Re: "is ada dead?" A challenge for all of us?

["McDoobie" <chris@dont.spam.me>]

In article <23C37.25392$WS4.3875364@news6-win.server.ntlworld.com>,
"chris.danx" <chris.danx@ntlworld.com> wrote:


> What's Forte when it's at home?  Is it free?
> 
> I ask since it's important to explore various IDEs and see what features
> work and what are useless.  However, my requirements are going to be
> different from other ppl's and this is going cooperation from ppl to get
> right.

  Forte is the Java IDE produced by Sun Microsystems. They have a free 
community version available for download at thier java.sun.com website.
I really like the way I can configure it to pop up different code line 
selections at different spots while I'm coding. Some people find it gets
in the way, but I like it. It's off by default.  Anyways, it's a really nice 
interface, even professional, considering the price.($0)
I would highly encourage you to check it out.
 

> {
> it uses gwindows 0.3
> 
> how stable is gwindows?  I mean, how much of it is likely to change and
> become incompatible in the future?
> 
> Should i stick with 0.3 or go for the pre-beta release (I don't imagine
> there will be much difference _once I get it compiled_, and it won't
> impact on the program at all)

 One thing that I would find really irritating is another IDE designed to run
only on Windows. I'm a FreeBSD user (occasional Linux). Havent used 
Windows in eight years.(Except for when I have no choice, like at the office,
or when fixing my dad's computer.)
  It would certainly be important to keep the app as platform independant 
as possible. We have Windows programmers, OS X programmers, Linux and
Unix programmers, and yes...even BeOS programmers who would probably
find a good Ada IDE to be a major benefit.


>> However, a couple important features would be extensive hotkey support
>> (aka LyX),
> 
> Lyx?

  LyX is the Open Source WYSISWYM(What you see is what you MEAN.) 
GUI processor for the TeX/LaTeX document formatting system. TeX has 
been actively developed for 30+ years, and is about as bug free a system
as your likely to find anywhere. It's a contribution of one Donald E. Knuth 
to the computing world.  It's another software group worth researching.

> Extensive hotkey support like reconfiguring hotkeys?
 
   Yeah. Macros and hotkeys are where it's at for me. I was weaned on VI, so
I'm not very much into the Emacs style of clickity click, but I certainly 
appreciate those features.
 
>> and customization of the look and feel.
> 
> It is important to account for different tastes (may increase
> productivity), however the level of customisation shouldn't be too great
> (or useless).

	My thoughts exactly. Balance is the key.

> Oh yes, no point going down the _feature bloat_ route.  Another point on
> "features" is not to ram them down the developers throat.  I get annoyed
> with  some IDEs that make you use a project to compile toy programs.  Anyone
> else get annoyed at this?

	Your a programmer after my own heart.
> 
> I'd really like to have plugins but I don't have a clue how to do this,
> anyone know a good introduction to plugin-ability on the windows
> platform?
> 
	Corba and/or XML-RPC might be a good way to handle this. I'm not 
sure. Just learning about "Plugins" myself.

> 
> Chris
> 


McDoobie
chris@dont.spam.me