gdb
alongside, but being able to set breakpoints with clicks on source lines,
when you get to the breakpoints being able to see the tree of variables in a
window that you can navigate by mouse, rather than typing out search
patterns at a gdb prompt.

Basically this sounds something a bit more IDE like but not tied to a
particular language/toolchain - often IDEs are strongly tied to particular
environments (Java, embedded, etc) and it feels awkward if you're using them
for something else, so you end up flitting between multiple IDEs.  I suppose
I'm looking for an editor with IDE features rather than an IDE with editor
features.

Answers on a postcard...

Theo

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