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Of course MS Windows is better It has Visual Studio

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Re: Of course MS Windows is better It has Visual Studio

#31

Post by demallien »

Maro wrote: post #5

I think UNIX users, seeing they're never going to get something as kickass as VS simply adopted an elitist approach and claim that for various reasons (language, vi, emacs) they don't even need one. The benefits of VS are obvious: - tabbed: (could you live without a tabbed browser?), also control+tab brings up a smart switcher - search: suppose you have a large project and are looking for a function call, irrespectiv…

you'll find that a lot of unix programmers use tools such as cscope when they need to navigate around large code bases. If you're a vi sort of person, having one terminal in cscope, and another on the command line to compile/checkin code, and another for the debugger gives a totally acceptable result. Of course, as always the optimal solution for a development environment depends on many things - language, host is, target, type of application etc...

Re: Of course MS Windows is better It has Visual Studio

#32

Post by chandler »

sysop073 wrote: post #16
chandler wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading these posts about the "excellent, bug free" VS development environment: in my experience, this isn't quite the truth. I've used VS6 since the late 90's, mostly on small projects (less than ~10 000 lines, four or five source files) until 2004, where I signed up to work maintenance on what is essentially a very large codebase (thousands of source files, between 500-50 000 lines per file). In 2006, my frustratio…

I can't imagine how building is freezing your computer when using the command-line isn't; all VS does is call cl, link and mt in that order, you can procmon it and watch it happen. The Intellisense thing, on the other hand, is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen - the official Microsoft solution is to delete the Intellisense database and restart VS, apparently it "gets corrupted over time" and they don't feel th…

It's specifically at two points of the build--firstly, when VS6 is starting the compile (and trying to find modified files, I suppose), and during the link step.

I think the IDE is doing something with the toolchain to give it an incredibly high priority (and therefore build faster). The only evidence I have for that is a) command-line compiles take longer than they do through the IDE (using msdev to process the dsp file, not using nmake/cl/link), and b) windows messages (e.g. Send/PostEvent) don't seem to be processed during the link stage.

Regarding the Intellisense bit, you've reminded me of our "process" used to fix VS when it stops compiling files correctly: try deleting all our non-source controlled files (which includes the VS specific databases for things like classwizard, object files, etc) and see if that fixes things. If not, then restart.

Re: Of course MS Windows is better It has Visual Studio

#33

Post by sysop073 »

Maro wrote: post #28
sysop073 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am almost positive based on this that you've never opened Visual Studio before. VS has lots of really helpful and useful features; the first ones that come to mind are not "tabbed" and "search". Most of the things you listed there exist in virtually every text editor there is besides Notepad

Well, I have used VS in a professional environment (working at a semi-large software house). Part of the point I was trying to make is that VS is not just great as an IDE, it is also great as an editor, and that these particular features do not exist in any UNIX/MacOS I have come across. Your claim that most of the things exist in virtually every editor is simply not true --- many editors have many features, but none…

"I'm positive you've never open VS before" isn't a personal attack, "I'm positive you're ignorant and ugly because I dislike your opinions" is a personal attack. I have no troubles with Eclipse, but I don't use it for big projects so maybe it does get slow. Nonetheless, the features you listed (tabs, searching, project browser and refactoring) are in every halfway decent text editor; I think Notepad++ has most or all of those.

Also, you're adopted and your parents don't really love you

Re: Of course MS Windows is better It has Visual Studio

#34

Post by chandler »

trezor wrote: post #17
chandler wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading these posts about the "excellent, bug free" VS development environment: in my experience, this isn't quite the truth. I've used VS6 since the late 90's, mostly on small projects (less than ~10 000 lines, four or five source files) until 2004, where I signed up to work maintenance on what is essentially a very large codebase (thousands of source files, between 500-50 000 lines per file). In 2006, my frustratio…

You are comparing VS6 to something current, which is not fair. Lots of these hitches you've had (which I don't doubt, since I've been forced to deal with some old VB6 projects) has been fixed long time ago. I'm not saying Visual Studio 2008 is flawless , perfect or the second coming of Christ(tm), but in general I've had very few issues with it.

Whether it's fair or not, I can only knowledgeably critique what I know. However, I've heard (and propogated) this basic comment describing the robust solid development experience that is Visual Studio for more years than VS.NET (or, obviously, 2008) has been around.

(Not that VS6 is terrible--I still think it's a serviceable IDE for small to medium sized projects. However, it doesn't scale well to our large projects, and, personally, I've found that IDEs in general foster a lazy attitude towards improving personal workflow)

Re: Of course MS Windows is better It has Visual Studio

#35

Post by snprbob86 »

andr wrote: post #2

As a person that started programming on X11 in the late 80s and still uses vim daily, I can't think of a better environment than Visual Studio (possibly with the vi plugin) for programming. It is actually sad that guys like the author of this post and some hardcore Linux geeks pride themselves in the lack of good IDEs. The two main arguments are: 1) C# needs more boilerplate class code than C++ or other languages. Wr…

Agreed. All of his arguments are weak and because they are built on false foundations.

I develop games with C#. The libraries we have are very thin and do not really benefit from IDE designer support. However, VS still makes my life a whole hell of a lot easier. The debugger is superb. Complete integration with my bug tracking and source management tools. On the fly error checking, saves me from a bad compile.

Especially with Resharper http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/ If you do any C# development, you MUST try resharper and train your fingers to press alt+enter and ctrl+shift+r a lot. It makes Visual C# much more like JetBrain's other product, IDEA IDE. When your IDE is this good, you never be able to go back.

I have worked two jobs in the past which were at Linux shops. I've used VIM quite extensively and become reasonably proficient at it. It is pretty good for editing all types of text. Too bad that I spend most of my time editing only one type of text: code of a particular language. Visual Studio is EXCELLENT at editing each type of text it supports, but it sucks something awful if you give it a new type and don't write plugins to handle it.

Part of my job is writing VS plugins which is certainly no fun because of the COM legacy. Future versions are getting more C#-ish, nice, managed extensibility APIs that will be closer to that of Eclipse.

Re: Of course MS Windows is better It has Visual Studio

#36

Post by snprbob86 »

On the subject of toolable languages, the Microsoft Languages teams do a faaaantastic job of making languages that are designed to be used with a proper IDE.

For example...

Generator expression in Python:

    (p.Name for p in people)
And in C#:

    from p in people select p.Name
Or:

    people.Select(p => p.Name)
Notice how in the C# version, the source comes before the projection. This enables code completion when you type "p."

The VB, C#, and F# teams work their asses off to make all those little things work so nice. These are things that even the most experienced developers might not notice, but they attribute to that confusing "this sucks" shock when VS users need to use VIM or Emacs.

Re: Of course MS Windows is better It has Visual Studio

#37

Post by scott_s »

Windows programming needs an IDE because Windows is not a programmer's OS. Unix was designed by programmers for programmers. Windows was designed for end-users.

The author got close to this distinction with the "Unix is my IDE" point, but didn't quite make the connection.

Re: Of course MS Windows is better It has Visual Studio

#38

Post by bokonist »

chandler wrote: post #12
trezor wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The article pretty much reveals that the author has never used a good IDE like Visual Studio for anything besides the obvious like adding new class-files, making some GUIs and then running a compile. I bet he didn't even customize the default layout, panels and toolbars. My list of top 3 features in Visual Studio, and I suspect most of them to be in Eclipse as well: 1) The built in debugger which can be invok…

Reading these posts about the "excellent, bug free" VS development environment: in my experience, this isn't quite the truth. I've used VS6 since the late 90's, mostly on small projects (less than ~10 000 lines, four or five source files) until 2004, where I signed up to work maintenance on what is essentially a very large codebase (thousands of source files, between 500-50 000 lines per file). In 2006, my frustratio…

Visual Studio 6 is a full three versions behind the current version ( VS 2008). I use Visual Studio 8 and have none of these problems. Complaining about a version of VS that came out 10 years ago is ridiculous.

Re: Of course MS Windows is better It has Visual Studio

#39

Post by qwph »

trezor wrote: post #11
axod wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can code java extremely well just using a text editor (Shock horror!) The idea you can't, or that you'll be less productive than an IDE user is just idiotic. What has the language got to do with anything? Yes, java is sometimes verbose, so? If most of your time is spent typing, you're doing it wrong IMHO, not matter how verbose the language.

The author suggested you should change not only the toolset you use, but also the languages. That makes it more than a light switch, and will probably interfere with getting work done. Since, you know, many companies have standards about which languages and platforms they stick to.

Firstly, learning more than one programming language will make you a better programmer.

Secondly, you are at liberty to write code in your free time, where you can experiment with whatever language/IDE/OS combinations you deem fit. I'd argue this will also make you a better programmer.

Re: Of course MS Windows is better It has Visual Studio

#40

Post by akeefer »

For anyone who's worked extensively in both worlds, I think it should be obvious that a great IDE is better than a just a text editor. Yes, Emacs and Vim are amazing tools, but no, I'd never go back to Emacs after having used IntelliJ IDEA. There are a lot of hardcore Unix guys that I work with and even the most stubborn Vi/Emacs fans have been converted; it's just that good. VS for C and C++ was never worth giving up Emacs for, in my opinion.

My perspective is that Java and C# have really amazing, helpful IDEs because the languages have really been designed with that sort of tooling in mind. You just can't have that same level of tooling support with dynamic typing; I've read arguments from people like Steve Yegge but I'll believe it when I see it.

So sure, Java is more verbose and the IDE is the only thing that makes it more tolerable. And yes, I'd rather use a text editor for Ruby or Python. But that's not because text editors are inherently better than IDEs, or that the IDE is only useful for Java because it helps you manage the verbosity; it's just because the IDEs for those other languages aren't that good yet, and it's unclear if they really can be that good.

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