Gee, I really think you are being unreasonable here. I think JDE could improve in user friendliness. A lot of things in emacs-land can. That doesn't mean to switch to GUI's or anything. But JDE SHOULD be user-friendly. You can have user-friendly emacs programs, look at BBDB. It's usually not significantly more difficult to make things easier than it is to make them harder. It just takes a willingness to listen to user feedback, and a perception of what interactions seem to be "pain points". If JDE was not friendly, people wouldn't use it, they would use Java-mode instead. Some people at my company do exactly this. I'm not saying JDE's UI is very bad, I actually think it's one of the better UI's in emacs-land. However, I think there is room for improvement.
An example of a ui problem: I was showing my boss how to use JDE. I showed him how to attach to a running Java process and step through the program. When he asked how to see local variables, I paused for a second. I do this all the time, but I made my own keybinding for it. So I looked through the menu and found "JDebug->Display->Local Variables". When we did this, though, it wasn't what I wanted, and he wasn't very impressed. I had to assure him that there was a very nice way to view local variables, I just could't find it at the moment. I later found it was at "JDebug->Show Buffer->Locals". I think things that cause confusion like this are a real problem. If I can't find the command, it's as much a problem as if the command doesn't work. To me, there would be no difference. For this case, perhaps that Display menu item should be renamed something else, although I don't use it enough to know what would be more appropriate. "Artur Hefczyc" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > My personal opinion is that Emacs should become a little more user-friendly, > > otherwise IDEs like JBuilder and WebSphere Studio Enterprise Developer WILL > > take over, and Emacs will become a notepad on steroids. I don't know about > > you, but I have a tough time remembering just a few function names, not to > > mention the several hundred that JDEE/Emacs offer. GUI isn't such a bad > > thing. Let's face it, we're living in the 21st Century. > Maybe I am too old for modern 21st century apps. Maybe not. I even used > Linux with kernel version below 1.0.0, don't exactly remember which one. > During my development career I used many advanced IDEs: Borland Pascal, > Delphi, Borland C++ builder, JBuilder and some other. At last I fallen > in love to emacs and after starting programming in Java to JDEE for > emacs. > Look, Emacs shouldn't be user friendly because it isn't for users. > Emacs is for developers so it should be developers friendly. And it is! > I assume you are Java programmer. If you have troubles with remembering > just few function names how can you be good Java programmer? Java has > much more classes and methods. And each new JDK release offers next sets > of packages with classes. > Development is all about learning. If just don't like learning change > your duty. > Actually I am not going to force you use emacs+jdee or other IDEs or > change your programming habits. Emacs+JDEE is for java developers as > well as other Java Builders. They are simply for different kind of > developers. > Don't change emacs! I love it as is. If you don't like it switch to > different IDE. > > PS. Please, please don't send copy of your e-mails to my address. > I read jdee mailing list regularly so I don't need copies of each > mail. > > regards > Artur Hefczyc > -- > Artur Hefczyc > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://wttools.sourceforge.net/ > http://geotools.sourceforge.net/
