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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,cec04f9d45b3f527 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-09-03 02:38:26 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.icl.net!newsfeed.fjserv.net!feed.news.nacamar.de!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!tar-alcarin.cbb-automation.DE!not-for-mail From: Dmitry A. Kazakov Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: An Ada advocacy method Date: Wed, 03 Sep 2003 11:45:29 +0200 Message-ID: References: <3F4F4817.7030306@noplace.com> <3F50130A.1070406@noplace.com> <3F50A70E.7050809@noplace.com> <3F521B65.1090004@noplace.com> <20030831123103.43926d87.falis@verizon.net> <3F535639.9060008@noplace.com> <3F53EDE8.6090908@noplace.com> <7gh8lv84kq46bjfo5pd1185bdtfn01e78d@4ax.com> <3F548DC3.7050601@noplace.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: tar-alcarin.cbb-automation.de (212.79.194.111) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news.uni-berlin.de 1062581905 15726882 212.79.194.111 (16 [77047]) X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:42091 Date: 2003-09-03T11:45:29+02:00 List-Id: On Tue, 02 Sep 2003 12:32:19 GMT, Marin David Condic wrote: >O.K. Just one observation. I didn't say it was F1 nor do I even really >recall what the "real" key sequence was. F1 for help, right click for "go to definition", "go to declaration". It was nice in the earlier versions because the help system was small and integrated into the compiler. Then they moved it to MSDN to add annoying bells and whistles, and more importantly, to force you to have an IE. So it became extremely slow and quite out of context. Then, to push dot-net, they made it incompatible with MSVC 6.0 (and even slower, not an easy task on a 2GHz CPU, but they managed it). Now to get help you have to buy C++.NET, which has exactly the SAME buggy compiler, but with a help available! This is a SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MODEL, no joke! > (I was in "Hypothetical" mode) >Maybe it was double-click. Maybe it was right-mouse-click. Whatever. The >key point was that if you needed help with some MFC or other MSVC++ >supplied subroutine, you could get to it fairly easily and it was a good >distance away from useless information. True, but also note, all this was and is available under VMS in the LSE editor. Which did not save DEC, rather the opposite. At the same time, as DEC was fading, Microsoft became extremely successful with MS-DOS having virtually everything awful, anything you might point at was. Remeber MS-DOS help? BTW I am missing it much. (:-)) Try to figure out the syntax of the shell's command FOR in the terabytes of MSDN trash. > Perhaps it has degenerated since >last I used it. They learned DEC's lesson well. See above (:-)) >That would be a shame. If someone is building an Ada >IDE, something like this would be a really important feature - >especially if a library is supplied. Absolutely right. Another important feature is hyper-linked error messages. A click to an error should browse not only the source code, but also ARM. It is already a good style for a compiler to give an ARM reference, so it should be relatively easy to implement. --- Regards, Dmitry Kazakov www.dmitry-kazakov.de