4 ms·

> a truly awesome IDE. That's a lot of hyperbole for a not so great IDE. It's even sluggish on my Mac - there are basic GUI functions, like resizing windows, w

by lispm 8y ago

> a truly awesome IDE. That's a lot of hyperbole for a not so great IDE. It's even sluggish on my Mac - there are basic GUI functions, like resizing windows, which are poorly implemented (run something in a loop, then the UI stops responding properly). There is a huge amount of UI glitches. For example start DrRacket, click on the green button in the window bar to enlarge the window. Instead of smoothly expanding, it jumps to full screen. When we again click into the green button, a strange animation happens with some window drawings in the upper left screen area... There is lots of that... It's also from the past. The last time I want to see the amount of RAM something uses or how much GC activity there is, was in the end 80s. The UI also does not 'awesome'...

neilv 8y ago
DrRacket is a pedagogic IDE, originally intended to be simple for new students and non-majors. Some people like DrRacket for real development work. I'm an Emacs person, but I use DrRacket when I want to use the Macro Stepper, or see how the arrows work in my syntax extension, or use the renaming feature, or put each process of a client/server system in a separate IDE that fits in one window. I find I also fire up DrRacket when I want to very quickly make a running code example for someone, since it it somehow seems easier to iterate than Emacs sometimes. I prefer Emacs for the bulk of code I write, though. P.S., Thank goodness programming students are still being shown things like RAM usage (DrRacket can enforce limits) and that GC is happening. :)
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- lispm 8y ago
  > DrRacket is a pedagogic IDE, originally intended to be simple for new students and non-majors. I know that. But it's far from being generally 'awesome', when the look & feel is actually below average. > P.S., Thank goodness programming students are still being shown things like RAM usage (DrRacket can enforce limits) and that GC is happening. :) GC happens. Then students see it all the time and start to worry. No of the current IDEs I can remember still show GC activity in the GUI. I would also not know why I need a constant updating view of program memory size.
  - neilv 8y ago
    I won't blame someone for preferences and enthusiasm. :) IMHO, at some point in a student's programming education, I'd definitely want them to be aware of program size and GC. But I couldn't say exactly when they need to start seeing it, and when it's OK if they don't see it. Of course, the professors are the ones with all the teaching experience, and one can always ask them on `racket-users`.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - neilv 8y ago
      https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/racket-users https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/racket-users (`racket-users` is where most of the action in Racket is, and the community members, including the core developers, actively answer&discuss questions. The other venues are mostly outposts for discovering Racket.)
mruts 8y ago
Maybe if you've used Zmacs it's not the greatest, but I think it's very good. Easy to use debugger, macro stepper, and a package visualizer. For the record, I've only used Emacs when programming Racket professionally, but from my experience playing around with things. the IDE is quite nice.
- lispm 8y ago
  Have you used Zmacs? What was better than the Racket IDE?
  - mruts 8y ago
    I've tried OpenGenera through the Linux emulator, and tried opening up Zmacs a couple of times. Seems pretty much like Emacs, but instead of being able to seamlessly introspect Elisp, you can do it with the entire OS. Pretty cool to be able to bring up the source and make edits to the entire system. Seems like a dead evolutionary branch of computing, that was (probably?) better than what we have now.
    - lispm 8y ago
      Zmacs is basically an editor, but not an IDE. The IDE tools are not part of Zmacs. Listener, Debugger, Window Debugger, Step, Trace, Profiler, Window designer, Flavor examiner, inspector, UI inspector, Documentation browser, ... But one gets most of that and some more from Allegro CL and LispWorks.
      - mruts 8y ago
        The distinction seems kind of moot when you’re talking about Genera. The concept of a seperate app seems trivial/non-existant when everything is running in the same address space.
        lispm 8y ago
        > The concept of a seperate app seems trivial/non-existant when everything is running in the same address space. It just looks different inside. Genera is an object-oriented system. Whether objects run in different memory-spaces or in the same makes no difference, for whether it is an Application or not. Each App in Genera is called an 'Activity'. It has its own UI (which is not Zmacs-based), it has it's own processes, its own toplevel and its own objects. Zmacs is just ONE of dozens of applications in stock Genera and it is not the IDE. The Genera IDE consists of many different applications working together and a shared object space.

by lispm 8y ago

neilv 8y ago

DrRacket is a pedagogic IDE, originally intended to be simple for new students and non-majors. Some people like DrRacket for real development work. I'm an Emacs person, but I use DrRacket when I want to use the Macro Stepper, or see how the arrows work in my syntax extension, or use the renaming feature, or put each process of a client/server system in a separate IDE that fits in one window. I find I also fire up DrRacket when I want to very quickly make a running code example for someone, since it it somehow seems easier to iterate than Emacs sometimes. I prefer Emacs for the bulk of code I write, though. P.S., Thank goodness programming students are still being shown things like RAM usage (DrRacket can enforce limits) and that GC is happening. :)

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
lispm 8y ago
> DrRacket is a pedagogic IDE, originally intended to be simple for new students and non-majors. I know that. But it's far from being generally 'awesome', when the look & feel is actually below average. > P.S., Thank goodness programming students are still being shown things like RAM usage (DrRacket can enforce limits) and that GC is happening. :) GC happens. Then students see it all the time and start to worry. No of the current IDEs I can remember still show GC activity in the GUI. I would also not know why I need a constant updating view of program memory size.
- neilv 8y ago
  I won't blame someone for preferences and enthusiasm. :) IMHO, at some point in a student's programming education, I'd definitely want them to be aware of program size and GC. But I couldn't say exactly when they need to start seeing it, and when it's OK if they don't see it. Of course, the professors are the ones with all the teaching experience, and one can always ask them on `racket-users`.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - neilv 8y ago
    https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/racket-users https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/racket-users (`racket-users` is where most of the action in Racket is, and the community members, including the core developers, actively answer&discuss questions. The other venues are mostly outposts for discovering Racket.)

mruts 8y ago

Maybe if you've used Zmacs it's not the greatest, but I think it's very good. Easy to use debugger, macro stepper, and a package visualizer. For the record, I've only used Emacs when programming Racket professionally, but from my experience playing around with things. the IDE is quite nice.

lispm 8y ago
Have you used Zmacs? What was better than the Racket IDE?
- mruts 8y ago
  I've tried OpenGenera through the Linux emulator, and tried opening up Zmacs a couple of times. Seems pretty much like Emacs, but instead of being able to seamlessly introspect Elisp, you can do it with the entire OS. Pretty cool to be able to bring up the source and make edits to the entire system. Seems like a dead evolutionary branch of computing, that was (probably?) better than what we have now.
  - lispm 8y ago
    Zmacs is basically an editor, but not an IDE. The IDE tools are not part of Zmacs. Listener, Debugger, Window Debugger, Step, Trace, Profiler, Window designer, Flavor examiner, inspector, UI inspector, Documentation browser, ... But one gets most of that and some more from Allegro CL and LispWorks.
    - mruts 8y ago
      The distinction seems kind of moot when you’re talking about Genera. The concept of a seperate app seems trivial/non-existant when everything is running in the same address space.
      - lispm 8y ago
        > The concept of a seperate app seems trivial/non-existant when everything is running in the same address space. It just looks different inside. Genera is an object-oriented system. Whether objects run in different memory-spaces or in the same makes no difference, for whether it is an Application or not. Each App in Genera is called an 'Activity'. It has its own UI (which is not Zmacs-based), it has it's own processes, its own toplevel and its own objects. Zmacs is just ONE of dozens of applications in stock Genera and it is not the IDE. The Genera IDE consists of many different applications working together and a shared object space.