Rethinking the User Interface Paradigm of Integrated Development Environments
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Because someone uses a tool wrong does not invalidate the tool. Moreover, it doesn't make an alternate tool automatically better. I'm not saying files are perfect, but once you glean through the alternatives, it holds up pretty well.
Phil Martin... wrote:
Make the tools reponsible for organising code into a history sensible way and let me look at it how I want.
The problem being that how you want must be divined and I know of no program capable of that. It's a bit like asking that a database simple reflect your desires. I do agree with the rich text idea; it's something I've proposed for years along with automatic formatting (especially as of late since my team lead uses a formatting style I have never seen elsewhere.) As for looking at code from a class perspective, it already exists. I've tried such tools and found they worked very poorly for how I program.
Joe Woodbury wrote:
Because someone uses a tool wrong does not invalidate the tool.
You really got me thinking with that. Because I know you're dead right, but something was missing. Because someone uses a tool wrong does not invalidate the tool, however if it is not possible to use a tool right, I think the tool is fundamentally flawed. That is my opinion on folder organisation for software development. I've not seen a folder organisation be useful for more than a couple of years. I don't know why, but at that point it stops being useful beyond a starting point for searching for code. Do I have a better implementation? no. Do I have better ideas? maybe, but probably not. Just because I can't think of something better doesn't mean the original tool is any good.
Joe Woodbury wrote:
Moreover, it doesn't make an alternate tool automatically better.
Absolutely true - but it should never stop anyone from looking for better tools. I've done my fair share of renovation work, and finding better tools is always a good thing.
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Haha, a demo video of putting a tab on a second monitor? Seems a bit focused of a topic to have a demo video on, don't you think?
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Kevin McFarlane wrote:
You can drag stuff back in view I think and it's supposed to be able to elide text.
That's part of my issue with this kind of thing. At the moment, writing code is generally typing stuff into an editor, it's based around text entry (for better or worse). Switching one hand to a mouse to reposition things quickly gets irritating, since it slows down your work flow. If something like this could be incorporated with a keyboard based work flow (using the mouse would be optional, just like it is when editing text), then you might have something interesting.
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Not sure what to think of this either, but from watching the video it seems like keyboard-only navigation is supported. I'm not sure what the zoom shortcut is, but I imagine the flow is : 1) typing.... 2) hit zoom key 3) each bubble has a key assigned to it, just hit the key associated with the bubble you want I would hope there would be shortcuts for things like goto definition and find references as well, like there is in visual studio
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Code Bubbles[^] "Developers spend significant time reading and navigating code fragments spread across multiple locations. The file-based nature of contemporary IDEs makes it prohibitively difficult to create and maintain a simultaneous view of such fragments. We propose a novel user interface metaphor for code understanding and maintanence based on collections of lightweight, editable fragments called bubbles, which form concurrently visible working sets." There's also an 8 min. video. Not sure what to make of it at this stage but looks intriguing - or not?
Kevin
Freakin' awesome. I love the idea - if only they had it for C#. Everyone else posting seems to either hate the idea or think it only applies at a small scale, but for me, I'm constantly moving around my source file - up to the properties, down to some methods, etc. This would allow me to create bubbles of the sections I'm working on so I can just focus on those areas, without all the scrolling navigation. And while it would require some screen real estate, high resolution monitors are fairly cheap these days (just picked up a 25" monitor for <$200), and are well worth it for the productivity increase (bubbles or no bubbles). As to the complaints about large methods not fitting in the bubbles - large methods are generally frowned upon in the OO world anyway, aren't they?
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Code Bubbles[^] "Developers spend significant time reading and navigating code fragments spread across multiple locations. The file-based nature of contemporary IDEs makes it prohibitively difficult to create and maintain a simultaneous view of such fragments. We propose a novel user interface metaphor for code understanding and maintanence based on collections of lightweight, editable fragments called bubbles, which form concurrently visible working sets." There's also an 8 min. video. Not sure what to make of it at this stage but looks intriguing - or not?
Kevin
I couldn't watch more than a minute of that video. The guys voice felt like satan licking my brain. But I do like the idea. My brain kinda works that way, so I can see that helping with development, especially on large projects.
Michael J. Collins
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Freakin' awesome. I love the idea - if only they had it for C#. Everyone else posting seems to either hate the idea or think it only applies at a small scale, but for me, I'm constantly moving around my source file - up to the properties, down to some methods, etc. This would allow me to create bubbles of the sections I'm working on so I can just focus on those areas, without all the scrolling navigation. And while it would require some screen real estate, high resolution monitors are fairly cheap these days (just picked up a 25" monitor for <$200), and are well worth it for the productivity increase (bubbles or no bubbles). As to the complaints about large methods not fitting in the bubbles - large methods are generally frowned upon in the OO world anyway, aren't they?
I think it's one of those tools where I would have to try it and see how I got on. I could imagine that there would be some scenarios at least where this would be useful, even if not a complete replacement for the IDE as it exists right now.
Kevin
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aspdotnetdev wrote:
SK Genius wrote:
Honestly, I'd be happy if I could just drag one of my many open source files to the second monitor
You can do that with VS2010.
Interesting. Are there any demo videos of that around; I'm curious how well it works in practice.
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Dan Neely wrote:
Are there any demo videos of that around; I'm curious how well it works in practice.
There is a video that demonstrates multi-monitor support - as well as can be demostrated in a video w/o using a camcorder. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/ee958386.aspx[^] This video demonstrates several of the new IDE enhancements provided by Visual Studio 2010, including Intellisense Completion Mode, Highlight References, Quick Search (and Navigate To), Generate From Usage, Zoom Box Selection, Call Hierarchy, Search Breakpoints, Thread Windows grouping & searching, and Multi-monitor support. The multi-monitor demo starts at ~11:40 into the video, but the entire video is worth watching, imho.
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looks interesting, and I'd have to try to use it for a while in "real life" to judge accurately. But, my first impression is that it would get to be a pain to use and would cause a lot of "spaghetti-code" and coding of methods with too-short of lines. Plus a lot of screen real estate is devoted to the white-space between the bubbles and the "bubble" borders. Not a good use of screen real estate. Still an intriguing idea.
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http://obamacaretruth.org/I agree. the best way is to use it in an actual development. Hope it works as well as it looks.
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Code Bubbles[^] "Developers spend significant time reading and navigating code fragments spread across multiple locations. The file-based nature of contemporary IDEs makes it prohibitively difficult to create and maintain a simultaneous view of such fragments. We propose a novel user interface metaphor for code understanding and maintanence based on collections of lightweight, editable fragments called bubbles, which form concurrently visible working sets." There's also an 8 min. video. Not sure what to make of it at this stage but looks intriguing - or not?
Kevin
Is this really a rethink, or another refinement? The SELF language[^] has always had many of these features (even if a bit clunkier) - this looks like many of the same ideas applied to the Java language. It seems to me that many of the ideas regarded as bleeding-edge are in fact reinventions (or rediscoveries) of old ideas from the Smalltalk/SELF world. It's amazing how much Smalltalk-80, (written, as the name implies, in 1980) offered a vast array of innovations, many of which are only now hitting the mainstream.
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Honestly, I'd be happy if I could just drag one of my many open source files to the second monitor so that I can see it while I work in some other files. But no, if I want to do that I have to squeeze them in together inside VS itself.
My current favourite word is: Smooth!
-SK Genius
Even if it is the same class that you want to see in different windows (because it has grown too large), you can pack some of it into another source file by using partial classes. Then bring it up in a 2nd monitor.
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Even if it is the same class that you want to see in different windows (because it has grown too large), you can pack some of it into another source file by using partial classes. Then bring it up in a 2nd monitor.
C++ doesn't have partial classes but yes, you can still spread the implementation across multiple files. I usually try not to have individual source files that are too large otherwise scrolling through them to find the bit you want starts to become a little awkward. Still, I hear that in VS 2010 you can drag files out of the IDE to wherever you like, and lo I shall have source files conveniently placed on the other monitor. So there is my one reason to get and install it.
My current favourite word is: Smooth!
-SK Genius
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C++ doesn't have partial classes but yes, you can still spread the implementation across multiple files. I usually try not to have individual source files that are too large otherwise scrolling through them to find the bit you want starts to become a little awkward. Still, I hear that in VS 2010 you can drag files out of the IDE to wherever you like, and lo I shall have source files conveniently placed on the other monitor. So there is my one reason to get and install it.
My current favourite word is: Smooth!
-SK Genius
Sorry, I was thinking of C#. Besides, if the class gets too large, then the developer should seriously consider adding helper classes. The company I work with has legacy C++ code with functions that go over 2000 lines. Their files easily exceed 5000 lines. That was before I came on board. Yes, those old files still exists, but not with our newer products. We have moved to C# and taught those old engineers how to design their software better. Also, we added CodeCollaborator so they must have their code inspected before submission to the source code center.