ActiveState releases Komodo for GNU/Linux

TorinEdge writes "ActiveState has finally released (as in out of Beta) their Komodo IDE for the GNU/Linux platform! Komodo is an integrated dev environment for open source languages. It provides colour-coded editing (and "code-folding" for collapsing sections of code), debugging etc... It's optimized for Perl, Python, PHP, Tcl, and XSLT. Includes the RxToolkit for testing/checking your regular expressions; a godsend. Get it while it's hot!"

Comments

What the ??!?

[Outland Traveller]

Why is slashdot running advertisements for proprietary products masquerading as stories?

One of the few things that differentiates this site from Ziff Davis crap is the emphasis on Free Software/Open Source.

yes yes, I realize there's some mozilla's technology that is being co-opted into this proprietary product, but is that really a newsworthy thing? What's next, press releases for products that use the BSD tcp/ip stack?

Boo! Hiss!

Re:What the ??!?

[rickms]

Just becase it's not free means that /. can't talk about it? Last I checked it was "News for Nerds", not "News about open-souce/Free Softward for Nerds" Comon... Rick

Re:What the ??!?

[IpalindromeI]

I think you mean "News about Open Source/Free Software for Gnerds". I mean let's give credit where credit is due.

Why oh why

[GusherJizmac]

How many times in the history of mankind must syntax highlighting and folding be implemented in a code editor? Why can't all these IDE makers just use Vim (or even Emacs, or how about either?) as their code editor? I mean, emacs and vim are about a zillion times more powerful and feature-packed than any crappy IDE editor. What's the deal? It doesn't seem hard to just have the IDE contain a curses or terminal emulation layer where you can run a real editor, instead of these crappy knock-offs. It also would seem to be MUCH easier to do that rewriting an editor from scratch, yet again. Ugh.

Re:Why oh why

[Anonymous Coward]

Hint: The 'I' in IDE stands for 'integrated'. running vi or emacs doesn't allow the close integration that their own editor allows.
It's more than syntax coloring and automatic indenting; Komodo does stuff like showing function parameters and return types, object/class methods, displaying the compiled asm code intermixed with the source code, and a bunch of other things that vi(m) or emacs dont' do, or can't be integrated into.

If you want, though, Komodo does allow you to use a different editor.

PS - Komodo is a commercial product, so GPL viralness may also be a factor.

Re:Why oh why

[GusherJizmac]

The point is, why don't they use those editors as their basis for their integrated editor? Why re-invent the wheel so many times? Clearly, people won't use an IDE because of the superior text/code editing abilities; vim and emacs beat them all hands down. I understand they may not want to release their product as open-source and that may be a factor, but I guess it's a larger issue. Look at freshmeat and see how many IDEs there are, and how many "programmer's editors" there are. Seems like an awful waste of time and talent.

Re:Why oh why

[__past__]

Why can't all these IDE makers just use Vim (or even Emacs, or how about either?) as their code editor?

If they would use Emacs, how much of an IDE would they have to build themselves? Emacs already does about everything modern IDEs do, it just is less color- and more powerful.

Re:Why oh why

[larry bagina]

I know emacs is like a religion for some people, and I know it's more "powerful" (by which I mean it's a lisp interpreter). Visual Studio lets you see all the methods a C++ object variable can call, it will show what parameters it takes, it will auto-complete function names. I know Borland's Java IDE does the same, and I suspect KDevelop does. Can emacs do that?

Re:Why oh why

[Twirlip of the Mists]

The point is, why don't they use those editors as their basis for their integrated editor? Why re-invent the wheel so many times?

Excellent question. The answer is: the GPL.

Emacs is released under the GPL. VIM is released under a license that is, for all intents and purposes, just like the GPL. (They call it "GPL-compatible.") The restrictions placed on developers by the GPL make it impossible for a commercial concern to use either of these programs, or components of them, as part of an IDE.

If FooCorp, or whomever, wanted to develop an IDE using the VIM editor as the embedded source code editor and glomming on IDE features, they would be required, under the VIM license, to release the source code for their IDE. Nobody in his right mind would want to do that, so as a result every IDE has to have its own editor.

If they released the VIM editor under the BSD license, this problem would not exist.

Re:Why oh why

[GusherJizmac]

Well, there's a boatload of open-source IDEs that I could direct this question to, but moreover, wouldn't it be in their best interest to make it very easy to integrate their tool with any other editor? Surely it wouldn't create a problem, license-wise, to have their tool integrate with any binary version of vim or emacs, right? I would actually consider an IDE that did that, and I think a lot of other people would, too.

Then, their product competes on it's merits of integrating the development process, and not on it's half-assed reimplementation of the same things that have been around for years for free in better editors.

Of course, one could argue, I guess, that this has already happened, and it's called UNIX.

Re:Why oh why

[Twirlip of the Mists]

wouldn't it be in their best interest to make it very easy to integrate their tool with any other editor?

Look at, let's say, the top 10 IDEs available. How many of them include support for full integration with external editors? None? Then you have your answer. No, it is not in their best interest. If it were, they'd be doing it.

Surely it wouldn't create a problem, license-wise, to have their tool integrate with any binary version of vim or emacs, right?

Can't be done. If you're using a binary version of Editor X, then you're not integrated with it. At best, you're using system() calls to fire off an instance of the editor for each source file in the project, which is not the same thing at all.

Then, their product competes on it's merits of integrating the development process

Except, as I pointed out, that you're not actually integrating anything at that point.

Try out a good IDE for a change, like Visual Studio or (much better) Project Builder. It'll change your opinions.

Re:Why oh why

[GusherJizmac]

Can't be done. If you're using a binary version of Editor X, then you're not integrated with it. At best, you're using system() calls to fire off an instance of the editor for each source file in the project, which is not the same thing at all.
Not true. Not sure about emacs, but vim can be run in client/server mode, and you can issue commands to a running instance to basically do anything in the editor you want. A rudimentary version of this is already possible in Visual Studio.

Visual Studio is passable, only because the editor is fairly configurable and it has decent integrated help. I've used Project Builder for WebObjects and on Mac OS X and it is horrible, IMO. It has a very counterintuitive interface, poorly configurable editor, it's slow as death (despite the fact that it's been in existence for many years), and the GUI builder's drag&drop/wiring thing is very difficult to use, compared to what else is out there. I feel sorry for anyone using it that doesn't have a Dual 1Ghz G4 and 1Gig of memory.

Re:Why oh why

[Dahan]

Can't be done. If you're using a binary version of Editor X, then you're not integrated with it. At best, you're using system() calls to fire off an instance of the editor for each source file in the project, which is not the same thing at all.

Well if you can make it look like the same thing, isn't that good enough? Assuming something Unixy, fork()/exec() the editor with stdin/stdout/stderr hooked up to a pty. Have the IDE communicate with the editor through the pty and interpret the editor's output (including any VT100 or whatever display control commands), displaying the output in the IDE's own window. Voilà, integration of any tty-compatible editor. There might be a bit of a problem with mouse support, such as having a working scrollbar, but I guess the IDE could have a list of supported editors and send the appropriate commands to scroll the editor when the scrollbar is clicked. For editors the IDE doesn't know about, you wouldn't have a scrollbar on your editing window, and would have to use the keyboard to scroll around, but when you're coding, scrolling with the keyboard is often more convenient than using the mouse anyways :)

Re:Why oh why

[alfaiomega]

Emacs is released under the GPL. (...) The restrictions placed on developers by the GPL make it impossible for a commercial concern to use either of these programs, or components of them, as part of an IDE.

Actually, it has been done -- Energize, a C++ IDE made by Lucid Inc (it came out something around 1991-1992), used GNU Emacs as an editor (then forked* GNU Emacs to Lucid Emacs, which finally became XEmacs).

(*It was, as far as I know, the most controversial as well as the most significant fork in the free software community. See The Lemacs/FSFmacs Schism by Jamie Zawinski and A History of Emacs from the XEmacs Internals Manual for some informations about Lucid Energize (and for lots of GNU Emacs vs. Lucid/XEmacs flame wars). There's also a short explaination on GNU Emacs FAQ, question 8.6.)

So, the point is that Emacs can be used and has been used as a text editor in proprietary IDE, while still being released under the GPL. It was even being sold for well over $4000 per seat, back then.

That said, I totally agree with GusherJizmac's point: "The point is, why don't they use those editors as their basis for their integrated editor? Why re-invent the wheel so many times?" I, for one, won't touch any IDE with a text editor using which I'm much less productive than using Emacs, which is an ideal "IDE" for me -- but then again, I'm not a big fan of traditional IDEs, so what do I know (also, I don't use any proprietary software, so even if Komodo was in my opinion better than Emacs (or if it included Emacs for that matter), I still wouldn't use it, anyway -- I say it just to make things clear: Komodo may be great for a proprietary IDE).

OK, back to the topic -- Emacs can be legally used in proprietary IDEs and I suppose ActiveState could successfully use Emacs as an editor in Komodo and still be able to sell it. They didn't do that probably because they thought their customers would prefer ActiveState's editor over Emacs -- which I believe is true -- not because it's legally impossible with the GPL.

Eclipse?

[variable]

Most of these languages are also supported (or in the process of being supported) in Eclipse. Which is open-source and cross platform and easy to extend.

Re:Eclipse?

[fava]

Actually from reviewing the Eclipse website it seems that none of these languages are currently supported nor does there seem to be any projects aimed at any of these languages. I will admit there could be some discussion on the mailing lists, I did not check those.

Eclipse seems to be mostly concerned with Java and a little bit of C/C++ and cobol.

Re:Eclipse?

[rohis]

Look for Eclipse Plugins for plugins, I dont see one for perl or xslt yet

Re:Eclipse?

[variable]

You are right, nothing that you download with Eclipse nor part of the org.eclipse classes. However, there are many projects on the go adding in language support for other languages like C#, Ruby, Eiffel, etc.

The C/C++ is actually quite an active project with many companies (QNX, Rational, RedHat) participating to make a top-tier C/C++ IDE environment.

Tim the Troll

[Erebus]

Slashdot isn't, per se; the absentee landlords just let the children play without adult supervision.

Pull up a list of Timothy's stories, and look at the number of stories which, obviously being trolls, garnered few comments. They're just trying to get eyeballs for their giant ads by pissing off (or pissing on) the few people who still read this site.

What I really need is...

[cornice]

What I really need is an IDE that helps me manage projects but has support for xemacs, gvim or whatever happens to be the best editor today. I know there is another post like this labeled as flaim bait but I think that recreating the editor is a mistake. That's one area where there are fast, mature, time tested, extensible options. We need more IDEs that recognize this and solve the project management issues that exist rather than waste time on the parts that are already done right.

Re:What I really need is...

[spencerogden]

Like the KVim part in KDevelop? Imean if all you want is project management and compile support, then CVS and make are there.

Re:pricing

[ilofwyr]

Actually, that pricing/licensing description is quite incorrect. The correct wording (copied directly from the site) is:

2.0 Professional Edition $295
For commercial usage. Includes Source Code Control Integration, Visual Package Manager, and ActiveState GUI Builder

2.0 Personal Edition $29.95
For non-commercial and educational usage only.

Anonymous Coward here clearly has a nack for fiction.

Re:pricing

[Twirlip of the Mists]

I don't think that word means what you think it means:

Draconian \Dra*co"ni*an\, a. Pertaining to Draco, a famous lawgiver of Athens, 621 b. c.

Draconian code, or Draconian laws, a code of laws made by
Draco. Their measures were so severe that they were said
to be written in letters of blood; hence, any laws of
excessive rigor.

Free IDE

[prisonernumber7]

On my never ending search to get to know different things, I stumbled upon the Anjuta IDE.

Trying Anjuta was my first attempt at using an IDE since a long time -- and frankly, although Anjuta indeed seems to have a lot of features and matter of factly impressed me by unseen things such as mentioned "code folding" it was not my cup of tea, but I believe that was a personal matter. :)

I gave the IDE a try approximately two or three months ago and it seemed to have quite a bit of bugs. Still, if you are developing from within a free operating system and looking for an IDE you might want give it a try before you shell out the bucks for the above mentioned software.

Re:Free IDE

[Abnormal Coward]

I use Anjuta, the most buggy part I find is the debugger :), I've resorted to learning how to use gdb from the console. I think the current version (which is based on gtk1.2) isn't get much attention at the moment due work on Anjuta 2 (which uses GTK2).

Re:Free IDE

[vbweenie]

I've tried and failed to use Anjuta. Out of the box, on my RedHat 7.3 system, it simply refused to play ball, insisting that it couldn't find things like glade or the gtk libraries that I know for a fact are there. It's fair enough if the app needed me to tell it where those things were, but the sticking point is that it didn't even ask: it behaved as if everything should happen automagically, and offered no way of fixing things when they didn't. Maybe a couple of releases down the line I'll go back to it and try again...

Re:pricing

[Kidbro]

Did anyone else realize that you need to buy the commercial ($300) version to develop open-source applications?

Nope. But then again, I only looked at their Pricing and licensing page. Care to give us a link to the the page where you got your info?

A Review of Komodo 2.0 by Simon Cozens

[alfaiomega]

There's a Review of Komodo 2.0 (printer/human friendly version) by Simon Cozens on Perl.com from October 09, 2002:

"Every time I get a new copy of ActiveState's Komodo IDE, I do a review that invariably ends "this would be the perfect IDE for me if I were the sort of person who used IDEs". And every time I get the next release, I get closer to being persuaded I should be using IDEs. With Komodo 2.0, ActiveState is getting very, very close to persuading me - but it's not there yet. Let's see what it got right and got wrong this time. (...)"

Read the whole thing, it's more objective than the ActiveState's review. I personally don't use IDEs at all, like Simon Cozens, and I find his review much more interesting from my point of view. If I am to ever start using IDEs I have to know not if it's good for an IDE, but if it's good for people who prefered using Emacs/vi so far.

Re:A Review of Komodo 2.0 by Simon Cozens

[AndyElf]

Speed of Komodo has always been the thing that irritated me most. It is simply dog slow -- they probably are still using not-so-well-optimized chunks of Mozilla code.

Another gripe is that last few times I tried, I could not install the thing on my Windows machine -- .msi installer would simply not run with some bogus "script could not be executed" error.

Komodo rocks, but why is ./ promoting it?

[ubikkibu]

I *love* Komodo on Linux (and Win2k, when I have to). It has made my work with Python and XLST far more productive. But...although ActiveState has done a masterful job of contributing to as well as profiting from Open Source software, Komodo is a closed-source, proprietary app. So why is it being advertised here? ./ continues to become less and less useful. Here's an idea: if you don't have a good story, don't put anything out! I'd rather see 2 good links a day here than the 10 crappy ones I usually see. Guess I'd better get out of the way so some lameass can post his "Can you all help me do my research for a term paper?" post.