Slashdot Mirror

Well in all fairness VS 2010 is next to worthless for C++ development due to the absent Intellisense--it didn't fit within the release schedule. So really they're only behind by one major version. Either way, regardless of which version of VS they use they'll still be dealing with a 4GB wall since Microsoft has never released a 64bit version. I don't think the Firefox team has much choice but to restructure their projects because they simply cannot move the goalposts far enough down field.

Two words for you: Visual Assist.

I churn C++ code under VS2005 at work.
All in all, I like the IDE, although free-floating edit windows would be nice.

That said, I find Visual Assist indispensable.
It is expensive but if you can get your employer to pay for it, I highly recommend it.

I also use Artistic style (free) to reformat code, and PC-Lint ($$$) to find lurking problems.

Visual Assist does a good job of making Visual Studio code a lot easier to read by applying custom colours to various syntax. It also does a load of other stuff, as a C++ developer it reduces the amount of typing I have to do by half by having a really good intellisense system. Now all they need to do is write a program to automate the other half :)

The guy's ranting is similar to Prince ranting because his twenty year old music is not selling.

I'll just mention one program:
http://www.wholetomato.com/

It is still quite expensive ($249), but if it is as good as it was 6 years ago, then it is really worth it.

It is like if the Ucal developers where whinning that Windows killed the market of their MSDos calculator.

installs Visual Asisst http://www.wholetomato.com/

Yep. Works great now.

(No, I don't work there. Just been a long-time customer.)

visual assist by http://www.wholetomato.com/ for visual studio

No, it doesn't. See listed spelling features. It will spell check normal language (looks like only comments) and highlight *mistyped* symbols, not mispelled symbols.

Next wrong answer, please.

Because I think that's very much the case for Visual Studio too. Stock VS2005 is usable, but look at some of the "plugins" made by jetbrains (ReSharper and dotTrace -- from the same guys that Make IntelliJ), devexpress (Refactor! and CodeRush), wholetomato (Visual Assist X) and a bunch of others.

I haven't seen such great plugins for any other IDEs.

I'm a die-hard Mac user at home, but I write games for Windows (using MS's dev tools) for a living. As a Mac development hobbyist, I spent years using Metrowerks' CodeWarrior IDE, and -- more recently, and to a lesser extent -- Xcode.

Although I prefer the look and feel of Apple's dev tools to Microsoft's, I find that I get work done more quickly with Visual Studio than with Xcode. More accurately, I get work done more quickly with Visual Studio and the excellent third-party plugin Visual Assist, which provides a number of important code navigation shortcuts including code completion that completely eclipses VS's IntelliSense.

Visual Assist is one of those tools that's painful to be without once you start using it. It sounds like the company isn't planning on a Mac version, which is a shame... do any Mac devs out there have tips on how to make the Xcode development experience less painful -- specifically, how to deal with its poor code completion facilities and slow text editor?

Yep, for C++ at least Visual Studio's IDE peaked around version 6.

I'd argue the real peak was a bit earlier -- some of the earlier versions had a rather nice facility for organizing snippets of code that was inexcplicably removed in 6. Nonetheless, I'd agree that 6 was the last version before it all went complete to hades.

Although the standards compliance of the compiler has become much better in more recent versions [ ... ]

This is fairly easy (if somewhat expensive) to fix: Intel's compiler has substantially better conformance, and still installs with older versions of Visual Studio.

...just try looking in the help for a standard C++ library function in VS2005, with no .Net options or languages selected in the filters, and see how much .Net-related crap comes up).

For that matter, what would it take to get rid of all the WinCE garbage? I find that an even more complete PITA, personally.

Don't even get me started on Intellisense, and the various ways they've screwed up what should have been a really useful feature.

How about if, instead, I suggest you try Visual Assist X from Whole Tomato Software? You're right: IntelliSense was a fine idea, but Microsoft thoroughly screwed up the implementation. VA/X works naturally enough that I didn't even realize the degree to which I'd come to depend on it until I recently built up a new computer and tried to work without it for a while -- then the reality became quite obvious. It may easily be the single most nicely executed piece of software I've seen in quite a while.

And no, I'm not anything but a (highly) satisfied user -- though I've been a user long enough that the version history on their web site no longer covers the version I was using up until a couple of weeks ago...

For those who feel obliged to ask: no, it's not open source, it's not free (in either sense, though IMO, their pricing is quite reasonable) and it doesn't run (on) Linux. Sorry -- sometimes life is like that.

Visual Studio
- Whole Tomato Visual Assist (Intellisense done right) http://www.wholetomato.com/
- Compuware DevPartner (Serious Error Detection + Code Coverage) http://www.compuware.com/products/devpartner/defau lt.htm

Dual LCDs & Dual DVI Video Card
(Once you start developing on multiple monitors, you can't go back)

Kinesis Advantage Pro Keyboard + FootPad
(No one ever tries to borrow my computer since they can't type on my keyboard)
http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/advantage_pro.htm

Stardom-2600 Hardware RAID
(Fits into two 5 1/4" Slots, looks like a standard HD to the OS. Highly Recommended)
http://www.stardom.com.tw/web/index_e.htm

Quiet Homebuilt Devbox
- Lots of Memory
- Only one fan

Leap Chair from Steelcase

Big Ass Desk + Big Ass Bookshelf from IKEA

View of the Seattle Skyline (Take breaks and stare at something far away)

Honest Tea (Assam Black is my favorite)

I do contracting, so I pay for my own equipment. It ends up costing $$$, but I do get to choose exactly what I want.

For this issue, you can use Whole Tomato's Visual AssistX. It works on every version of VS that MS released. Link: http://www.wholetomato.com/

Visual Assist X adds some KILLER features. Namely:
Automatic case repairing
E.g. if you have int theCount; and later on you type thecount=5; it'll automatically change it to theCount=5;

Intellisense that actually works.
You'll notice if you coe anything that's not like a regular gui app, the intellisense will just not list half of your identifiers and functions. I found this to be pretty annoying when I was coding a C++ SDL game. Visual Assist X fixes it.

Spell Check
I had a professor that would take huge points off my projects where i had just spelled stuff in the comments wrong. Spellcheck can be a lifesaver.

It does a whole lot more too, check it out.

I remember when I programmed in Visual Studio there was a good add on called Visual Assist, the company is Whole Tomato I used like 3 years ago and it was quite nice, it adds some features to the IDE that make coding easier.

Visual Assist will (amongst other things) refomat all your code into the "correct" tab/space arrangement. Just select the text (or Ctrl-A for the whole file) and then (Alt-F8). Done. It'll do all your intenting for if's, loops etc. and make sure that everything is tabbed (instead of spaced).

Of course, you have to be using Visual Studio and writing C++ (or maybe C#, basically anything with {'s should work).

At some point Microsoft will have to seriously consider giving away their visual studio product. It is my belief that they will use their "shared source" licence for it within the next 5 years.

I am pretty shure you are wrong, I think what Microsoft would do (if ever they let any kind of free-nes in VS) is to give away a free (as in beer) Version. They will never, EVER give the code (not even in their shared shit^W^W^Wource).

As for the plugins? I have used the Whole Tomato Visual Assist plugin, and I think that is the way MS will solve it, publishing an API for VS plugin development.

When will we see C++ autocomplete support in free tools at least equal to Visual Assist?

To be honest, what's really great is MS with Whole Tomato on top. See that website for some of the greatest features ever. It's like crack; when I have to develop without these features, like autocomplete, I feel crippled. Whenever you type something like Obj obj = getObj(); and then obj. on the next line, it then pops up a list of valid functions on the Obj class. Of course, you can just keep typing, and it will let you, but as you type it narrows the list to those that match (or if you misspell, none match). If you just hit enter it takes the current match and spells it out. It gives you the ease of typing short names while actually using longer, more descriptive names for functions without burdening the programmer. Also, if you type something like obj.fun( it will then list the parameters in a tooltip for that function. A click will give you all the variant signatures of that function, if any. Then, of course, the MS part of the whole thing is just robust and clean. After 20 years, they've gotten most things right by now.

I suggest getting Whole Tomatos excellent Visual Assist plugin. It's fantastic. It too has problems with deeply nested templates, but the developers are (usually) very quick with fixes, especially if you can send them a sample of the code thats broken. No affiliation, just a very contented user.

Visual Studio will be even nicer to use if you installed the Visual Assist add-in.