From: "Campbell, Rolf [SKY:1U32:EXCH]" <cp1v45 AT americasm01 DOT nt DOT com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Re: RHIDE AND EMACS...Which one is better?
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 13:13:57 -0400
Organization: Nortel Networks
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To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
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Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com

Chris Holmes wrote:

> > > > How is the debugging?
> > >
> > >   As good as you are.  I can't stand IDE's.  They're big, nasty, slow,
> > > and won't tell you as much as a good compiler.  But that's just my
> > > opinion.
> >
> > Big? Not necessarily.  Slow? What do you use, an 86?  Nasty? I like
> > being able to compile and link my five-part program in seconds using
> > "Alt-r, r" in rhide...
>
>   Sorry everyone, this will be my last post along this line but I think
> this one will have some relation to the newsgroup.
>   A combination of dos and Qedit (or some other powerful text editor)
> and the use of batch files makes up for an IDE.  If you have an older
> copy of Turbo C++, it had a program called thelp that would load as a
> TSR and had a list and very GOOD descriptions of every standard C
> function that existed at the time.
>   Admittidly, Qedit has some problems, namely that it destroys long
> filenames (bad for Java), but, my batch files make ample use of the move
> command to repair the names.  It looks very impressive to even other
> programmers to watch you pull up source code in a nice friendly blue
> background environment, press + to mark a line of text, move down,
> press * several times to duplicate it, edit, save, and type "g" (what
> I name my compilation batch files) and watch several lines of renamings,
> compilings, greppings, etc. etc.
>   Batch files rule.

    I agree that batch-files are good, and I've used Qedit in the distant
past (many years ago).  But there are 2 issues:
1)  Integrated debugger.  I don't know of any free(ish) programs out there
that even come close to RHIDE's debugging capabilities.  If you enjoy using
gdb or a mess of printf's in your code, so be it, but you'll never know what
you're missing.  Also, there is no need for you're wonderful batch files with
RHIDE, just press F9 to compile your project.

2)  Emacs can be made to act like any other editor in the world, if you put a
little effort into it.  I really like RHIDE/SetEdit, but they miss a large
amout of functionallity that I use in Emacs every day.  So I configure Emacs
to basically act like RHIDE without the limitations (excluding debugging of
course).  Just today, I spend 30 minutes to coauthor a word-wrapping package
for XEmacs (it'll probably work on GNU).  But, by far the most used aspect of
Emacs for me is the eLisp stuff.  The only issue I have with Emacs is it's
lack of support for running external programs.  I haven't checked with the
DJGPP version, but I have checked the Win32 (GNU & X) versions.  I can't get
a command-shell to run or use the function "shell-command-to-string".  Is
this an issue with the DJGPP version as well?

--
     -Rolf Campbell (39)3-6318