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do intellij have their priorities straight? they don't have plugin support for c or c++, but they're throwing money at developing a new language? what happene

do intellij have their priorities straight? they don't have plugin support for c or c++, but they're throwing money at developing a new language? what happened to "do one thing well"?

jshen 14y ago
I'm going to guess they believe that kotlin will payoff when they start using it to develop parts of IntelliJ
cageface 14y ago
C++ is a nightmare language for tools developers, and is in slow decline anyway. Java and the JVM ecosystem is still the biggest market out there and none of the current alternative JVM languages has really nailed the complexity/usability tradeoffs. There's a lot of opportunity here and Jetbrains' experience building tools gives them a unique vantage point.
- norswap 14y ago
  "C++ ... is in slow decline anyway." Reference needed. It is very much alive for certain types of software, e.g. video games.
  - dagw 14y ago
    Decline doesn't meaning dying. While there is a large amount of software that will continue to be written in C++ for years to come, there is also a large class of software that 10 years ago would have automatically been written in C++, but today is just as likely to be written in something CLR or JVM based, or even a dynamic language like python/ruby/javascript. I also wouldn't be surprised to see languages like Go or Haskell continue making inroads into areas that have traditionally been the domain of C++. And even in video games C++ is being used in fewer parts of the codebase as more and more code is being shifted to embedded scripting languages like lua.
- andrewcooke 14y ago
  ["nightmare" - all the more reason to use a good ide, then...] they are the first and third most popular languages, according to tiobe - http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.... even if that is somewhat wrong - say, that they are actually second and fourth - it's still incredible that the best / most popular commercial ide (i buy and use each release) doesn't support them. http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-86304 http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-86304
  - cageface 14y ago
    I don't buy the TIOBE numbers. But actually their AppCode IDE supports plain C quite well and C++ before the new standard and they say they intend to improve their C++11 support. Maybe this will eventually find its way into their other IDEs.
    - andrewcooke 14y ago
      ah, thanks - i will try appcode.
      - cageface 14y ago
        It might not be too useful to you unless you're doing iOS development but it does show that Jetbrains can implement decent C/C++ support if they think it's worth their time. However, I don't expect their C++ support to ever be as good as that of an IDE like XCode that actually embeds a real C++ compiler frontend (Clang) in the IDE. I think that's really the only way to deal with a language as pathologically complex as C++.

do intellij have their priorities straight? they don't have plugin support for c or c++, but they're throwing money at developing a new language? what happened to "do one thing well"?

jshen 14y ago

I'm going to guess they believe that kotlin will payoff when they start using it to develop parts of IntelliJ

cageface 14y ago

C++ is a nightmare language for tools developers, and is in slow decline anyway. Java and the JVM ecosystem is still the biggest market out there and none of the current alternative JVM languages has really nailed the complexity/usability tradeoffs. There's a lot of opportunity here and Jetbrains' experience building tools gives them a unique vantage point.

norswap 14y ago
"C++ ... is in slow decline anyway." Reference needed. It is very much alive for certain types of software, e.g. video games.
- dagw 14y ago
  Decline doesn't meaning dying. While there is a large amount of software that will continue to be written in C++ for years to come, there is also a large class of software that 10 years ago would have automatically been written in C++, but today is just as likely to be written in something CLR or JVM based, or even a dynamic language like python/ruby/javascript. I also wouldn't be surprised to see languages like Go or Haskell continue making inroads into areas that have traditionally been the domain of C++. And even in video games C++ is being used in fewer parts of the codebase as more and more code is being shifted to embedded scripting languages like lua.
andrewcooke 14y ago
["nightmare" - all the more reason to use a good ide, then...] they are the first and third most popular languages, according to tiobe - http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.... even if that is somewhat wrong - say, that they are actually second and fourth - it's still incredible that the best / most popular commercial ide (i buy and use each release) doesn't support them. http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-86304 http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-86304
- cageface 14y ago
  I don't buy the TIOBE numbers. But actually their AppCode IDE supports plain C quite well and C++ before the new standard and they say they intend to improve their C++11 support. Maybe this will eventually find its way into their other IDEs.
  - andrewcooke 14y ago
    ah, thanks - i will try appcode.
    - cageface 14y ago
      It might not be too useful to you unless you're doing iOS development but it does show that Jetbrains can implement decent C/C++ support if they think it's worth their time. However, I don't expect their C++ support to ever be as good as that of an IDE like XCode that actually embeds a real C++ compiler frontend (Clang) in the IDE. I think that's really the only way to deal with a language as pathologically complex as C++.