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C++ tooling is fairly abysmal. Partly because the language is so darn complex and full of warts. You basically need to implement most of a compiler to get meani

C++ tooling is fairly abysmal. Partly because the language is so darn complex and full of warts. You basically need to implement most of a compiler to get meaningful IDE features. Point being, a higher price point for a C++ IDE makes a lot of sense.

conistonwater 9y ago
C++ has libclang, which is "most of a compiler" and pretty good, so if you can plug libclang into your editor, which most editors like emacs can do, then it's pretty close to an IDE.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  The reasoning I've heard why an IDE doesn't do that (as opposed to a beefed-up text editor) is that an IDE needs to continue parsing and analyzing even in the face of an error in your source code. Because, presumably, you still want features like "jump to the definition of FoobarClient" to work even if you've misspelled something in a header included indirectly by FoobarClient.h. Compilers generally stop after the first set of errors in the first compilation unit. IDE indexers want to keep going as much as possible.
kllrnohj 9y ago
> a higher price point for a C++ IDE makes a lot of sense. Except Eclipse does C++ better than CLion and it's $250 cheaper. The only real advantage JetBrains has here is consistency with their other products, but then they ruined that by putting it in its own standalone product. So you can't have, say, a Python/Java/Kotlin project with a C++ extension library in a single IDE window, at least not if you're invested in JetBrains technology. Whereas that would work fine in vscode, Eclipse, Atom-IDE probably once it gets a C++ language server plugin which LLVM is working on, etc... Competition is good. IntelliJ is far from complete. That's really all I'm getting at. IntelliJ is not the pinacle, superior end-all-be-all IDE that some were saying here. It maybe is if you're in their primary supported set of languages. But it's not if you're at all on the fringes of what JetBrains supports (not that I'd necessarily call C++ a "fringe", either, but whatever)
- humanrebar 9y ago
  The Eclipse indexer seems better. The CLion search tools and non-C++ features (integrated DB utilities, OOP-style refactoring tools, etc.) are certainly better.

conistonwater 9y ago

C++ has libclang, which is "most of a compiler" and pretty good, so if you can plug libclang into your editor, which most editors like emacs can do, then it's pretty close to an IDE.

humanrebar 9y ago
The reasoning I've heard why an IDE doesn't do that (as opposed to a beefed-up text editor) is that an IDE needs to continue parsing and analyzing even in the face of an error in your source code. Because, presumably, you still want features like "jump to the definition of FoobarClient" to work even if you've misspelled something in a header included indirectly by FoobarClient.h. Compilers generally stop after the first set of errors in the first compilation unit. IDE indexers want to keep going as much as possible.

kllrnohj 9y ago

> a higher price point for a C++ IDE makes a lot of sense. Except Eclipse does C++ better than CLion and it's $250 cheaper. The only real advantage JetBrains has here is consistency with their other products, but then they ruined that by putting it in its own standalone product. So you can't have, say, a Python/Java/Kotlin project with a C++ extension library in a single IDE window, at least not if you're invested in JetBrains technology. Whereas that would work fine in vscode, Eclipse, Atom-IDE probably once it gets a C++ language server plugin which LLVM is working on, etc... Competition is good. IntelliJ is far from complete. That's really all I'm getting at. IntelliJ is not the pinacle, superior end-all-be-all IDE that some were saying here. It maybe is if you're in their primary supported set of languages. But it's not if you're at all on the fringes of what JetBrains supports (not that I'd necessarily call C++ a "fringe", either, but whatever)

humanrebar 9y ago
The Eclipse indexer seems better. The CLion search tools and non-C++ features (integrated DB utilities, OOP-style refactoring tools, etc.) are certainly better.