From: mapson AT mapson DOT com (mapson) Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp Subject: Re: Which is better... EMACS or RHIDE? Date: Sat, 02 Aug 1997 01:39:09 GMT Organization: Yale University Lines: 54 Message-ID: <33e28fbb.18642935@news.cis.yale.edu> References: <199708011725 DOT KAA16383 AT adit DOT ap DOT net> NNTP-Posting-Host: slip-ppp-node-11.cs.yale.edu To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp Precedence: bulk On Fri, 1 Aug 1997 17:25:26 GMT, Nate Eldredge wrote: >You wrote: >>Which is a better editor/development environment for DOS development. >>Can >>either of these products be used for professional development or should >>I buy >>a professional editor like multi-edit? >Uh oh, it's holy war time! :-) >Both are very very good. EMACS seems to be the choice programming editor in >the UNIX world. It is, however, affected by some restrictions under DOS >(like no integrated debugging). RHIDE is very similar to the Borland IDE's >used by many DOS programmers. Either are suited for professional >development, and IMHO, don't waste your money on commercial software when >such free options are available. I guess I never got good enough at emacs; I basically used it like a rather user-unfriendly "notepad." I have no idea how to make it do the things Rhide does, and it is pretty big, and has too many cryptic options than I've been able to sort through or remember. But I believe everybody that it is the ultimate tool. And there certainly is no danger of it dying; hence, there is no danger taking time learning it. I just haven't had the time... Rhide is install-and-go, and it is small (at least in comparison). Rhide's best features, for my use, are it's keeping track of all left-and-right matched parentheses and brackets, highlighing of keywords and other things, excellent grep and search features, tabbing and good cut-and-past features, good programming calculator (does bit shifting, et al- but it won't be perfect until you can copy and past from it! Major shortcoming!) and above all, the splendid way in which Rhide keeps track of 8 or 10 or however many files you have in a "project." I almost never see wierdness with it rebuilding things that don't need to be, etc. Great IDE for debugging, too, I think; drops you right at the problem spots for very fast debuggings. It took me about 2 months before I finally started using it's "project" feature- I wasn't really aware of how useful it was. Fact is, I think Rhide is somewhat problematic, even buggy, when you try to use it without it's project feature. But the project thing is incredibly simple to use. Once you discover the "Project Window" ( for 2 months it was just an irritating window I paid no attention to) and the "Add Item/Delete Item" , the rest is self-evident. You then understand the "project" concept. Things I'd like to see in the future are subtle changes- that calculator being able to cut/past, grep having some default parameters (like "*.c *.h" or such) for the 1/3 times I forget to put 'em in- or how about having Rhide's search have an option to do an "all-open-windows" search? Also- fix the fact that anything pasted from another application ends up shifting itself line-by-line to the right (solution: open, don't past).