Correct syntax highlighting. (Ie, based on proper parsing and semantic analysis, not simple regex matching of keywords). Autocompletion. Go-to definition. Automatic, configurable code styling (i.e. AStyle). Visual debugging support (Click for breakpoints, step through code, watch variables/memory etc).
Ask HN: What is the must have feature of your IDE
21–30 of 71 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is the must have feature of your IDE
#22Insane-fast code completion, jump to definition, bracket/brace/quote/tag auto-closing. Just the boring usual things :)
Re: Ask HN: What is the must have feature of your IDE
#23Codejump, auto-complete, pop-up docs, error highlighting, debugger, some refactoring.
Re: Ask HN: What is the must have feature of your IDE
#24Discoverability. I want to be able to download a library (through whatever means), and then figure out how to use it from within my code. I want to be able to type the name of a class, object, namespace, whatever the language has for that, that corresponds to the name of said library and then just play with it. I want docs for every method and class (or function, object, whatever) that I enter, in a tooltip, at my fi…
Oh gosh, I agree so very very much. Sadly, for the dynamic languages I program in most, few IDEs handle this correctly. Komodo is the closest, and even it chokes on some more advanced stuff (like IoC containers and the like, though i can get around it with annotations in the comments).
Edit: oh by the way, SublimeCodeIntel? It's a port of Komodo's CodeIntel library. I switched to Sublime entirely for a while, but bit the bullet and bought a license for Komodo IDE and use Textadept for smaller projects and quick edits (it's a nice Lua-extensible editor, with an awesome ncurses front end to run in the terminal/over SSH)
Re: Ask HN: What is the must have feature of your IDE
#25Quality debugger integration and easy navigation in code.
Re: Ask HN: What is the must have feature of your IDE
#261. Refactoring. Mostly needed:
- project wide renaming of functions, classes, ... inside the main editor (not through a "Refactoring dialog")
- "extract method" at the press of a hotkey
3. Automatic organization of imports. I don't want to have to lookup and type package names.
4. Everything needs to work without a mouse
Re: Ask HN: What is the must have feature of your IDE
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
WEll you could check out "Practical Vim" i found it tremendously helpful
Yeah, "learn to use vim properly" has been on my TODO list for about 15 years now. It's probably time I did something about it.
This Vim game helped me more than anything I'd seen in ~5 years: http://vim-adventures.com
Re: Ask HN: What is the must have feature of your IDE
#28cannot live without (from VS):
- syntax highlighting obviously
- THIS IS BIG: open IDE with unlimited number of instances. I forgot which IDE annoyed me on this one... IntelliJ?
- reference lookup
- intellisense
- code (unit test) coverage map, unit test project integration
- ability to make my own extension, add-on, macros, etc
- SCM integration, detect file change and indicates which files have been changed in source panel.
- code map
...
want but have not encountered: - source panel file structure that allow me to open files in different apps of my choice. detects file type. - simple, un-confusing, customizable UI - all shortcuts need to be customizable ...
Re: Ask HN: What is the must have feature of your IDE
#29Well, mine is Emacs. > What are the features of your IDE that you think separate it from the rest? What can you not live with out. Extensibility. I can live without any other built-in features, because I can always write them myself in short order. Imagine a programming language in which you can't write your own functions. You wouldn't want to use that, would you?
> Imagine a programming language in which you can't write your own functions. You wouldn't want to use that, would you?
I think I'm going to be quoting that for quite a while to come. I'm a fellow Emacs user, and I think that perfectly sums up why I use it.
Re: Ask HN: What is the must have feature of your IDE
#30This comment only on the first question:
Ability to reverse engineer the program flow and provide a sequence diagram based on a run. THis should have the ability to specify a filter so unnecessary noise/well understood parts of the program flow can be skipped