Re: IDE

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: John Wiegley <address@hidden>
> Date: Sat, 17 Oct 2015 22:23:30 -0700
> 
> >>>>> Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > I'm quite sure CEDET has collected and expressed in code a lot of experience
> > and solutions to many problems that arise in the context of building an IDE.
> > It's OK to discard that, if we sure that's the proverbial 1st variant
> > everyone throws away, but we need first to be sure we know what we are
> > discarding.
> 
> I'm not suggesting we discard experiences. What I'm saying is: it doesn't make
> sense to proceed by looking at CEDET, and then asking what should be changed.
> 
> CEDET is like a hammer. When it was made, the problem looked like nail.
> 
> Today, the problem might be a screw (is it? do we know?). We're not going to
> arrive at the best answer by asking ourselves how a hammer can be changed to
> meet the needs of a screw. It deserves looking at the problem anew.
> 
> It doesn't mean we throw out the hammer. Maybe we do have a nail, maybe we
> don't. The point is: If we make technical assumptions before learning what we
> want to end up with, we're going to arrive at something shaped more by those
> assumptions than by our needs.

I wasn't aware that the IDE landscape might have changed in such a
significant way recently.  This discussion seems to focus on details,
which seems to indicate no such radical changes happened.  But I'm not
an expert, so maybe you are right.

I did suggest up-thread to come up with a list of main features we
think an Emacs IDE should have.  If that is what you have in mind, I
obviously agree.

In any case, CEDET is not an EDE, AFAIK.  It is an infrastructure and
a set of tools for building an IDE.  IOW, it's neither a hammer nor a
screwdriver, but something that allows us to make one or the other (or
something else entirely).  So it could very well be a good basis for
an Emacs IDE.