[txmt-dev] Re: Not relaunch TM after a build

[Jacob Carlborg]

On 2014-04-14 00:15, Allan Odgaard wrote:

> I have conventions about how to format my code because it makes it
> easier to read. Allowing to work with the code using simple text
> utilities is a bonus.

Of course, I do that as well. I have very strict guide lines. But not 
because want to be able to use tools on the text.

> And making a tool (based on a language parser) that can answer the
> “questions” I have about my source code is infeasible, yet search works
> amazingly well, and can be applied to revision history as well, say I
> want to ask things like, “was this function ever called outside module
> X”?

I'm not saying that isn't useful.

> For me, asking where a thing is defined or called from is a subset
> of what I ask, hence why I never felt the need for a dedicated tool to
> answer that single question, as it would come with a different
> workflows, and while I may start by asking “where is this called”, I may
> extend it to “where is it called with ‘true’ as second argument” or
> similiar.

The tool should obviously be able to handle a lot more. Here's a list of 
useful features that Xcode has based on libclang:

* Syntax highlighting. I'm not sure if Xcode does this but other IDE's 
like Eclipse for Java does semantic syntax highlighting. That is, it can 
highlight an instance variable differently compared to a an other variable

* Refactoring. Xcode only has renaming so far but other IDE's support 
more features

* Go to definition. Finds the correct definition even for overloaded 
methods, handle macros as well. I can't stress enough how useful this is 
for a code base you basically know nothing about

* Autocomplete. Knows the context and take advantage of that. That is, 
it will only show method available for the object of that particular 
type. It can also sort (not sure if Xcode does this) based on the return 
value:

int foo = object.ba|

Sort methods starting with "ba" and which returns "int" first. The 
autocomplete list also shows the documentation rendered for each 
completion suggestion. This is also a very useful feature for unfamiliar 
code bases. I basically learned the Java API's with the autocomplete in 
Eclipse

* Inline errors/warnings

* Fix-it. For simple errors Xcode can show suggestions how to fix the 
errors. Clang does this on the command line as well but when it's 
integrated in to Xcode it makes it very convenient by just clicking a button

* The same library is used by both the IDE and the compiler, meaning 
they'll always be in sync

Not related to Clang but:

* Inline git blame and history

* A nice split view for comparison of the history

And a lot more. You should really try Xcode, just to see what the 
competition has to offer. Actually, in general, I think it's almost 
irresponsible to not know ones competitors.

> I’d also like to point out that a lot of things rely on naming or
> formatting conventions without people calling it a tooling failure
> (often the opposite). Take something like ARC, it relies on Cocoa
> methods starting with ‘init’ or ‘new’ to return retained objects.

I think Objective-C has many flaws. This particular case would probably 
have been better with some form of annotation or attribute attached to 
these methods.

> I would be happy to learn about better workflows, that is why I asked
> you why you felt Xcode was better for working with the TextMate source
> code (as a non-Xcode user myself).

Ok, cool. In general I do prefer TextMate when it comes to text editing 
and source control. But in this case Xcode has some really useful 
features that I miss in TextMate. Since I don't work so much on this 
code base I prefer to use TextMate. Most of the time is spent on reading 
source code and exploring.

At work, where I'm using Ruby eight hours per day, I use TextMate and 
could probably not use anything else. I have tried RubyMine, an IDE with 
many features mentioned above. I liked the accurate autocomplete and go 
to definition, I was even surprised that they work so well for Ruby. But 
I couldn't stand the rest of the editor. The snippets, commands and 
other stuff in TextMate is hard to beat.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg