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From: kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen)
Subject: Re: Ada IDE for Win 95
Date: 1997/03/17
Message-ID: <1997Mar16.225444.1@eisner>#1/1
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References: <332A3A2B.57B2@mad.scientist.com> <1997Mar15.073807.1@eisner>
 <dewar.858533314@merv>
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Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1997-03-17T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


In article <dewar.858533314@merv>, dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:

> A lot of people use the phrase IDE to refer to any system, no matter how
> simple and incomplete, that allows some kind of simple point and click
> interface for compiling, linking etc.

IDE is certainly a term which is marketing-hype-ready.
On the other hand, if I want what _I_ think is an IDE,
I am not at all worried about the possibility that an
appropriate tool might be out there and _not_ using
that term.  If my initial search is based on the
marketing terms, all I have to do is narrow the field
down (yes, possibly to nothing).

> Now of course there are people who really like visual interfaces and
> find them effective, and so visual IDE's certainly make a lot of sense
> for this kind of person.

There are also people who have to _write_ visual interfaces,
and a good IDE will integrate the visual editing part with
the code editing part so that one can readily switch back
and forth between the two domains where one must do things
to make it so button #3 will henceforth be triangular and
insensitive when the day of the month is a prime number.
Certainly implementing the Ada Reference Manual is not a
very visual-oriented programming problem.

Since there are three major and many minor GUI metaphors out there,
and each one is the "only" appropriate one for certain operating systems,
I would prefer to get IDEs which do the GUI stuff so that I do
not have to deal with the nitty-gritty in each case but can still
make a program look "natural" in the OS environment.

> As usual, different tools suit different folks. One of the advantages of
> an open environment like GNAT is that you can tailor the tools you use,
> and the way you use them, to match your own requirements.

On the other hand, my preference is to find something which already
has an appropriate set of stuff implemented so that I don't have to
spend a lot of time fussing with it.

> I do worry that we mis train students if we *only* present them with vey
> simple ways of preparing programs that do not scale up.

I would certainly agree that students whose only experience is
with an IDE environment would be quite poorly equipped, because
that biases their capabilities and preferences toward environments
and at present may bias their language choices away from Ada as
well.

Larry Kilgallen