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by crayz 5823 days ago
If a person doesn't understand the value of intellesense, they're not doing it right

I think the argument against a full-blown IDE which optimizes code-writing is, if it's possible for an IDE to make your code easier to read or write, why isn't it possible to simply improve the programming language itself to make the code easier to read or write? Some sort of automated code translation/compression/generation is improving the coding experience for you, the developer. So why can't that improvement be baked into your compiler/parser/libraries, so the program's code reflects that improvement regardless of the tool you use to view it?
4 comments
cageface 5823 days ago
I was once at a lunch with one of the Franz Allegro lisp dudes and he said that he'd had an epiphany about the nature of Java and IDEs. He said Java does have macros in a sense, it's just that they're one way and built into the IDE.

I don't buy this argument that "enterprise" software requires enterprise languages and tools either. There are plenty of counterexamples of large, complex systems built in dynamic languages.

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technoweenie 5823 days ago
Regardless of how simple a ruby API is, I can't keep them all in my head. That's why there are tools like ri and the various ruby doc sites. Having that integrated could be useful. When I do a lot of coding, I usually have a lot of browser and textmate windows open for reference.
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levirosol 5823 days ago
This is what I'm referring to. An IDE should make what I already know easier to get from brain to fingers to keyboard to screen.

Intellesense does this by letting me type a couple chars of a known method, then pressing tab.

It should also make what I kinda know easier to find.

A good IDE does this by letting me find a method in intellesense and showing me the method description.

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seanos 5823 days ago
I think you misunderstand what intellisense does. For example, if I start typing a method name then it will give me the possible completions from which to choose and if I call a method it will remind me of the parameters required. These are not things that can be "baked into the compiler/parser/libraries".
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m0th87 5823 days ago
If your thesis were correct, (which I don't think it is) then you could just as easily argue that Ruby is verbose because Rails auto-generates code.
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