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KDevelop 4.5 Released

Posted by Soulskill on from the new-and-shiny dept.

jrepin writes "KDE's integrated development environment KDevelop has just reached version 4.5. 'In this new version you will find brand new integration for Unit Tests, so that you can easily run and debug them while working on your projects. Furthermore, you'll find an iteration of our New Class wizard, many changes regarding polishing the UI in different places, better support for C++11 features and some other things you'll find along the way.'"

58 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. Re:C++ by Gaygirlie · · Score: 2

    So, in what language would you write a compiler?

    COBOL.

  2. Re:KDevelop 4.5 Released by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    QtCreator exists.

  3. Re:C++ by ls671 · · Score: 1

    True, I wrote a small C compiler for embedded devices using turbo-pascal back then. Same concept as compiling for a different target platform, you just produce executable machine code for whatever target and you can use any language on any platform to do that.

    --
    Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
  4. Re:C++ by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · · Score: 1

    Kdevelop supports python. This new version supports it even better.

    --
    Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
  5. Re:C++ by rroman · · Score: 2

    With Qt, C++ is language that is quite hard to replace - pretty fast, very portable, very powerful and quite convenient for the developer.

  6. Re:KDevelop 4.5 Released by Noughmad · · Score: 3, Informative

    And so does QML. AD doesn't get much more R than that.

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  7. Re:Sorry, but... by Noughmad · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't see how KDevelop is not framework-neutral. And I have no idea what you mean by technology-neutral.

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  8. Qt Creator. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Qt Creator is so far ahead of Kdevelop its not even funny. If people want to be productive, using KDevelop is sadly not feasible. It never really was, even back then when it started I used C++ Builder and Visual Studio 6, both ran circles around Kdevelop, and quite frankly any OSS solution. Now I am a bit older and not as scared of makefiles and so on, but there is no OSS RAD IDE out there, fact. Qt Creator is close, and I prefer this over Visual Studio, even on windows and its better than XCode too.

    I just wish the linux world could conform to one gui toolkit so we could have nice tools, instead of half assed solutions for each one. It smells of NIH in the linux world.

    1. Re:Qt Creator. by Noughmad · · Score: 5, Informative

      Have you even tried KDevelop since version 4? Or, in the proud KDE tradition, something after 4.2?

      QtCreator has some additional integration for pure Qt projects, such as qmake and QML. On the other hand, KDevelop has far superior completion, and even code coloring. Not just syntax, but every variable and function has its own color. For me, this is the killer feature that only KDevelop has, and I find it very very hard to read code without it. I tried some newer versions of VS, Eclipse and QtCreator, but none of them have coloring, and none of them have completion comparable to KDevelop.

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    2. Re:Qt Creator. by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 1

      VS and Xcode dominate their respective platforms, obviously.

      Eclipse grew out of a Java IDE to become something of a universal platform. The env for Java excels but 'foreign' languages not to the same level of polish. (e.g. I've tinkered with scala and jruby)

      So yeah, more power to an IDE tailored to getting the fundamentals of barebones C++/KDE done well.

    3. Re:Qt Creator. by xtracto · · Score: 1

      I always liked DevCPP and later Code::Blocks. KDevelop seemed very buggy as it crashed very often, and it also felt very resource hungry (and you needed a lot of clicks to start a project or program.

      --
      Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
    4. Re:Qt Creator. by Raenex · · Score: 1

      Not just syntax, but every variable and function has its own color.

      Wait, so it's not even colored by identifier type, but they just assign each identifier a unique color? Barf.

      A touch of color is useful for select elements. Anything more starts to look like a rainbow and adds more noise then signal.

    5. Re:Qt Creator. by Raenex · · Score: 1

      For me, this is the killer feature that only KDevelop has, and I find it very very hard to read code without it.

      I should add that Eclipse has a way of highlighting uses of a particular variable that doesn't result in the rainbow overload. Just click on the variable name and it will automatically mark all occurrences for you.

    6. Re:Qt Creator. by Raenex · · Score: 1

      I searched for screenshots before commenting, so you're wrong. And obviously instead of saying how I was wrong in my assessment, you just bashed my opinion as unfounded. Typical Anonymous Coward remark.

    7. Re:Qt Creator. by Raenex · · Score: 1

      We only do that for scope-local variables.

      That's bad enough.

      The highlighting is very well thought out, and there is no point in arguing about it if you haven't tried it for at least a week.

      I've already trimmed down my color usage to a very small number because I did not like the rainbow effect based on months of experience with standard colorization in IDEs, and I already have mark occurrences in Eclipse, so no, I do not need to try it for a week.

    8. Re:Qt Creator. by Raenex · · Score: 1

      So, your point is actually "I don't like colors".

      No, my point is I only like a limited set of colors, and they have to pull their weight, which other people may agree with.

      How is that a reason to grump about KDevelop's syntax highlighting?

      Because it was claimed that the KDevelop syntax coloring feature was both superior and unique. The mark occurrences feature in Eclipse accomplishes a similar purpose without adding to the rainbow effect.

      I just don't get what you wanted to achieve with your comment.

      Maybe if you weren't playing KDevelop defender and tried to see things from my point of view it wouldn't be so hard.

      You complained that a feature which you didn't try

      Yet I saw what it looked like, and had experience with other busy color schemes in the past, and used an alternative option instead.

    9. Re:Qt Creator. by Raenex · · Score: 1

      The rainbow colors are useful because you can roughly tell the data flow in a method without even reading a single character, just by looking at the colors. Which, in my experience, with a bit of patience, is way faster than clicking every variable ot mark its occurences or reading the code.

      This is at least an informative argument instead of your past several comments.

      There is no arguing about it being unique -- it is. There is no other application with that feature.

      My argument was that a similar purpose could be accomplished with mark occurrences. You have at least addressed that argument now.

      which is just FUD. It's neither correct, nor is there any valuable opinion or reasoning contained in the statement.

      I was basing my statement off the "+5 Informative" comment from Noughmad and a quick look at screenshots to verify: "every variable and function has its own color", so your classification as FUD is an ad hominem character attack on your part. As for the reasoning, that was in the very next sentence, which you ignored: "A touch of color is useful for select elements. Anything more starts to look like a rainbow and adds more noise then signal."

      It is obvious that you're not even remotely interested in the appliction, but still you're posting negative comments about it. What's the point?

      I'm interested in IDEs and features, which is why I checked out this article in the first place. Even Eclipse will give you a color scheme that's way too busy by default, so my comment was really about the touted feature and the overuse of colors in IDEs. Counter-arguments, such as code flow that you mentioned, are much better than somebody over-reacting because I criticized their baby.

    10. Re:Qt Creator. by Raenex · · Score: 1

      it contained "barf"

      That's an expression of a negative opinion of something I find ugly. There's nothing wrong with it in a casual context as I backed it up, and it definitely isn't "FUD", as in misleading propaganda.

      the information it was "barf"ing about was totally wrong

      For it to be FUD it would have to be an intent on my part to spread wrong information. I was clear in my post that I was asking a question, and furthermore, I was basing my information on what the "+5 Informative" guy said about it, as I quoted. This is the basis for a back and forth where you can describe the technical merits and correct wrong information, as you've done in your last two posts, instead of attacking in an ad hominem fashion and assuming "FUD" on my part.

      With a little practice, you can read an incredible amount of information from the coloring without even moving your mouse or cursor.

      I appreciate the writeup, and it would make a good reference article for the website if it isn't already there. Since I'm not the only person who has had this initial negative response, it would make sense that you could point them to URL that made a good case for it.

    11. Re:Qt Creator. by Raenex · · Score: 1

      If that is your idea of a question, then I'm happy I don't have to deal with your questions more often.

      Welcome to Slashdot, where the comments are harsh, but it's just a microcosm of real-world reaction when something seems like crap based on previous experience. As a developer having a thick skin and some patience can help.

      I have put the highlighting explanation into the manual

      I'm glad something useful came out of this.

  9. Re:KDevelop 4.5 Released by ls671 · · Score: 1

    A Linux equivalent of VS is eclipse. It is used by many big corporations. So yes, "Wake up and smell the coffee" ;-)

    http://macbeantechnology.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/javabeans-560x373.jpg

    More seriously and objectively; how does Kdevelop compares to VS and eclipse or other modern IDE ?

    I had never heard of Kdevelop before although I am using KDE right now. This post got me curious about Kdevelop but I am too lazy to install it and test it out at this point. Could anybody with real life experience answer my question about how it compares to VS and eclipse for example ?

    --
    Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
  10. Re:KDevelop 4.5 Released by marcovje · · Score: 1

    Have a look at Lazarus. It's look and feel is pretty close to Delphi (and still improving/getting closer)

  11. Re:C++ by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1

    >So, in what language would you write a compiler?

    The last one I wrote was in Python, but the job would dictate the tool more than the other way around. This was to program an on chip executable dfx structure designed by me for an on chip circuit designed by me. So I'm the only person in the world that knows the language or the assembly and I'm the only person who would use said compiler. Lets hope I don't get hit by a bus, because I've got a shitload of documentation to write.

    I don't think most compilers people write these days are complete. Usually you want to bolt a new front, end or middle onto an existing compiler chain. Modularity is good.

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
  12. Re:C++ by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1

    The guy who wrote this was taught my compilers course at college..

    http://www.amazon.com/Compiler-Engineering-Pascal-Macmillan-Computer/dp/0333471555

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
  13. Re:KDevelop 4.5 Released by Noughmad · · Score: 5, Informative

    I use Eclipse for Android development, and KDevelop for everything else. A few years ago, I made a short comparison (here, check out the screenshots). It has great code completion and code coloring. KDevelop only supports C++ and recently Python, and QML is planned to join them soon.

    In the end, it really depends on what you use it for. Eclipse has good integration with Android SDK, so I use it for that. KDevelop works great with CMake and Git. For reading C, C++ or Python code, KDevelop is by far the best option.

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  14. Re:KDevelop 4.5 Released by StormReaver · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Could anybody with real life experience answer my question about how it compares to VS and eclipse for example ?

    This is my own opinion, and others' opinions may differ. I used KDevelop a lot when I was doing C++ programming in the KDE 3.x years.

    It managed to save my entire project once, when I did something really stupid (outside of KDevelop) which destroyed most of the source files in my project. I had no version control back then, but KDevelop had a complete copy of my project in memory. I was able to re-save all of my source files from with KDevelop to reconstruct my project -whew-.

    That said, my comparison is like this (for C++ only):

    Visual Studio (it is one of the few things Microsoft does well).
    KDevelop (because it had/has at least a primitive form of GUI builder integration).
    Eclipse (last because it does not have a GUI builder at all).

    KDevelop's gdb integration was hit and miss at the best of times, making it almost unusable for testing applications. It's GUI building capabilities were primitive at the best of times, and it created a gawd-awful mess of autoconf crap in the project tree. It was a wrapper around the very poor C++ development tools available for Linux, doing almost everything badly. It was generally easier to do C++ programming with makefiles, text editors, and the command line.

    I have no idea how it performs with KDE 4.x, as it took an eternity for the KDevelop writers to rewrite it for KDE 4. The Qt 3 to 4 transition disaster is largely what pushed me back to Java, with its stable API's and massively improved performance as of Project Mustang.

    I switched back to Java several years ago because desktop programming under Linux is absolutely horrendous. None of the Linux IDE's that support C++ are any good at all for desktop programming. KDevelop sucks at it, QtCreator sucks at it, Netbeans sucks at it, everything sucks at at.

    For desktop Java development, though, Netbeans is far and away the single best IDE available on Linux. Eclipse is is a non-starter because, again, it lacks any kind of meaningful GUI builder integration.

  15. Re:KDevelop 4.5 Released by BitZtream · · Score: 1

    When you said equivalent you made it clear that you have no idea what you're talking about. Eclipse doesn't compare to VS any more than pico does.

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  16. Re:Sorry, but... by marcovje · · Score: 1

    So you want a DE, not an IDE ? Integration is not possible without choices.

    You'll end up with a glorified editor which integration pretty much is limited to calling external commands

  17. Re:KDevelop 4.5 Released by jhdsl · · Score: 3, Funny

    That is unfair. VS is almost as good as pico.

  18. Re:C++ by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 1

    So, in what language would you write a compiler?

    COBOL.

    APL
    And it's already been done (check paper P09 by Alfonseca in 1998.

    --
    Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
  19. Re:KDevelop 4.5 Released by HiThere · · Score: 1

    KDevelop3 was a good development environment. It supported many languages. KDevelop4, last I checked, supported C++ and C. If that's all you need, it may be a decent environment.

    OTOH, even KDevelop3 was oriented to Qt. If you wanted a different GUI library it was an uphill battle. (Not necessarily a hard one, but you were swimming upstream.) With KDevelop4 I'm not sure you have any alternatives, but I'll admit I didn't check carefully, as my development isn't focused around C/C++ ... largely because they don't handle Unicode well. So I tend to use D or Python or Ruby or even Java. Each have their drawbacks and their strengths.

    P.S.: My C has gotten so rusty that it would be a struggle to resurrect it, and C++ has changed so much since I used it significantly that it's hardly the same language. So I haven't much basis to evaluate KDevelop4 for other users...except to say that if you aren't using C or C++ it's probably not worth looking at, and if you aren't using the Qt libraries, expect a bit of a struggle.

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  20. Re:KDevelop 4.5 Released by HiThere · · Score: 1

    IIUC, Lazarus is limited to Pascal. (You did, admittedly, compare it to Delphi, so you already indicated that, but it should be made explicit.)

    --

    I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  21. Re:KDevelop 4.5 Released by caseih · · Score: 2

    Sure but which toolkit do you stick in the IDE's designer? Even on Windows there are half a dozen UI apis people use. Even Microsoft uses a different one for each Office release, it seems.

    KDevelop is a C and C++ IDE, not an MFC IDE, or a WinForms IDE. Or even a Qt IDE. In the olden days it used to have a GUI designer built into it, but that was removed some time ago, because Qt Designer (now Qt Creator) provided a much better GUI design tool that could be used in conjunction with KDevelop.

    With most people going towards imperative GUIs (Qt Quick is a good example), it makes more sense to leave the UI designer as its own app. Code generation isn't done anymore, really, so it doesn't make a lot of sense to integrate it into the code IDE in the manner you suggest.

    As far as well-integrated open-source IDEs go, Qt Creator is actually a lot of what you seem to be looking for an in an open source VS replacement.

  22. Re:C++ by HiThere · · Score: 1

    KDevelop3 supported Python. When i've tried to use KDevelop4, it has NOT supported Python. Perhaps that's just the Debian repository version, but I haven't seen any prior indication that this is the case. The evidence that I've seen is that KDevelop4 supports C and C++ and that's it.

    --

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  23. Re:C++ by greg1104 · · Score: 2

    TECO. In between rounds of yelling at the kids on my lawn that they don't understand what Turing complete means.

  24. Re:C++ by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · · Score: 1

    http://scummos.blogspot.de/ I guess its not released as stable yet, my understanding from reading about the release was that it was. I have been using kdevelop as my python editor for a while. Haven't tried the new release yet. I tend to stick to the versions my distro provides updates for.

    --
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  25. OS dependent? by unixisc · · Score: 1

    I am curious about one thing. KDevelop - does it use gcc or llvm/clang as its backend compiler? Or is it something that exists on KDE independent of the underlying OS?

    1. Re:OS dependent? by Noughmad · · Score: 1

      KDevelop doesn't use a compiler directly. Usually, you point it to a Makefile or CMakeLists, and choose the compiler there.

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  26. Re:Sorry, but... by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 1

    C-x M-c M-butterfly ?

  27. Let me know when it works on Windows by goruka · · Score: 3, Interesting

    KDE people makes awesome apps but it's too hard to get them working on windows. I used to use KDevelop a lot for C/C++, but having to constantly switch computers/places/OSs to develop (depending on the target platform), makes QtCreator the only IDE I can really use..

  28. Re:KDevelop 4.5 Released by binarylarry · · Score: 3, Informative

    Google bought the product WindowBuilder, which is a pretty nice visual UI builder. Good Guy Google then open sourced it and donated it to the Eclipse Foundation:

    http://www.eclipse.org/windowbuilder/

    So you may want to check out the new Eclipse release. :)

    --
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  29. I have the feeling that nobody here... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...really understands the power of KDevelop. The best feature of KDevelop is that it is built around the best GUI editor ever invented - Kate. Seriously, a Linux developer needs nothing more than a very good text editor and access to unix shell and commandline tools. KDevelop, as every good IDE, goes futher and besides the superb editor, provides support for projects, autocompletion, debugger integration and so on.
    I have used KDevelop for many of my C++ projects and despite a couple of bugs, it has been a great tool. In fact, I've yet to see an IDE with better syntax coloring than KDevelop. Another nice feature is that you don't really have to create a KDevelop project to use the IDE - you can open single files in the IDE and it will still provide syntax coloring and autocompletion. These two things have been the killer features for me and I would not change KDevelop for anything that doesn't provide as much.

    1. Re:I have the feeling that nobody here... by jmv · · Score: 1

      KDevelop 3 was indeed pretty nice and I used it for a while. But then -- like too many OSS projects these days -- developers decided it'd be much better if they rewrote it. The result is that version 3 stagnated for a long time and when KDevelop 4 was finally ready, it ditched support for many features, including autoconf/automake which I used for all my projects. That's when I switched to Eclipse/CDT and I've been happy with it since then.

      --
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  30. Re:KDevelop 4.5 Released by Quattro+Vezina · · Score: 1

    Been doing a lot of Java development lately (for work)--NetBeans has a decent GUI editor and runs perfectly fine on Linux.

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  31. Re:KDevelop 4.5 Released by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Any coder who loses more than a few hours worth of work because of an IDE is an idiot, even in those days. You may have manually had to back up but it was enough enough to have an automated script that would come and zip up your project into an archive every so often, even when I was young and stupid I knew that much 15 years ago.

  32. Re:KDevelop 4.5 Released by ls671 · · Score: 1

    AD doesn't get much more R than that.

    Active Directory?

    Oh! sorry about that, my mistake, I was still on the state of mind of the GP post. I know what you meant by AD now...

    --
    Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
  33. Re:KDevelop 4.5 Released by ls671 · · Score: 1

    Well, that's interesting. I have a similar principle. Cut and paste if takes less than 1/2 an hour, otherwise write a script to do that the job for you even if you only use that script once.

    --
    Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
  34. Re:KDevelop 4.5 Released by ls671 · · Score: 1

    True, Pine is my everyday email program. Very powerful with very complex and advanced configuration possibilities.

    Now, the funny thing; If I remember correctly, Pine uses pico as its default editor. It sure feels like pico anyways.

    P.S. I am dead serious about using pine, I swear I am not lying this time ;-)

    --
    Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
  35. Re:KDevelop 4.5 Released by johnsnails · · Score: 1

    It mentions PHP
    Although might only be rudimentary
    http://www.kdevelop.org/45/kdevelop-450-released

  36. Re:KDevelop 4.5 Released by pwizard2 · · Score: 1

    Nowadays we have proper source control so it's easy to commit changes and revert to a prior iteration if you break something. As far as backup goes, I use Github as my first line of defense because it's accessable from everywhere and cloning/syncing the latest codebase between machines is trivial. Github isn't going away anytime soon so it's relatively safe to rely on but I still create tarball backups and store them on my computer and offsite. The only downside of using old-fashioned tarballs as backup is that you eventually end up with a directory full of redundant archives (containing ancient code) that you're probably never going to use again. Source control is just better.

    --
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  37. Re:KDevelop 4.5 Released by caseih · · Score: 1

    Doh. Make that "declarative" GUI design, not imperative which is the old-fashioned way of doing it with code generation.

  38. Linux Desktop Development has Gotten Much Better by Chibi+Merrow · · Score: 2

    Eclipse tries really hard to have good C++ support. I'm using Indigo still (I think), on my workstation. It does a few things well, but some of the automatic warning/error detection is bad bad bad...

    As far as GUI editing, Qt's Creator is actually pretty great. Curious how it will integrate QtQuick going forward. As someone else pointed out, Eclipse actually has really good GUI editing capabilities for Java now, thanks to Google.

    So, yeah. I think Eclipse + Plugins (and Qt Creator) is plenty sufficient for development on Linux. Is it as good as Visual Studio on Windows? No. But I'd MUCH rather develop a GUI-based desktop application for Linux using Qt 4.x than ever having to deal with Swing... and GridBag...

    --
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    Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
  39. Re:KDevelop 4.5 Released by ls671 · · Score: 1

    It is a matter of efficiency at context switching

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  40. Re:KDevelop 4.5 Released by Noughmad · · Score: 1

    No, PHP support is alright. It's the language that is crap.

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  41. Re:C++ by ls671 · · Score: 1

    Hell, you can even write the machine code by hand without any platform or language, on a piece of paper or whatever, which I have done as part of an assignment.

    --
    Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
  42. Re:C++ by SomeKDEUser · · Score: 1

    New in this version is precisely overhauled and improved support of Python...

  43. Re:KDevelop 4.5 Released by gbjbaanb · · Score: 1

    Even Microsoft used to do this - original WPF development (and other design work) was done in Expression Blend. They only scrapped that idea and merged the functionality to VS quite recently.

    Maybe the point is that a tool to do specialised work isn't what people want, so the FOSS crowd need to decide: do they have a single IDE that does "everything" (eg eclipse?) or a lot of tools that do a single thing well that can hook together.

    Maybe the individual tools idea works for the command line because the interface between them is so well defined, and wouldn't work well for GUI tools because there isn't such tight integration available.

  44. Re:KDevelop 4.5 Released by dille82 · · Score: 1

    Once in a while I have tried KDevelop to make GUI programs with C/C++, but it feels clumsy. Recently I have used QtCreator, and I'm very happy with it. I think it's currently the best RAD tool in Linux (what I have tried) to develop GUI applications

  45. Re:KDevelop 4.5 Released by KugelKurt · · Score: 1

    KDevelop3 was a good development environment. It supported many languages. KDevelop4, last I checked, supported C++ and C.

    Syntax highlighting for a huge amount of languages is inherited from Kate/KWrite.
    For everything beyond that KDevelop uses plugins. These are available:
    https://projects.kde.org/projects/extragear/kdevelop/plugins
    https://projects.kde.org/projects/playground/devtools/plugins/