Suggestion for correcting the IDE's script editor

[Jon]

Mark:

Great post!

Jon


Mark Waddingham wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>I've been reading this thread this morning and it does seem to have
>become somewhat of a 'holy war' which I'm sure is not what anybody
>intended.
>
>I have used, and use on a daily basis, a myriad of IDEs - including the
>more recent ones mentioned by individuals involved in this thread. Most
>other language IDE's do not auto-format code, they just help to set the
>cursor at the correct point for you to type what you want, or move
>statements to the previous indent level that you had set implicitly by
>typing. Indeed, they generally all do this slightly differently and this
>can be a real headache when you use three distinct IDEs to do C++
>development and have to constantly switch between them.
>
>Looking at history, I think the reason for this is because most
>environments have not been bold enough to stand up and say "We think
>code should be formatted *this* way because it makes sense" - and indeed
>for other languages this is perfectly valid as most of them originated
>before the time of fancy editors (i.e. when you had to use a standard
>text-editor to do your scripting). The xTalk genre of languages is,
>however, slightly different in that auto-formatting in the strong sense
>was in the environments from the start. This means that many people have
>grown up accustomed to not having to worry about formatting when
>programming in the various flavours of xTalk.
>
>Now, to Bob and others of you who have come from other backgrounds (and
>I am one of those) then - yes - shifting environments can be a headache
>(and indeed immensely frustrating on occasion) at first. However, on
>this particular issue, I would ask you all to consider doing the
>following for a while: stop worrying about formatting - use tab to auto-
>format your handlers periodically and forget about it. I reckon after a
>couple of weeks of trying this, you'll fall into the xTalk way of
>formatting and never look back - I know I have.
>
>Now, to all of you who have been using Revolution and other similar
>tools for years: please do not forget that there is more than one to do
>things and there is a great deal of merit in both what has been proposed
>and in the way other environments work (this does not mean we will ever
>throw out the existing behaviour, but it is not unreasonable to give
>users the choice). A great deal of HCI research will have gone into
>every IDE that you see and we can either ignore it in our arrogance or
>learn from it to make Revolution the best tool it can be.
>
>To both parties (just to re-iterate) please do not fall into the habit
>of thinking that either:
>  1) Just because Revolution doesn't work the way another tool does,
>that Revolution is wrong.
>  2) Just because Revolution does something a different way from another
>tool, the other tool is wrong.
>Bugs aside, there will always be reasons why one feature works a way it
>does: regardless of what tool you are talking about.
>
>Finally, on bugs... Although it may appear as though we don't, we know
>the Script Editor has bugs - it needs an overhaul and we are actively
>looking into this. However, I think the general concensus is that once
>you have used it for a while it is a perfectly productive component that
>will serve you well most of the time. So, if you come across a specific
>reproducible issue then please do file it in Bugzilla, and similarly if
>you have an idea for how you think it can be made better please file it
>as an enhancement in Bugzilla.
>
>Warmest Regards,
>
>Mark Waddinghham
>Chief Technical Officer.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------
> Mark Waddingham ~ 36degrees at runrev.com ~ http://www.runrev.com
>       Runtime Revolution ~ User-Centric Development Tools
>
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