Editors or IDEs for training
Hi ppl, So I have a new little project called Padre to become an IDE for Perl. I talked about it with quite a lot of people on YAPC::EU. The immediate response of most of them was that they don't need any IDE as they are ok with vi or emacs. After some more explaining they did like some of the ideas but mostly they agreed that the main target might be people with little or no Perl background, especially from the Windows world. As you - the trainers - encounter such people quite often I wonder what do you currently use during training? What do you recommend to your students? I for one usually cannot give them vi or emacs as they don't know either of those. In my classes they are usually using Notepad++. If you can imagine something that is better than what you have now, what would that be? What do you feel is missing from the current environment of your students? If you would like to check out the project, its web site is http://padre.perlide.org/ but you can install if from CPAN directly as well. regards Gabor -- Gabor Szabo http://szabgab.com/blog.html Perl Training in Israel http://www.pti.co.il/ Test Automation Tips http://szabgab.com/test_automation_tips.html
Re: Editors or IDEs for training
On 18 Aug 2008, at 15:31, Gabor Szabo wrote: As you - the trainers - encounter such people quite often I wonder what do you currently use during training? What do you recommend to your students? I for one usually cannot give them vi or emacs as they don't know either of those. In my classes they are usually using Notepad++. I actually use Eclipse with the EPIC plugin for my perl courses. http://www.epic-ide.org/index.php Eclipse is a bit heavyweight, but it actually works out pretty well. I don't have to spend much time going over how to use shells / consoles as they can do all of the work from within eclipse. It also makes it really easy to access perldoc whilst writing their programs. The IDE is pretty good as well. It has interactive highlighting, variable name completion, and will identify errors as they type. In earlier versions of the plugin it used to be a bit of a pain running a new script for the first time, but they've improved this in later releases. I've noticed that even when shown something like emacs later on, most of the students tend to stick with using eclipse. TTFN Simon.
Re: Editors or IDEs for training
Gabor Szabo writes: > As you - the trainers - encounter such people quite often I wonder > what do you currently use during training? My current job doesn't involve training, but previously we did public training on Linux (Gnome), and installed every editor we could find in Debian. Most users ran Vim out of choice; some preferred one of the Emacsen or even Pico/Nano (which we definitely didn't recommend). For users not already familiar with a Unix editor we suggested GEdit or Kate. > What do you recommend to your students? > > I for one usually cannot give them vi or emacs as they don't know > either of those. It's less of a problem when delivering in-house training. Some companies have standardized on a particular editor; others let individual developers choose. At Microsoft (where, unsurprisingly, I was teaching on Windows) some of the class chose gvim.exe or other appropriate editors, but the most popular editor chosen, for coding in Perl, was Notepad. A susprising number of organizations make their developers use vi (or a clone) but the staff haven't learnt it and are quite inept at it. This is very useful as a trainer: it provides plent of opportunities to see somebody struggling with vi and point out a shortcut they didn't know. Bonus tips which make an attendees' life easier, but which aren't on the topic the training is supposed to be about (like vi on a Perl course), seem to make them happy. And happy attendees generally make the training (and the feedback) better. Smylers
Re: Editors or IDEs for training
I'll take a look at your project, but to be honest I wouldn't want to 'use' an IDE for training. I'm teaching Perl, not how to use a programming tool. Personally I've been using Komodo Edit lately and been quite happy with the most recent version. For me there is only one item that is critically important for a class though, and that is that whatever editor/IDE used in a workshop have solid syntax highlighting support (well, as well as the usual cut/copy/paste/undo etc. ;). Generally selecting an editor is part of working with the IT staff at the location where I'll run the workshop. If there is one that the organization has 'standardized' on I'll use that, and if not I'll suggest one or two appropriate to the platform. When the workshop starts I then tell the students that if they have access to an editor they like better they should feel free to use that instead. HTH, Sean On Mon, 2008-08-18 at 17:31 +0300, Gabor Szabo wrote: > Hi ppl, > > So I have a new little project called Padre to become an IDE for Perl. > > I talked about it with quite a lot of people on YAPC::EU. > The immediate response of most of them was that they don't need any IDE > as they are ok with vi or emacs. > After some more explaining they did like some of the ideas but mostly they > agreed that the main target might be people with little or no Perl background, > especially from the Windows world. > > As you - the trainers - encounter such people quite often I wonder what do > you currently use during training? What do you recommend to your students? > > I for one usually cannot give them vi or emacs as they don't know > either of those. > In my classes they are usually using Notepad++. > > > If you can imagine something that is better than what you have now, > what would that be? What do you feel is missing from the current environment > of your students? > > > If you would like to check out the project, its web site is > > http://padre.perlide.org/ > > but you can install if from CPAN directly as well. > > > regards >Gabor > > -- Sean Quinlan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Re: Editors or IDEs for training
Gabor Szabo wrote:
> So I have a new little project called Padre to become an IDE for Perl.
Excellent!
> As you - the trainers - encounter such people quite often I wonder what do
> you currently use during training? What do you recommend to your students?
For our general enrolment courses we usually have windows on the desktop and a
linux server. Those who will be primarily using windows, use Perl on that and
we provide them with PerlEdit[1]. Everyone else sshes into the server and uses
vim (almost exclusively)[2] or emacs (occasionally) or nano (extremely rarely).
[1] PerlEdit: http://www.indigostar.com/perledit.html It's free enough, easy to
install, very easy to use, has some neat Perl features (syntax highlighting,
perldoc lookup, inline error feedback). We'll swap it for something else that
was more free, as easy to install and use, as soon when we find out about such.
[2] Sometimes they think they're using vi, but they're not.
All the best,
Jacinta
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