Luke Palmer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On 5/6/05, J Matisse Enzer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> I've become scared that if Perl is to continue to be viable for large, >> complex, multi-developer projects that the tools need to serious >> catch-up with what is available for Java, for example. Things like: >> >> - Refactoring Support (see http://www.refactoring.com/) >> - CVS and/or Subversion integration >> - Support for integrating regression tests and auto-building >> - Automated syntax and dependency checking >> >> I've been using Eclipse, with the EPIC plugin >> (http://e-p-i-c.sourceforge.net/) and so far I like it. It uses >> Devel::Refactor to support "extract subroutine", but a lot more is >> needed to match what you can do with Java these days. >> >> What are others' thoughts on this? > > I think you're absolutely right. Perl should have an IDE with > Eclipse-like context-sensitivity and refactoring support. However, > it's hardly in Perl's philosophy or interest to bless one. > > One thing is for sure. Perl 6 is providing enough introspection and > parsing capabilities to make it possible to write a context-sensitive > IDE, unlike Perl 5 (well, Perl 5 made it *possible*, I suppose, but > Perl 6 will make it obvious). Perl 6 is exposing its whole grammar at > the language level, so you can say "give me a syntax tree for this > chunk of code" and it will. Even if there are modules that change the > syntax with macros (though your editor might have trouble > understanding what the macros mean).
One of the 'mental apps' that's been pushing some of the things I've been asking for in Perl 6's introspection system is a combined refactoring/debugging/editing environment for the language. One of the annoyances of the 'only perl can parse Perl' thing is not so much the truth of the statement, but that perl 5 doesn't allow you to ask about the parsed code in ways that would be useful for an IDE. Perl 6 promises to change that -- it should be possible to either write a fantastic Perl 6 IDE in perl itself, or to write a codegrokker object that can be used by some pre existing IDE. > In other words, Perl 6 is open to the possibility of such an IDE, and > is going to provide the machinery necessary to build a really good > one, but I doubt it will become a development milestone. What about the debugger?
