From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.4 required=5.0 tests=AC_FROM_MANY_DOTS,BAYES_00 autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,8bc34e14e4555720 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-10-11 08:06:23 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!psinet-eu-nl!psiuk-p4!uknet!psiuk-n!news.pace.co.uk!nh.pace.co.uk!not-for-mail From: "Marin David Condic" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: This is a simple question Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2001 10:56:33 -0400 Organization: Posted on a server owned by Pace Micro Technology plc Message-ID: <9q4bv3$okv$1@nh.pace.co.uk> References: <9pk4t7$tbm$1@trog.dera.gov.uk> <87zo762rta.fsf@deneb.enyo.de> <9pkc0r$m5j$1@trog.dera.gov.uk> <9pkddm$afh$1@nh.pace.co.uk> <9pvdp5$8im$1@nh.pace.co.uk> <9q1lrp$e1q$1@nh.pace.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: dhcp-200-133.miami.pace.co.uk X-Trace: nh.pace.co.uk 1002812195 25247 136.170.200.133 (11 Oct 2001 14:56:35 GMT) X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@news.cam.pace.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Date: 11 Oct 2001 14:56:35 GMT X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:14268 Date: 2001-10-11T14:56:35+00:00 List-Id: I really cannot understand that observation. There are applications programs that have simple, graphical & menu doohickies to do simple things. There are applications programs that have all kinds of powerful features if only you want to memorize hundreds of ctrl-shift-alt-caps-lock-tab key sequences and tricky command line interpreters. Explain to me why you can't build an editor that has a "Compile"/Build"/"Link"/"Run" set of buttons and *also* interprets ctrl-shift-alt-caps-lock-tab key sequences and a tricky command line? You like being an editor power-user? Great! RTFM. You just want to build a hello-world app and hit the "Run" button? Great! Here's your cut-n-paste mousey editor with a "Run" button at the top. Why are the two incompatible? And I still don't see how you say to EMACS: "See that directory over there full of Ada files? That's my project. Go open up my *project* and display all the files on the left for me. Make sure I can click on the file of interest and have it expand to show me all of the functions/procedures/types/objects/whatever that are in it. Make sure I can click on any one of those thingies and be put right in the text where its at." That's the kind of thing that a few other IDEs I've used provide. (Possibly, as Ted suggested, an IDE could be built that does this & then gives you a choice of text editors to invoke on the file in question. But that's not the same as saying "EMACS can be your IDE...") I am not saying that EMACS can't edit Ada files and do spiffy Ada things. What I'm saying is that it doesn't look like a standard PC application and that it doesn't provide simple, obvious ways of getting simple, obvious things done. As such I would think it would take too much work to make it into an Ada IDE and/or the end result would likely be an attrocity that would be very off-putting to many PC developers used to seeing looking a certain way. Sure. There will always be "power users" who will want millions of features and be willing to read reams of documentation to become familiar with a given tool. However, I think you can point at a much larger body of people who just want to point and click and get a few simple things done. (Notepad gets used by a *lot* of people even though it doesn't do much. What it *does* do is obvious to any PC user - something EMACS lacks but might possibly be able to have, had that been a design goal.) IMHO, EMACS suffers from satisfying the power-user at the expense of failing to satisfy the casual user. The two are not incompatible. MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com Web: http://www.mcondic.com/ "David Bolen" wrote in message news:uy9mj2do3.fsf@ctwd0143.fitlinxx.com... > "Marin David Condic" writes: > > I'd agree with the goal. I've just found that in my experience more > often than not an IDE designed to present itself as simple and obvious > rarely has the underlying depth to become more than simple and obvious > when you acclimate to that. That's fine for occasional and casual > use, but it begins to fall down quickly for serious development, where > you quickly find yourself wanting to bypass all the friendly interface > stuff and just get the job done. >