I figured this is where we'd end up. I code in either environment with comparable speed, honestly, it's just getting used to the workflow. Honest! Now whether that means I code like the freakin' wind in either or am slow as hell in both I'll leave for you to decide. Rather than seeing the Eclipse-based methodology as 'stupid,' I decided to consider it merely different and have done some tweaks to get it the way I like it, which now I do.
And yes, I do 'think ahead' plenty, but that still doesn't mean that things don't get moved around all that often. In my particular freelance world, I end up dealing with 3rd party IT and backend guys and gals, subcontractors of varying skill, clients who want to change scope, clients who DO change scope (though they generally get punished financially), the gamut. Some of these experiences mean changes of plans, which means that the refactoring aspect is handy and saves me time. The debug stuff is also very handy. I write code, compile, test; I repeat this until I have a project done, for the most part. That means that I engage the debugger more than just occasionally, I really like having that data there. I like these additional features, and it's worth the money to me to have them all part of the same tool. If it saves me, say, 10 hours over the course of owning the software, I've more than paid for it, and I've more than paid for it. Some of us get to work in worlds where we define all variables at the outset of the project. We then see our projects built exactly to the class diagrams we built when we set out to start, and we don't deviate. We then get to write thousands of lines of perfect code, with perfect structure, then compile it once and find that we've removed every listener, destroyed every bitmap, caught every error, forseen every use case. I am not one of those people, so I've bought a tool (and use a platform) that helps compensate for that. --Matt On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 7:21 PM, Steven Sacks <flash...@stevensacks.net>wrote: > The act of writing Actionscript in FlashDevelop is, IMO, better. FD's code > completion and code gen is easier and faster. Because code completion and > code gen is the majority of what I do from moment to moment as I'm writing, > it's the better tool. > > Refactoring and debugging are not what I spend the majority of my time > doing. I have Flex Builder. I use it sometimes, but not always, and > generally I use it with Build Automatically turned on while I code in FD on > the same project and it will spot compile-time errors on the fly. > > FDT is a great (albeit expensive) tool, but for day to day coding, I prefer > FlashDevelop because it helps me write code faster. It might not help me > debug faster, but I spend a lot less time doing that than actually writing > code, which is where FlashDevelop shines. > > I'm confused by all these comments about the strength of the refactoring > tool being a deciding factor. Do you really move stuff around packages that > often? Do you really rename entire classes that often? I find that thinking > ahead solves that problem, and when it comes up, Find and Replace in files > does a great job, even if it's a few Find and Replaces instead of just one > Refactor command. > > Believe me, I (and many others) have asked the FD guys for this feature, > and it's something they're working on adding. However, it's not something I > use often enough to outweigh the benefits FD provides when actually writing > code. > > _______________________________________________ > Flashcoders mailing list > Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com > http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders > _______________________________________________ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
