[Israel.pm] Editors as Power Tools [was Re: Variable Naming]

[Issac Goldstand]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jason Elbaum" <Jason.Elbaum at freescale.com>
To: "Perl in Israel" <perl at perl.org.il>
Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2004 10:15 AM
Subject: Re: [Israel.pm] Editors as Power Tools [was Re: Variable Naming]


> I'm gonna regret this, but I'll just weigh in briefly:
>
> >>>auto-completion is a nice-to-have feature, which is useful, but still
> >>>not a  must.
>
> I find auto-completion annoying. The editor interferes with the flow of
> my typing by assuming it knows what I mean. If you're a lousy typist,
> use auto-completion. I can finish typing the variable name faster than I
> can select the editor's auto-completed suggestion.
> .
When I'm dealing with a small API, that may be true.  But in a big project,
auto-completion can be extremely useful - even if YOU wronte the functions
yourself.  Ditto the case if you write something and then 6 months later
need to work on it.   I use autocomplete more for seeing what else there is
to autocomplete more than autocompleting the word I'm typing...

> >>>I happen to like command line debuggers.
>
> I gave up on graphical debuggers a long time ago. They generally just
> make the debugging process slower, heavier and more buggy!
>

Not necessarily.  It depends what you are using...  If you've got some weird
complex datastructures, a graphical debugger may be more helpful.  Ditto for
jumping around the source files in between steps, breakpoints, etc...

  Yitzchak