4 ms·

It might sound like an abomination, but Visual Studio is apart from obv. being excellent in C++/C# also a very pleasant IDE for Javascript, Python or even PHP!

by kayoone 14y ago

It might sound like an abomination, but Visual Studio is apart from obv. being excellent in C++/C# also a very pleasant IDE for Javascript, Python or even PHP! In fact i have been an "texteditor-only" type in the past, but coding C# in Visual Studio has really been a revelation for me.

marijn 14y ago
I know. I was blown away by VS when I was researching what others were doing in this space. Their approach is also very clever -- there's an interesting talk about it at http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2012/DEV308 http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2012/DEV...
- gruseom 14y ago
  Care to mention what you found clever in their approach?
  - marijn 14y ago
    They basically run the scripts, instrumenting their Chakra JS engine to automatically abort overlong loops and overdeep recursion, and preventing all side effects outside of the DOM/JS runtime. And then use the actual types that occur in this run to do the completion. Plus, I guess, some added tricks that the talk doesn't go into, but which are necessary to make sure execution actually reaches the part of the program where you are trying to complete something.
    - aerique 14y ago
      Does it ever get the types wrong? Just curious, I assume one wouldn't want to see the kind of code where VS gets the types wrong.
      - marijn 14y ago
        I was able to create situations where it failed to find any type for a variable, and when you have variables that may contain multiple types it appears to only find one type, but I wasn't able to make it report any actually wrong types. (But I haven't used it very much.)
    - bsimpson 14y ago
      Interesting. I wonder what they do to prevent side-effects. Perhaps it just knows to avoid any call that hits network or filesystem.
gngeal 14y ago
"In fact i have been an "texteditor-only" type in the past, but coding C# in Visual Studio has really been a revelation for me." The fact that application X is "just a text editor" is not a justification for X having poor editing functions. In fact, you'd expect a specialized text editor to have better editing functions that an IDE, since an IDE can have other selling points, such as an integrated build system, a version manager, a profiler or a debugger, whereas an editor can only impress you solely by its usability for...well, editing.
- kayoone 14y ago
  Yep you are right, i meant this more in a way of working style. In the past i thought its the best approach to only use a text editor and do everything by hand, know your Code, work like a pro etc. But just simple things in VS like "Jump to Definition" or "Find Usages" combined with powerful IntelliSense and Refactoring functions is such a joy to use. I didnt even talk about the debugging tools, but well i am an IDE guy now, at least for large projects.

by kayoone 14y ago

marijn 14y ago

I know. I was blown away by VS when I was researching what others were doing in this space. Their approach is also very clever -- there's an interesting talk about it at http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2012/DEV308 http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2012/DEV...

gruseom 14y ago
Care to mention what you found clever in their approach?
- marijn 14y ago
  They basically run the scripts, instrumenting their Chakra JS engine to automatically abort overlong loops and overdeep recursion, and preventing all side effects outside of the DOM/JS runtime. And then use the actual types that occur in this run to do the completion. Plus, I guess, some added tricks that the talk doesn't go into, but which are necessary to make sure execution actually reaches the part of the program where you are trying to complete something.
  - aerique 14y ago
    Does it ever get the types wrong? Just curious, I assume one wouldn't want to see the kind of code where VS gets the types wrong.
    - marijn 14y ago
      I was able to create situations where it failed to find any type for a variable, and when you have variables that may contain multiple types it appears to only find one type, but I wasn't able to make it report any actually wrong types. (But I haven't used it very much.)
  - bsimpson 14y ago
    Interesting. I wonder what they do to prevent side-effects. Perhaps it just knows to avoid any call that hits network or filesystem.

gngeal 14y ago

"In fact i have been an "texteditor-only" type in the past, but coding C# in Visual Studio has really been a revelation for me." The fact that application X is "just a text editor" is not a justification for X having poor editing functions. In fact, you'd expect a specialized text editor to have better editing functions that an IDE, since an IDE can have other selling points, such as an integrated build system, a version manager, a profiler or a debugger, whereas an editor can only impress you solely by its usability for...well, editing.

kayoone 14y ago
Yep you are right, i meant this more in a way of working style. In the past i thought its the best approach to only use a text editor and do everything by hand, know your Code, work like a pro etc. But just simple things in VS like "Jump to Definition" or "Find Usages" combined with powerful IntelliSense and Refactoring functions is such a joy to use. I didnt even talk about the debugging tools, but well i am an IDE guy now, at least for large projects.