Comment Python/LISP IDE's (Score 2, Interesting) 1782
Sorry for the bad formatting, try this one:
Maybe a missing the point, but why do languages like LISP and Python have rather weak IDE's? No disrespect to emacs, but it seems to have stood still in the face of huge leaps in the quality of IDE's for other environments.
I believe Java combined with a next-generation Java IDE (Eclipse or especially IntelliJ) can recapture much of the productivity that's supposedly lost to Python's terse syntax. Intelligent code completion gets around Java's rather wordy way of doing things, and refactoring support makes supporting that verbose code a breeze. IntelliJ is smart enough to figure out if you have a variable, what type it is once you declare it and can offer constructors to instantiate it without you having to do all the typing. IntelliJ can even find redundant bits of code and refactor them into a method for you.
One of Python/LISP's main attractions is the interactive environment. Java's hot swappable classes combined with IntelliJ's debugger allow you to experiment and play around with your classes while your program is running, all the while inspecting your data structures, having conditional breakpoints, evaluating arbitrary expressions on the fly, etc. Really quite amazing how far java debuggers have come in the past few years. Plus java's remote debugger makes attaching to an already running process as easy as debugging locally which is great for debugging complex server side stuff.
Checked exceptions is a big problem for Python0philes. You can get around that in Java by throwing RuntimeExceptions, but some find that sloppy. The right way to avoid having to declare a boatload of exceptions from a method, is to catch low level exceptions and throw a higher level exception (e.g. your library catches IOException, SQLException, throws LibraryException). I've got IntelliJ set up with a template to generate a new Exception with one click and just fill out the name of the exception, and, viola, you've got your higher level LibraryException and you've forever liberated your users from having to worry about an IOException when calling your method and allow them to do more sensible generic error handling.
IntelliJ/Eclipse has tight integration with a number of standard tools like Ant (for builds), JUnit (for unit testing), XDoclet (for code generation), as well as plugins for tons of open source projects (by untalented non-hackers, according to the esteemed Mr. Graham) that make the task of getting work done a little easier by keeping you from inventing the wheel.
So what you're left with is an IDE that can compensate for Java's supposed weaknesses and lets you enjoy Java's strengths, which have been enumerated by numerous prior posts (Robust Libraries, Strong typing, standardized Unit testing, standardized build tools, platform independence, strong documentation, very few nasty surprises).
Which leaves me to wonder why, with all the great productivity and mind expanding power of Python and especially LISP (which had every f*cking feature back in '57 with McCarthy), do we struggle with vi or emacs, several slightly incompatible versions of LISP, shitty IO/concurrency libraries (for LISP), poorly documented libraries that you're not sure will work until runtime and even then may die on you unexpectedly in production when you blindly pass in some unexpected type, with decentralized pockets of apis scattered across the web in various states of disrepair? Java libraries seem to be a more organized affair, certainly from a documentation standpoint (the power of strong typing, checked exceptions and Javadoc are underestimated in my opinion and is one of the unsung features of the Java language) than most Python and certainly LISP libs out there. Why can't there be an IntelliPython, or IntelliLISP.
My point here is not to bash Python or LISP or any language. I have done a bit of work with scripting testing with Python (Jython actually) and am making an effort to learn CLISP (from Paul Graham's ANSI Common LISP), if only to deepen my programming knowledge, through "bottom up programming" , macros, functional programming, etc. But, if I'm going to make the effort to learn a new language, I don't want to go back to the dark ages of friggin VI or emacs just coz Paul Graham says I can have better living through macros. It's the tools, stupid!
Maybe a missing the point, but why do languages like LISP and Python have rather weak IDE's? No disrespect to emacs, but it seems to have stood still in the face of huge leaps in the quality of IDE's for other environments.
I believe Java combined with a next-generation Java IDE (Eclipse or especially IntelliJ) can recapture much of the productivity that's supposedly lost to Python's terse syntax. Intelligent code completion gets around Java's rather wordy way of doing things, and refactoring support makes supporting that verbose code a breeze. IntelliJ is smart enough to figure out if you have a variable, what type it is once you declare it and can offer constructors to instantiate it without you having to do all the typing. IntelliJ can even find redundant bits of code and refactor them into a method for you.
One of Python/LISP's main attractions is the interactive environment. Java's hot swappable classes combined with IntelliJ's debugger allow you to experiment and play around with your classes while your program is running, all the while inspecting your data structures, having conditional breakpoints, evaluating arbitrary expressions on the fly, etc. Really quite amazing how far java debuggers have come in the past few years. Plus java's remote debugger makes attaching to an already running process as easy as debugging locally which is great for debugging complex server side stuff.
Checked exceptions is a big problem for Python0philes. You can get around that in Java by throwing RuntimeExceptions, but some find that sloppy. The right way to avoid having to declare a boatload of exceptions from a method, is to catch low level exceptions and throw a higher level exception (e.g. your library catches IOException, SQLException, throws LibraryException). I've got IntelliJ set up with a template to generate a new Exception with one click and just fill out the name of the exception, and, viola, you've got your higher level LibraryException and you've forever liberated your users from having to worry about an IOException when calling your method and allow them to do more sensible generic error handling.
IntelliJ/Eclipse has tight integration with a number of standard tools like Ant (for builds), JUnit (for unit testing), XDoclet (for code generation), as well as plugins for tons of open source projects (by untalented non-hackers, according to the esteemed Mr. Graham) that make the task of getting work done a little easier by keeping you from inventing the wheel.
So what you're left with is an IDE that can compensate for Java's supposed weaknesses and lets you enjoy Java's strengths, which have been enumerated by numerous prior posts (Robust Libraries, Strong typing, standardized Unit testing, standardized build tools, platform independence, strong documentation, very few nasty surprises).
Which leaves me to wonder why, with all the great productivity and mind expanding power of Python and especially LISP (which had every f*cking feature back in '57 with McCarthy), do we struggle with vi or emacs, several slightly incompatible versions of LISP, shitty IO/concurrency libraries (for LISP), poorly documented libraries that you're not sure will work until runtime and even then may die on you unexpectedly in production when you blindly pass in some unexpected type, with decentralized pockets of apis scattered across the web in various states of disrepair? Java libraries seem to be a more organized affair, certainly from a documentation standpoint (the power of strong typing, checked exceptions and Javadoc are underestimated in my opinion and is one of the unsung features of the Java language) than most Python and certainly LISP libs out there. Why can't there be an IntelliPython, or IntelliLISP.
My point here is not to bash Python or LISP or any language. I have done a bit of work with scripting testing with Python (Jython actually) and am making an effort to learn CLISP (from Paul Graham's ANSI Common LISP), if only to deepen my programming knowledge, through "bottom up programming" , macros, functional programming, etc. But, if I'm going to make the effort to learn a new language, I don't want to go back to the dark ages of friggin VI or emacs just coz Paul Graham says I can have better living through macros. It's the tools, stupid!
