[Info-vax] improving EDT

[David Froble]

Craig A. Berry wrote:
> On 11/17/16 4:43 PM, David Froble wrote:
>> Jan-Erik Soderholm wrote:
>>
>>> But, we are only talkning about giving (new) programmers
>>> on VMS a decent environment to work in. I do not understand
>>> why you drag clouds and all that stuff into the picture.
>>>
>>> I do not understand your post. Are you saying that editing code in
>>> EDT/TPU is "better" then editing code in one of todays popular IDE's?
>>
>> Ok, let me try explaining this way.
>>
>> Does any of these "new" "wizz-bang" methods have enough advantage for me
>> to forget using EDT, which I pretty much got down to "muscle memory",
>> and spend effort (don't know how much) learning something new?
>>
>> Key words are "enough advantage" ....
> 
> I resisted for some years the trend toward autocomplete, syntax
> highlighting, on-the-fly type checking, standardized formatting,
> applying the same edit to multiple lines at once, debugging within the
> editor, etc. It is pretty hard to learn this stuff when you learned the
> EDT keypad with your ABCs decades ago, but it's also hard to do without
> once you make the effort.
> 
> Example: when you type
> 
> %INCLUDE "XYZ.INC"
> 
> in one of your BASIC programs, what if the editor put a red squiggle
> under "XYZ.INC" if it couldn't find the file, letting you know
> immediately that you had a typo? You wouldn't have to wait until you try
> to compile it to see the problem. LSE was a step in the right direction,
> but still separated compilation from editing.
> 
> So then multiply that times a hundred because there are dozens of
> productivity boosters in a modern editor that the native VMS editors
> don't do. Whether this is "enough advantage" for you personally is
> something only you personally can determine. But marketing any system
> today without these capabilities would just be embarrassing.

Reasonable.

I've had many criticize me for not declaring all variables.  My response has 
been "that's the compiler's job, why should I do such work?".  Nothing different 
in having tools that attempt to do the grunt work for you.

I also do some Visual Basic work at times.  I'm not so sure that I like it when 
something that thinks it knows more of what I'm doing than I do causes 
interruptions.  For example, in the middle of typing something, I decide I need 
to look elsewhere.  The damn thing has to nag me about the incomplete verb or 
whatever, and it is an interruption in what I'm concentrating on, and actually a 
detriment rather than help.  Some might roll eyes at this, but for me it's not 
trivial.

I guess that what is helpful to some isn't necessarily helpful to others.