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ActiveState Discontinues VisualPerl/Python
Noiser writes "ActiveState discontinues VisualPerl and VisualPython for Windows. Demand doesn't justify further development, they say. No, they don't mean to open-source these products, due to licensing problems with the inseparable MS Visual Studio integration code. Back to vi/Notepad/Komodo, then..."
Personally, it's understandable that there wasn't enough demand to keep the products viable. Any Perl hacker I know either does their coding in a text editor or a different IDE than MS Visual Studio, since most of them are Linux/BSD buffs and only have Windows for gaming or to be able to run a specific Windows program for a client.
It's worth noting that they'll, upon customer request, replace each license for the Visual products with an equivalent license for their own Komodo IDE at no charge. And while they can't open source the ActivePerl products for VS2002 or VS2003, it looks like they're going to make them available for free. So if you feel no need to upgrade to Visual Studio 2005, you now have a new goodie as consolation.
Start a happiness pandemic
Besides as long as there's Emacs for Windows, I can't imagine wanting to use anything else for Unix-origin languages.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I used to work at a large bank (JPMC) and we had project with two large parts: 40K lines of Perl and another 25K lines of visual C#. I looked into merging these lines into a single machine.
My manager was
I chose to not merge this stuff based on the fact that Visual Perl was a little too "out there" (unusual) and I knew I'd get looked at funny by the architecture review committee (you know, big corp == second guessing design decisions). So, I kept what we had.
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I did try out the ActivePerl/VS.Net 2003 combo. I was not particularly impressed. I was hoping for more integration with the IDE somehow; instead, it felt like I was just using a text editor to write perl code, which kind of defeats the purpose. It's been a while since I tried it, so I don't recall more specifically what was lacking.
Seriously folks, this is good news. The more toolmakers who drop plug-in support for Microsoft's windows only junk in favor of cross-platform targeted tools, the better. It seeds a nice message about the future legitimacy (or lack thereof) of locking into Windows...
*** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
Quick answer: ask google.
... ...
EPIC - Eclipse Perl Integration
e-p-i-c.sourceforge.net/ - 2k - Cached - Similar pages
Perl + Eclipse = lots of interest | Computerworld Blogs
Yesterday I taught my two Perl/Eclipse classes here at EclipseWorld .
Eclipse + Perl, seems a good answer for all people interested on Perl IDEs,
www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/891 - 36k - Cached - Similar pages
http://stephan.sugarmotor.org
http://sourceforge.net/projects/rubyeclipse
There's certainly one for Ruby so I'm guess Perl and Python shouldn't be far behind.
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A quick question. Has anyone made a plugin for Eclipse to handle Perl or any of the other popular scripting languages?
Yes, people have made some very good plugins for Eclipse to handle Perl, Python, and other scripting languages. If you're willing to use Eclipse they turn it into quite a nice environment for the scripting language fo your choice, including debugging, good code completion, on the fly syntax checking and error flagging, and many other nice features.
Jedidiah.
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*shrugs* Does it matter? If people aren't using the product who is going to care if it is discontinued. Lame idea for a story.
Now, a story on why the products failed might be interesting. A real study in how programmers select tools and what kind of tools they really want. That'd be worthy of discussion.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
I tried to use EPIC, but I just couldn't get past the editor..it was just so lacking. Vim does everything I need in an editor, and a lot of what I need in an IDE, but its interface to it lacks. Sure you can hook perls debugger, set break points and watch conditions, have a window of all files in your project, your pod docs, your variable and function declarations with the ability to jump to where theyre defined, and pretty much any other ide feature you can think of.. but when vim still acts like a console app even when running gvim, then you just cant easily use most of them. I want resizable fonts per window, multiple floating windows, savable 'views'(one of the best parts of eclipse), and more detailed status than just a bottom line everything has to share.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
That depends entirely on your point of view.
We write very portable C++ at work, but most of us use some version of Visual Studio as the IDE, because it's simply better than anything else available (even if it has been going backwards in several areas since they started going all .Netty, with the result that several of my colleagues have deliberately reverted to VC++ 6 from newer versions).
We also use a lot of Perl scripts, for which having a decent editor is handy. Ironically, I was thinking just the other day that it might be worth buying VisualPerl for those of us who write and maintain the scripts. Now it sounds like they're going to give it away for free anyway, which would no doubt be very useful to us.
So in our case, I have no problem with using software that only runs on a Microsoft platform. None of the stuff we write is Windows-only: both the C++ we develop and the scripts we use to support it run on many UNIX-based platforms as well. However, since I develop on a Windows box, using a Windows-based product, why would you want to stop me using something that fits in well with my development environment and helps me do my job?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Before you flame me or mod me a troll please try both IDEs. I did. Eclipse is flaky and slow. Visual Stuio is slick and fast. Right now I use SciTe editor but I'm gonna be using Visual Studio if I have to write a free PHP plugin myself. I develop for a living and when it comes to productivity I just cannot use an IDE that flakes out or bogs down every 30 seconds. Even Zend Studio is a bugfest. I'm not gonna pay for the privledge of debugging someone else's software.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
But wouldn't it be nice if they could do some work with the ICSharpDevelop team to add support for Perl and Python to SharpDevelop/MonoDevelop?
.Net Framework already, which SharpDevelop uses as much as they can.
Some of the VisualStudio stuff they talk about not being able to Open Source is probably in the
Am I the only person who _likes_ Komodo? My company purchased a copy for me when I started writing applications in perl, and I like it. Most especially I like the debugger, I never did learn the perl debugger. Even works well on websites. It probably saves me from trying to run at least 100 typos a day.
You mean I could type std::c"lists of namespace functions with c to chose from" with vi or emacs?
Its nice with complex libraries. All the functions and objects are listed and the type of arguments for all. You can get work done very very fast.
I wish I had this for linux or with perl or python to help write code faster and easier.
I feel like I am repeating myself ad nauseam - call it preaching if you will. But I think that any user of any IDE and certainly any developer of any IDE needs to look at Eclipse/Java. This is the state of the art.
Surely, word completion better than nothing, but Eclipse has changed the whole way I write Java programs. Nothing out there like it for Python, unfortunately - the PyDev plugin only does some word completion and some very welcome but very basic error detection and that's it.
Here is what I do with Eclipse every day:
- I don't declare variables (ok in python you don't anyway), instead i write foo = obj.getFoo() and auto-fix it to declare it local or instance variable as desired.
- I Open the calling chains for a method. That is, I see all code that calls my method and all code that calls these methods and so on. I get a whole inverse calling tree; takes about a second.
- Find all usages of a variable. Or all write to operations. Or all read operations on a variable.
- Remove variables that are not used. For example Eclipse marks all variables that are "never read". That means the variable is there, gets assigned to something but is then never used. Happens a lot with legacy code.
- Hover over methods / classes to see the docs
- Auto-complete that is smart. For example if I write
"Foo myFoo = obj." and then hit ctrl-space, it will list those methods that return an object of type Foo first. The same could be done for Python even though it's dynamically typed.
- rename methods/variables - the rename affects all code inside the project and even all code defined in dependent projects. What was once a huge and scary (will it work?) global search and replace operation is now a no-brainer. Which makes it MUCH more likely that things are named sensibly just because renaming is so easy. Rename also allows moving classes to new packages and so on - all automatically updated.
- Add / remove method parameters. Again, globally, all dependent code is automatically updated and I get to define a default value for add.
- See errors marked as I type. There is no compile button. Everything is compiled at all times, in the background. This is the way it should be, IMHO.
- Auto imports. Say you write a = ExternalObject() - Eclipse will automatically add that to the import statements. If it can't be found in the project scope but is in the project scope of another project in the workspace it will offer to add that other project to the dependencies and import the class. Basically I never waste a thought on import statements. I never even look at them unless there's a conflict (they are folded away)
- Mark several lines of code and extract a method from it.
- Tons of other things too of course.
I hear that IDEA and even VS.NET can do the same things. But all the others really need to take a good sharp look at these things and improve their IDEs. Yeah, XCode, that would be you. It's not 1995 anymore. Or 1975 for you Emacs guys. Emacs was very competitive for a long time mainly because there was no innovation in IDEs. That has changed now.
I'll tell you what, when I find someone that knows nothing about what life is like outside of VS, I'll let you know. I spent years writing C, C++, Java, Python, and even PHP/Html in emacs (no, I never decided to take the 10 days it takes to get aquainted with VI to get aquainted with VI.) I spent time coding ASP in variations of notepad or enhanced notepad applications. I had moderate code completion, syntax highlighting, the works.
I speak from a whole lot of experience here. Emacs and VIM are simply outdated in their ability to match the speed/enhancements of a modern IDE. I'm sorry I'm putting your baby down here, but getting so emotional about emacs is a bit over the top, and shows that zealotry cannot be combatted, no matter how rational the argument.
Excuse my speling.
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