GnatBench (from GPL edition)
in [ADA]
|
Prev: Untyped Ada?
Next: Text_IO from a stream
From: John McCabe on 31 Mar 2008 10:23 On Sun, 30 Mar 2008 10:24:47 +0200, "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox(a)dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote: >On Sat, 29 Mar 2008 23:32:50 +0000, John McCabe wrote: > >> GPS may be a showcase for GTKAda but, on Windows, I don't think it >> does GTK+ any favours. Look at the screenshot at >> >> https://libre.adacore.com/gps/img/gps_800x600.jpg >> >> Does that, to you, match up with the phrase "Same modern GUI >> available on all platforms " you can find at >> https://libre.adacore.com/gps/main.html? To me the answer is plainly >> no - that's the sort of GUI you'd be unlucky to get on Windows 3.1! > >Hmm, I don't see that. Do you mean ugly window decoration elements and >cheap icons? Well yes, but I'm not sure about "cheap" icons. Many of the icons are (I would say) better than what you would expect from MS tools, but they just don't really fit - the whole GTK+ thing is still, to me, not quite right on MS Windows. >Because otherwise GPS just follows MS Visual Studio design. The layout does follow the MS VS design, the look though is of a rather old version of MS VS, perhaps version 2.0 or 4.0 from the mid-90s. >The decorations can be changed using a GTK+ RC file. I wonder why AdaCore >didn't do that. >But where AdaCore took time and didn't copy from MS, GPS looks pretty good. >For example, graphical indication of error locations left of the editor >window is a great idea. Do you mean the bit where the space is used to provide a representation of the whole file, a rectangle moves up and down to show which part of the file you're currently viewing, and red blocks show where the error is? That's interesting, but have you seen how the errors and warnings are shown in Eclipse! >IMO the problems with GPS lie elsewhere. I mean poor design of GTK+ and >GDB. I'm sure GPS is a perfectly capable tool and is better than nothing (the whole concept of an IDE that can be used to manage your projects is quite an advancement from what went before). I don't have any real gripes with functionality, just form. It seems like AdaCore have put a fair amount of effort into something that is ever so slightly pointless!
From: John McCabe on 29 Mar 2008 19:10 Stephen Leake <Stephe.Leake(a)nasa.gov> wrote: >>>I've been tempted to switch to Eclipse from Emacs, mostly because Java >>>is better for writing structured code than Lisp; I'm getting tired of >>>fighting obscure Lisp code in Emacs. >> >> Oh no - surely not!!! Don't do it Stephe, who'll look after ada-mode >> :-) >It will just wither away and die. I think Emacs is headed in that >direction anyway. I hope not! >> 1) [GPS is] phenomenally ugly, at least on Windows where the GTK widgets >> it uses just don't (in my opinion) look right. Perhaps GPS Pro is >> better? >I guess you haven't seen Emacs on Win32? Not "pretty" by any >standards. But I just ignore that - I'm looking for function over form. I use Emacs on Win32 on a daily basis! It's still my staple text editor, as it's far better than anything else I know of! >> 2) Who uses it outside the Ada world? Can you get full support for >> Python, Perl, PHP, Ant, Java plug-ins for it, what about ? Are you >> ever likely to? > >Right. That's why I'm considering Eclipse. > >> 4) It's got a silly acronym/abbreviation, it's too much like GPS >> (Global Positioning System)! > >That was discussed when it was first announced. It seems AdaCore >thought the conflation might actually be a good thing, since it would >generate attention. With all due respect to AdaCore (again!), that's a bloody stupid attitude - try searching for GPS on the net and what do you get!? >> With all due respect to AdaCore, I do wonder why they ever bothered to >> create GPS - surely IDEs aren't their core business? >They were looking to expand. And many people seem to expect a compiler >to come with a dedicated IDE. I suspect that's partly so they don't >have to figure out how to tell some other IDE to run the compiler. They seem to have misjudged things a bit in my opinion; these days most people (in my experience) expect compilers to provide a means of plugging in to Eclipse or Visual Studio! (Presumably hence the Hibachi project!)
From: John McCabe on 29 Mar 2008 19:32 Britt Snodgrass <britt.snodgrass(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> > 1) It's phenomenally ugly, at least on Windows where the GTK widgets >> > it uses just don't (in my opinion) look right. Perhaps GPS Pro is >> > better? >> >> I guess you haven't seen Emacs on Win32? Not "pretty" by any >> standards. But I just ignore that - I'm looking for function over form. > >I agree with function over form. GPS has some display quirks but I >don't think it looks too bad. I guess it's all a matter of opinion but, to me, on MS Windows (which is what I am currently expected to develop on - albeit in C++ and not, unfortunately, in Ada) GPS looks awful, like something out of the '80s. >GPS is optimized for use wth GNAT and GNAT projects (.gpr >files). That optimization is a good thing. Of course it is a good thing, but.... >> >> > 2) Who uses it outside the Ada world? Can you get full support for >> > Python, Perl, PHP, Ant, Java plug-ins for it, what about ? Are you >> > ever likely to? >> Right. That's why I'm considering Eclipse. >GNATbench development is progressing nicely. I've been using >GNATbench 2.1.0 since its release to supported customers. I'm happy >with it and confident that AdaCore will continue to improve it. I'm intrigued about what will happen with Hibachi and GNATBench. It is good that AdaCore are contributing to Hibachi (well, I assume it is, not having got GNATBench 2.0.1 to work properly yet myself :-) I can only assume that GNATBench in the future will use core Hibachi code then AdaCore can concentrate on the value added GNAT optimised bits and pieces. >I >like the fact that I can switch between GPS and GNATbench without >touching my .gpr files. That is very beneficial, if you've used GPS. >As a development environment, Eclipse >certainly looks nice and is very extensible, but its comparatively >complex, heavyweight and sluggish compared to other options. That's >why I also use GPS, Nedit, or TextPad depending on what I'm doing. I'm in the unfortunate position that a lot of the early development of the code we have at work was done in MS Visual Studio .NET and we've developed tools around VS Project files, hence we continue to use VS.NET. For some reason I have major issues with it - it's very slow and hangs a lot. Eclipse is slow to start, but once it's going I've had no real problems. Saying that, I use Emacs on a daily basis just because it's more powerful for what I want. >> > 4) It's got a silly acronym/abbreviation, it's too much like GPS >> > (Global Positioning System)! >> >> That was discussed when it was first announced. It seems AdaCore >> thought the conflation might actually be a good thing, since it would >> generate attention. >Some people I know use GPS to develop GPS :) Yes - that helps ! :-} >> > With all due respect to AdaCore, I do wonder why they ever bothered to >> > create GPS - surely IDEs aren't their core business? >> >> They were looking to expand. And many people seem to expect a compiler >> to come with a dedicated IDE. I suspect that's partly so they don't >> have to figure out how to tell some other IDE to run the compiler. > >I agree. GPS is also a showcase of what can be accomplished with >GtkAda. Before GPS they had GLIDE. GLIDE was great if you like Emacs >but many people don't. GPS may be a showcase for GTKAda but, on Windows, I don't think it does GTK+ any favours. Look at the screenshot at https://libre.adacore.com/gps/img/gps_800x600.jpg Does that, to you, match up with the phrase "Same modern GUI available on all platforms " you can find at https://libre.adacore.com/gps/main.html? To me the answer is plainly no - that's the sort of GUI you'd be unlucky to get on Windows 3.1! Anyway - I don't develop in Ada any more (unfortunately - with caveats!) so it's not really my place to criticise the development environments that are available but, it's so difficult for me not to! Primarily it's through frustration - I like Eclipse and it's frustrating that it has taken so long for the Ada world to get something out to allow Eclipse to be used as an industrial strenght Ada IDE!
From: Dmitry A. Kazakov on 31 Mar 2008 12:12 On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:23:24 +0100, John McCabe wrote: > the whole GTK+ thing is still, to me, not > quite right on MS Windows. Yes, but it is getting better. >>Because otherwise GPS just follows MS Visual Studio design. > > The layout does follow the MS VS design, the look though is of a > rather old version of MS VS, perhaps version 2.0 or 4.0 from the > mid-90s. Hmm, I know all of them, and I see no any sufficient difference to GPS. In fact the latest VS is definitely worse, ergonomically, I mean. It permanently forgets its layout. For instance it kicks off the tray with the current source column and line numbers. Then it takes hours to get it back, because the configuration GUI is just typical MS: deeply nested menus and tabbed dialogs distributed all over the GUI combining properties carefully selected by a random generator... XML project files is a horror. Automated compilation (we are heavily using it) never works as expected, etc. File search which once worked reasonably is ruined now. The only great thing MS still has, is the debugger. But I am sure, they are working on that! (:-)) >>The decorations can be changed using a GTK+ RC file. I wonder why AdaCore >>didn't do that. > >>But where AdaCore took time and didn't copy from MS, GPS looks pretty good. >>For example, graphical indication of error locations left of the editor >>window is a great idea. > > Do you mean the bit where the space is used to provide a > representation of the whole file, a rectangle moves up and down to > show which part of the file you're currently viewing, and red blocks > show where the error is? Yes > That's interesting, but have you seen how the errors and warnings are > shown in Eclipse! I didn't use Eclipse yet. I know that GPS if far better than VS in that respect. Though GNAT error messages are better than C++ ones, but they still are quite useless in many cases. Normally I just look at the source code lines. An improvement GPS could have is to highlight error slices (tokens) rather than lines, as well as in the debugger. I remember National Instruments IDE for CVI compiler which did that. >>IMO the problems with GPS lie elsewhere. I mean poor design of GTK+ and >>GDB. > > I'm sure GPS is a perfectly capable tool and is better than nothing > (the whole concept of an IDE that can be used to manage your projects > is quite an advancement from what went before). I don't have any real > gripes with functionality, just form. It seems like AdaCore have put a > fair amount of effort into something that is ever so slightly > pointless! They probably wanted to be independent on other vendors and unreliable C/Java mess. The only mistake they probably made was GTK+, which is still C and still a mess. -- Regards, Dmitry A. Kazakov http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de
From: John McCabe on 31 Mar 2008 12:43
On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 18:12:55 +0200, "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox(a)dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote: >On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:23:24 +0100, John McCabe wrote: > >> the whole GTK+ thing is still, to me, not >> quite right on MS Windows. > >Yes, but it is getting better. > >>>Because otherwise GPS just follows MS Visual Studio design. >> >> The layout does follow the MS VS design, the look though is of a >> rather old version of MS VS, perhaps version 2.0 or 4.0 from the >> mid-90s. > >Hmm, I know all of them, and I see no any sufficient difference to GPS. In >fact the latest VS is definitely worse, ergonomically, I mean. It >permanently forgets its layout. For instance it kicks off the tray with the >current source column and line numbers. Then it takes hours to get it back, >because the configuration GUI is just typical MS: deeply nested menus and >tabbed dialogs distributed all over the GUI combining properties carefully >selected by a random generator... XML project files is a horror. Automated >compilation (we are heavily using it) never works as expected, etc. File >search which once worked reasonably is ruined now. The only great thing MS >still has, is the debugger. But I am sure, they are working on that! (:-)) I have to agree that, in terms of function, the versions of VS I'm using now (.NET/2002) and previously (2005), are lacking compared to VS 6.0. In terms of how they look though, they have improved a bit over VS 6.0. >>>The decorations can be changed using a GTK+ RC file. I wonder why AdaCore >>>didn't do that. >> >>>But where AdaCore took time and didn't copy from MS, GPS looks pretty good. >>>For example, graphical indication of error locations left of the editor >>>window is a great idea. >> >> Do you mean the bit where the space is used to provide a >> representation of the whole file, a rectangle moves up and down to >> show which part of the file you're currently viewing, and red blocks >> show where the error is? > >Yes > >> That's interesting, but have you seen how the errors and warnings are >> shown in Eclipse! > >I didn't use Eclipse yet. I know that GPS if far better than VS in that >respect. Though GNAT error messages are better than C++ ones, but they >still are quite useless in many cases. Normally I just look at the source >code lines. An improvement GPS could have is to highlight error slices >(tokens) rather than lines, as well as in the debugger. I remember National >Instruments IDE for CVI compiler which did that. Take a look at Eclipse. I presume you know Java well enough to have a play with it. The error stuff is pretty good with Java. >>>IMO the problems with GPS lie elsewhere. I mean poor design of GTK+ and >>>GDB. >> >> I'm sure GPS is a perfectly capable tool and is better than nothing >> (the whole concept of an IDE that can be used to manage your projects >> is quite an advancement from what went before). I don't have any real >> gripes with functionality, just form. It seems like AdaCore have put a >> fair amount of effort into something that is ever so slightly >> pointless! > >They probably wanted to be independent on other vendors and unreliable >C/Java mess. The only mistake they probably made was GTK+, which is still C >and still a mess. LOL!! |