First Commercial C++ Development Refactoring Tool

swrittenb writes "According to their recent press release, SlickEdit Inc. announced Visual SlickEdit® v9, the first commercially available development tool with C++ refactoring. Although this area has been studied, and non-commercial refactoring tools for C++ exist, how comfortable are people using an automated solution for refactoring with this particular language?"

Comments

We're already comfortable with compilers

[orthogonal]

how comfortable are people using an automated solution for refactoring with this particular language?"

Well, when you consider that a compiler is also "an automated solution for [code] refactoring", I guess anyone using C++ (or any other compiled language) is reasonably conformable.

Since there are no constructors or templates or multi-expression tests ( "if( a && b || c && d )") in any machine's assembly languages, we all trust our compilers to generate assembly language that corresponds to the high-level language constructs we've actually written -- and in the case of the control expression to that "if" statement, we trust the compiler to know and follow the operator precedence for the language being compiled -- and in C and C++, the required "short-circuit" evaluation too.

That said, a good bit of that trust -- for C++ and C -- reposes in rigorous language standards and (more or less, I don't want to argue about language (mis)features or hacks for backward compatibility) well thought-out language designs.

(That's one of the many benefits of a rigorous, documented language standard, by the way -- do you know if, in scripting language "S"( where "S" may be Perl, windows scripting host, visual basic, or what have you), short-circuit evaluation of logical operators takes place, or if there's a sequence point between each one? Not to bash any one language, but for Perl, deja-googling shows sequence points have been an unresolved issue since 1998.)

To the extent that a refactoring tool's design is based on standards and on thoughtful and an open -- not proprietary -- processes that bring in opposing and skeptical views, as do the design of C and C++, I'd be reasonably willing to, in Reagan's words, "trust but verify". But if the refactoring tool is the proprietary product of a closed shop, I'll be far less confident that the Marketing Department didn't;t have too much of a had in product "design".

But however the products comes to be, the proof remains in the use -- let's see how the automatic refactoring compares over several real-life projects before trying to judge.

Re:We're already comfortable with compilers

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, when you consider that a compiler is also "an automated solution for [code] refactoring", I guess anyone using C++ (or any other compiled language) is reasonably co[m]for[t]able. (I assume that's what you meant.)

Nope, it's not the same thing at all. The transformation from high-level to low-level code is much simpler than the converse; that's why you can't decompile a native-code executable, even an unstripped one, and get beautifully formatted and readable code out of it.

I trust my compiler to output valid machine code precisely because machine code is so simple. C++ is very complicated; if I were a C++ programmer (which I'm not, I prefer simpler and safer languages) I'd definitely be keeping backups of my unrefactored work for a while.

What I want

[geirt]

I want a syntax cheker running while I am editing the source code.

Example 1: When I am writing: "printf("Hello %d\n", "world");" I want a red line under "world", with a mouse-over stating: "Integer, not string expected in printf format string". I want this to happen while i type.

Example 2: When writing: sinus(3.14); I want a red line under sinus(), with a mouse over explaining "Call to function sinus() without prototype" without running the code trough a compiler.

I also want sane syntax highlighting. I want it to highlight the things that I look for when I am browsing trough lost of code. That is my function and variable names. All other should be kept in low key (eg. if while for int struct etc.). I am not sure if i want call to libc to be highlighted. Show me the important stuff, not the cruft! Editors are not too bad on this (or can be customized), but when I press print in emacs or use gnu enscript, it prettyprints all the wrong things, and hides away the important stuff.