5 ms·

Code faster with Intellij IDEA live templates

52 points by javinpaul 13y ago

Cieplak 13y ago
I use Intellij to write python and love live templates. For instance, I've set ipdb<tab> to expand to import ipdb; ipdb.set_trace(), which seems small but has probably saved me so much time. It's really a win for programming in Java, because it automates the boilerplate. There's similar functionality in other editors too, such as YASnippet https://github.com/capitaomorte/yasnippet https://github.com/capitaomorte/yasnippet
- akx 13y ago
  Similarly, I have `ni` (yes, blatant Monty Python reference) in PyCharm expand to `raise NotImplementedError("%file% %line%")`, for an ad-hoc web app breakpoint.
- mahmoudimus 13y ago
  IntelliJ for development (alongside its plugins like RubyMine/PyCharm) is my most recommended way for anyone who starts to get up to speed and be productive quickly.
nusbit 13y ago
Does anybody know another resources about live-templates ( some advanced ) ?
- sghill 13y ago
  I found the IntelliJ docs[1] handy for discovering predetermined variables like $END$ and $SELECTION$. [1]: http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/webhelp/live-templates.html http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/webhelp/live-templates.html
  - kremlin 13y ago
    Yes, setting up variables in the live templates is just...so BEAUTIFUL! You can create default values and tab through them, changing them as needed. Don't know what I'd do without PyCharm.
noir_lord 13y ago
This works really well for php on phpstorm as well (when working with bootstrap and knockout.js it's very handy). What I would love (and if it can do it I've not found it) is to be able to do something like koo(fooBar)<TAB> and get something like self.fooBar == ko.observable(""); would be amazing!.
- makepanic 13y ago
  You can create live templates yourself in intellij: Settings -> Editor -> Live Templates -> JavaScript And add the live template for abbreviation 'koo' and template text like: self.$VAR$ == ko.observable("") See http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/webhelp/live-templates.html http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/webhelp/live-templates.html for more information.
  - noir_lord 13y ago
    I already do that. That though inserts the template and lets you tab through it. What I'm suggesting is to pass fooBar before you expand the template so that you don't need to tab through it (similar to how zen-coding does id's and classes on html) i.e. func(returnFoo,$foo,$bar,$fizz,$buzz)<TAB> becomes without having to tab through. public function returnFoo($foo, $bar, $fizz, $buzz) { }
    - IanCal 13y ago
      If you use vim you can use https://github.com/SirVer/ultisnips https://github.com/SirVer/ultisnips and write python code to generate the output.
      - noir_lord 13y ago
        That looks awesome. Embarrassingly for someone who has been a Linux user for more than 15 years I'm terrible with Vim (I can just about use it systems administration (though I often just use nano)) and use IDE's for most things.
- 13y ago
Cthulhu_ 13y ago
Could also be a subtle hint that the language in question (Java, Maven/XML) are too verbose. I mean, for dependencies and the like there's alternatives (for Java & co) in Gradle and SBT, or the very simple NPM and Bower formats; for build tools, see the same (and Grunt). There's no real benefit (anymore) to use XML for that kind of configuration. Same with Java. Functional programming makes for much more expressive iteration than the iterator / for-loop pattern does, and it's much less verbose (think list.map(doSomething)).
- mortyseinfeld 13y ago
  It's useful for any language/framework, whether it's verbose or not. The benefits of functional languages tend to not be as great as they could be because the tooling sucks (or kind of sucks). Look at Scala. The IDEs sucked for years. That's changed recently, but it was a big problem for adoption. F# is similar. Although support is baked into Visual Studio these days, the IDE support is spartan to say the least compared to C# with resharper. There seems to be a class of developers that have a hard time understanding the enormous productivity boosts that good tooling provides.
  - mateuszf 13y ago
    I've heard that Clojure support is good in most popular IDEs/editors.
- reeses 13y ago
  In general, macros, templates, and patterns are an "almost" discovery that a user needs a language (task, whatever) to have another level of abstraction or factorization for the activity at hand. For example, the visitor pattern is easily eliminated by dispatching on multiple arguments or with a monad. The template provides that common, low-level, way of communicating to other developers in that the resulting code is consistently formatted and is native java/c/etc.. It's a pain in the ass to deal with constructs such as conventional iterative loops, exception handling boilerplate, braces/whitespace/etc., or massively redundant structures such as XML, as a regular programmer. My favorite example of a level of 'retardation' in a language is pattern matching. I can either write a painful if/then/else/else/else/else/else/default/end tree or I can write something like the following. f(0) → 0. f(1) → 1. f(<binary:01001001010101011101010><x as binary>) → x as number. f(x > 10) → 1. Of course, this can be expressed in a number of ways. Table? Spreadsheet? Domain mapping with pretty lines? I think we're losing information on a lot of the footpaths we should be paving by not having feedback into the use of various macros, templates, and patterns in the world.
blameless 13y ago
I've been using these for years in Visual Studio. My most commonly used one is "prop" which generates an automatic property in C#: "public string Name { get; set; }". I type "prop", then hit tab, string is selected and I can change it to any type I want, hit tab again, I can now change the name of the property, hit enter and I'm done Takes 1.5 seconds.
- afsina 13y ago
  Idea had this back in 2001.
Roboprog 13y ago
I still don't know what a monad is, but I agree with the "pure" functional programming crowd that this kind of boiler plate generation is expletive retarded. If your language isn't Lisp and cannot make macros to sub in the variable bits in an otherwise redundant template pattern, you might have some other options, though. For those of us condemned to industrial, "enterprise" languages, you might try using a DSL or (build-time!) code generator, rather than cluttering up your source code with editor generated crap.
ChronosKey 13y ago
For vim users: https://github.com/garbas/vim-snipmate https://github.com/garbas/vim-snipmate

52 points by javinpaul 13y ago

I use Intellij to write python and love live templates. For instance, I've set ipdb<tab> to expand to import ipdb; ipdb.set_trace(), which seems small but has probably saved me so much time. It's really a win for programming in Java, because it automates the boilerplate. There's similar functionality in other editors too, such as YASnippet https://github.com/capitaomorte/yasnippet https://github.com/capitaomorte/yasnippet

akx 13y ago
Similarly, I have `ni` (yes, blatant Monty Python reference) in PyCharm expand to `raise NotImplementedError("%file% %line%")`, for an ad-hoc web app breakpoint.
mahmoudimus 13y ago
IntelliJ for development (alongside its plugins like RubyMine/PyCharm) is my most recommended way for anyone who starts to get up to speed and be productive quickly.

nusbit 13y ago

Does anybody know another resources about live-templates ( some advanced ) ?

sghill 13y ago
I found the IntelliJ docs[1] handy for discovering predetermined variables like $END$ and $SELECTION$. [1]: http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/webhelp/live-templates.html http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/webhelp/live-templates.html
- kremlin 13y ago
  Yes, setting up variables in the live templates is just...so BEAUTIFUL! You can create default values and tab through them, changing them as needed. Don't know what I'd do without PyCharm.

noir_lord 13y ago

This works really well for php on phpstorm as well (when working with bootstrap and knockout.js it's very handy). What I would love (and if it can do it I've not found it) is to be able to do something like koo(fooBar)<TAB> and get something like self.fooBar == ko.observable(""); would be amazing!.

makepanic 13y ago
You can create live templates yourself in intellij: Settings -> Editor -> Live Templates -> JavaScript And add the live template for abbreviation 'koo' and template text like: self.$VAR$ == ko.observable("") See http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/webhelp/live-templates.html http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/webhelp/live-templates.html for more information.
- noir_lord 13y ago
  I already do that. That though inserts the template and lets you tab through it. What I'm suggesting is to pass fooBar before you expand the template so that you don't need to tab through it (similar to how zen-coding does id's and classes on html) i.e. func(returnFoo,$foo,$bar,$fizz,$buzz)<TAB> becomes without having to tab through. public function returnFoo($foo, $bar, $fizz, $buzz) { }
  - IanCal 13y ago
    If you use vim you can use https://github.com/SirVer/ultisnips https://github.com/SirVer/ultisnips and write python code to generate the output.
    - noir_lord 13y ago
      That looks awesome. Embarrassingly for someone who has been a Linux user for more than 15 years I'm terrible with Vim (I can just about use it systems administration (though I often just use nano)) and use IDE's for most things.
13y ago

Cthulhu_ 13y ago

Could also be a subtle hint that the language in question (Java, Maven/XML) are too verbose. I mean, for dependencies and the like there's alternatives (for Java & co) in Gradle and SBT, or the very simple NPM and Bower formats; for build tools, see the same (and Grunt). There's no real benefit (anymore) to use XML for that kind of configuration. Same with Java. Functional programming makes for much more expressive iteration than the iterator / for-loop pattern does, and it's much less verbose (think list.map(doSomething)).

mortyseinfeld 13y ago
It's useful for any language/framework, whether it's verbose or not. The benefits of functional languages tend to not be as great as they could be because the tooling sucks (or kind of sucks). Look at Scala. The IDEs sucked for years. That's changed recently, but it was a big problem for adoption. F# is similar. Although support is baked into Visual Studio these days, the IDE support is spartan to say the least compared to C# with resharper. There seems to be a class of developers that have a hard time understanding the enormous productivity boosts that good tooling provides.
- mateuszf 13y ago
  I've heard that Clojure support is good in most popular IDEs/editors.
reeses 13y ago
In general, macros, templates, and patterns are an "almost" discovery that a user needs a language (task, whatever) to have another level of abstraction or factorization for the activity at hand. For example, the visitor pattern is easily eliminated by dispatching on multiple arguments or with a monad. The template provides that common, low-level, way of communicating to other developers in that the resulting code is consistently formatted and is native java/c/etc.. It's a pain in the ass to deal with constructs such as conventional iterative loops, exception handling boilerplate, braces/whitespace/etc., or massively redundant structures such as XML, as a regular programmer. My favorite example of a level of 'retardation' in a language is pattern matching. I can either write a painful if/then/else/else/else/else/else/default/end tree or I can write something like the following. f(0) → 0. f(1) → 1. f(<binary:01001001010101011101010><x as binary>) → x as number. f(x > 10) → 1. Of course, this can be expressed in a number of ways. Table? Spreadsheet? Domain mapping with pretty lines? I think we're losing information on a lot of the footpaths we should be paving by not having feedback into the use of various macros, templates, and patterns in the world.

blameless 13y ago

I've been using these for years in Visual Studio. My most commonly used one is "prop" which generates an automatic property in C#: "public string Name { get; set; }". I type "prop", then hit tab, string is selected and I can change it to any type I want, hit tab again, I can now change the name of the property, hit enter and I'm done Takes 1.5 seconds.

afsina 13y ago
Idea had this back in 2001.

Roboprog 13y ago

I still don't know what a monad is, but I agree with the "pure" functional programming crowd that this kind of boiler plate generation is expletive retarded. If your language isn't Lisp and cannot make macros to sub in the variable bits in an otherwise redundant template pattern, you might have some other options, though. For those of us condemned to industrial, "enterprise" languages, you might try using a DSL or (build-time!) code generator, rather than cluttering up your source code with editor generated crap.

ChronosKey 13y ago

For vim users: https://github.com/garbas/vim-snipmate https://github.com/garbas/vim-snipmate