Re: IDE

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Cc: address@hidden, address@hidden
> From: Dmitry Gutov <address@hidden>
> Date: Sat, 10 Oct 2015 13:14:53 +0300
> 
> On 10/10/2015 12:40 PM, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> 
> > I don't know.  It's for someone who will work on this to find out.  I
> > know that a motivated individual in the GDB development team already
> > based a useful set of commands on it -- you can compile and inject
> > code into your program while debugging it.
> 
> That seems orthogonal to code completion capabilities, for where I'm 
> standing.

Of course, it is.  I didn't mean to say that injecting code and
completion/refactoring need the same capabilities.  But libcc1 doesn't
provide only what GDB uses, and it can be extended.

> >> We definitely could have more in this department, yes. But what would
> >> you even call an "IDE mode"? A fixed multi-window setup a la ECB?
> >
> > I don't know, and neither do we as a project.  A useful step would be
> > to produce a detailed answer to that question.  That answer could both
> > serve as base for useful discussions, and might provide some anchor
> > for all those external packages you mentioned to target some coherent
> > vision.
> 
> "We need a common interface for refactoring tools" sounds like a good 
> problem statement.

Is IDE just about refactoring?  I thought it meant much more.

> > I don't believe comprehensive features such as IDE can be developed
> > exclusively bottom up.  There should be some basic set of assumptions
> > and design rules/decisions that everyone should target and abide by.
> > There should also be some unified leadership.
> 
> A comprehensive set of IDE features might be too lofty a goal for us, in 
> the foreseeable future.

Depends on how many people will work on it.  In any case, having some
high-level design that is targeted by all the components will ensure
more or less seamless integration when each component becomes
available.

> > What if we build our completion on a UI that today's developers will
> > dislike?  Unlike with many traditional Emacs features, which were
> > developed when there was no prior art, the IDE features have lots of
> > prior art.  No need to invent the wheel, just implement similar look
> > and feel.
> 
> Hence we're bundling Company.

Last time I looked the IDEs I sometimes look at (Visual Studio and
Eclipse) present a much more pleasant UI for completion.  Why can't we
present something similar?