Little features won me over

Post #173,752 by bluke 9/12/04 10:22:58 AM Reply	Little features won me over Take a random example, System.arraycopy what are the parameters and their orders? I have no clue off the top of my head and Java as opposed to Smalltalk provides absolutely no help. There are a lot of methods like this that take multiple parameters in who knows what order. In my Xemacs days I had to go look at the Javadoc to see, now when I type in System. I get the autocompletion and when I select arraycopy I get the parameter list with the variable names. Another feature is auto-imports, ctrl-enter automatically imports the class. Of course there is real time syntax checking, we use Ant for building so this way I don't have to run a build to find out that I have a type or missed a semi-colon. These all seem like little things but in the course of a day add up. What is it about Emacs that makes it so productive for you? Intellij in fact offers an Emcas keymapping.
Post #173,764 by admin 9/12/04 12:06:34 PM Reply	Re: Little features won me over I still look in the JavaDocs. On a typical day I may hit the JavaDocs 3 or 4 times. Big deal. If I could be arsed to look it up, there's a keystroke that would take me to the function definition in the browser. Autoimports: meh. There are any number of tools that can rationalize imports. In the end, its not enough to get me to switch. Syntax checking: highlighting is sufficient for my needs. All emacs keymappings suck. Why? Because without exception they only extend to editor itself. Emacs is productive because everything in the editor uses the keymapping. The shell, the directory browser, the compiler output... everything. Emacs is much more integrated than any so-called IDE, because everything is a buffer and they all act the same way. I can run a macro that iterates a list of files in a directory (or subdirectories for that matter), performing a series of operations on each one, without every leaving emacs. In the end the sum of this approach is much more valuable than any collection of little features (most of which I have anyway, and just don't use). Example: what do you need to do in IntelliJ to edit files that can only be accessed by FTP? Or how about viewing or editing files in a .jar contained in a .war contained in a .ear? How about running a macro across, say, all of the .tld files in a nested jar? Emacs does all of this transparently. And lets go one step further. Emacs has the same sort of features available for Perl, SQL, C, shell script, you name it. All of which I use on a daily basis. Switching to the SQL IDE or the C++ IDE or whatever is a productivity killer when emacs treats them all the same. Regards, -scott anderson "Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
Post #173,768 by bluke 9/12/04 12:14:28 PM Reply	I am only doing Java now If I had to do other languages as well I might think differently. For Java I find that Intellij provides a very good set of features that are all easily accessible both by keystrokes and the mouse. I have not run into any of the situations that you mentioned. I am doing hard core Java development, Here Intellij shines.
Post #173,771 by admin 9/12/04 12:17:32 PM Reply	Re: I am only doing Java now You've never needed to browse a .jar? Odd, I do that all the time. But yes, a specialized tool will usually outshine a general-purpose tool. Except for that bit about consistency that I mentioned. And since emacs has most of the "features" that the visual IDEs have... Regards, -scott anderson "Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
Post #173,773 by bluke 9/12/04 12:27:28 PM 9/12/04 12:28:50 PM Reply	I do browse jars ... Intellij allows you to browse any jar in your classpath and will decompile the class file and show you all the methods. Netbeans has a similar feature, I would guess that Eclipse probably has it as well. In truth, I find Intellij much better then both Eclipse and Netbeans. Edited by bluke Sept. 12, 2004, 12:28:50 PM EDT Expand All History
Post #173,774 by admin 9/12/04 12:29:37 PM Reply	How about embedded ones? Sounds like they might be finally starting to catch up, then. ;-) Emacs does .arj, .tar, .tgz, and .gz as well... ;-) Regards, -scott anderson "Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
Post #173,778 by Another Scott 9/12/04 12:50:20 PM Reply	ICLRPD (new thread) Created as new thread #173777 titled [link\|/forums/render/content/show?contentid=173777\|ICLRPD]

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