Python heaven...

[me at mattgillen.net (Matthew Gillen)]

Stephen Adler wrote:
> I've been a gnu-emacs coder for decades... Mainly, I code using
> gnu-emacs as my IDE writing lots of Java and C++ code. But today harolds
> in a new era... I took all day yesterday to setup a debugging system to
> debug python code, (eclipse + pydev) and I'm quite amazed at how much
> I've been missing from the IDE world. It's sort of the same effect I
> felt when I first started using spread sheets about a year ago. (Yup,
> I'm an old dog who hates to learn new tricks...)

If you liked spreadsheets, start playing with R (http://www.r-project.org/).
 The learning curve is a little steep, but it's better than spreadsheets in
many ways.  For one, it's scriptable, so you can run experiments and analyze
the results in one step (supposing your experiment is scriptable).  For
another, it's got better built-in graphing than any spreadsheet program I've
seen.  They have a gallery of crazy graphs people have made with it:
http://addictedtor.free.fr/graphiques/

But enough of that tangent...

> How many BLU'ers use IDE's like eclipse or just keep hacking code with
> emacs, (or vi?) issuing make commands in a separate terminal window or
> with the emacs internal compile command? I'm just wondering just how
> behind the times I am...

My day job is mostly C++ coding, and I've tried several times to switch to
Eclipse and Kdevelop.  Kdevelop is starting to win me over.  But I can't
quite give in wholesale, because I can do anything I want with emacs with
out taking my hands off the keyboard.  Eclipse and Kdevelop both irritate me
w.r.t. keeping my hands on the keyboard, because switching window focus
between say, the editor window and the compile errors is a pain.

I'm sure it's just that I've customized emacs and tuned my behaviors to
avoid it's annoyances, but I have yet to see the potential for real
productivity-boosting that would make the temporary loss of productivity for
the learning curve worth it.  The boilerplate code generation for creating a
"New Class" is the one thing that I never quite finished my emacs macro for,
and Kdevelop does a very nice job of it (except it does things that I have
to back and fix every time too, but those are more personal preference)

Matt

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