Re: Language support for flexible handling of system-detected errors.

[nmm1@cus.cam.ac.uk (Nick Maclaren)]

In article <a7vokf$rnt$1@nh.pace.co.uk>,
Marin David Condic <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org> wrote:
>Its all well and good for some folks who are willing to take time to cobble
>together their IDE out of separate tools and utilities & assume the
>responsibility for making it all work together. However there are a large
>number of developers in the world who need to spend their time working on
>the end application and don't have time or desire to put together their own
>toolkit. For those of us in that boat, a well integrated IDE that handles
>everything seamlessly is a good thing.

I think that you are missing the point.  Fewer than 1% of users do
any development, IDE or no.  I am referring to end-user applications
that don't work outside the IDE - things like databases, graphical
packages and so on!

One of the reasons that developers of real applications (i.e. not
happy hackers like the majority of users in the 1960s, and some of
us today) should NOT use IDEs is that they often fall into that
trap.  "We can't reproduce your problem in our IDE, so we can't
investigate it" :-(

>Which group is in the majority? It probably doesn't matter. Which group
>spends money on tools - and hence drives the kind of tools commercial
>developers build? Obviously, the latter, since you don't see too many
>off-the-shelf tools (such as a debugger) that the end user is supposed to
>integrate with the rest of the tools (such as the compiler, editor, gui
>builder, etc.)

The group that I am referring to is in the majority by 100:1 or
1,000:1.  Whether developers who use IDEs and those who don't are
in the majority is irrelevant.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren,
University of Cambridge Computing Service,
New Museums Site, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.
Email:  nmm1@cam.ac.uk
Tel.:  +44 1223 334761    Fax:  +44 1223 334679