Re: [racket-users] Alternatives to DrRacket

[Sam Caldwell]

documentation (albeit limited) on the macro stepper:
http://docs.racket-lang.org/macro-debugger/index.html#%28part._.Using_the_.Macro_.Stepper%29

You can also find `expand/step` there, which I find to be a very useful
complement to using DrRacket to step through the expansion of an entire
module.

- Sam Caldwell

On Mon, Nov 27, 2017 at 11:33 AM, Damien MATTEI 
wrote:

> Le Monday 27 November 2017 05:18:02 pm David Storrs, vous avez écrit :
>
> >
> > > 2. The macro stepper is extremely handy when it works, and being able
> to
> > > inspect syntax objects in the interactions pane is wonderful when the
> > > macro stepper doesn't work.
> >
> > Offtopic:  This is the one big feature that I've tried DrRacket for,
> > but I've never been able to make it work. Everything gets reduced to
> > lambdas instead of more high-level forms so that long before I
> > actually see anything useful I get a giant mess.   Maybe I don't
> > understand it well enough, or maybe there's something I need to do
> > differently with it?  I was expecting to just keep clicking the 'step'
> > button; is there any sort of context or etc that I need to establish
> > first?
> >
>
> not easy to use, i never succeed to use it too , any documentation
> somewhere about the macro-stepper use?
>
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Re: [racket-users] Alternatives to DrRacket

[Damien MATTEI]

Le Monday 27 November 2017 05:18:02 pm David Storrs, vous avez écrit :

> 
> > 2. The macro stepper is extremely handy when it works, and being able to
> > inspect syntax objects in the interactions pane is wonderful when the
> > macro stepper doesn't work.
> 
> Offtopic:  This is the one big feature that I've tried DrRacket for,
> but I've never been able to make it work. Everything gets reduced to
> lambdas instead of more high-level forms so that long before I
> actually see anything useful I get a giant mess.   Maybe I don't
> understand it well enough, or maybe there's something I need to do
> differently with it?  I was expecting to just keep clicking the 'step'
> button; is there any sort of context or etc that I need to establish
> first?
> 

not easy to use, i never succeed to use it too , any documentation somewhere 
about the macro-stepper use?

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Re: [racket-users] Alternatives to DrRacket

[David Storrs]

On Sun, Nov 26, 2017 at 12:43 PM, David Thrane Christiansen
 wrote:
> Hi Stephen,
>
>> I’ve noticed some list members use other editors or IDE’s.
>>
>> I know two big reasons for using a complex tool is it’s stickiness factors;
>> normally a combination of familiarity (hence speed) with a lot of powerful
>> features and non-transportable customisation.
>>
>> Putting stickiness factors aside, what features in other editors/IDE’s
>> would you like to see in DrRacket?

Multiple cursor mode.  cf http://emacsrocks.com/e13.html  I don't use
it all the time but when I use it it's much easier than the
alternatives.


> 2. The macro stepper is extremely handy when it works, and being able to
> inspect syntax objects in the interactions pane is wonderful when the
> macro stepper doesn't work.

Offtopic:  This is the one big feature that I've tried DrRacket for,
but I've never been able to make it work. Everything gets reduced to
lambdas instead of more high-level forms so that long before I
actually see anything useful I get a giant mess.   Maybe I don't
understand it well enough, or maybe there's something I need to do
differently with it?  I was expecting to just keep clicking the 'step'
button; is there any sort of context or etc that I need to establish
first?

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Re: [racket-users] Alternatives to DrRacket

[Richard Cobbe]

On Mon, Nov 27, 2017 at 09:48:16AM +, Robby Findler wrote:
> It may help to disable online compilation. (Click on the little circle in
> the bottom to get a menu that lets you disable it.)

Ah!  Thanks for the suggestion; I'll give that a try.

Richard

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Re: [racket-users] Alternatives to DrRacket

[Annaia Berry]

I generally use DrRacket for all my Racket dev because it "just works
(tm)". I have sometimes used other editors for it, and the main things I
miss from those usually are autocomplete (DrR has this but it's always been
way too slow for me so I never turn it on), more detailed syntax
highlighting (like royall Spence's examples), rainbow parens, and perhaps
most importantly of all: Parinfer.

Parinfer makes Lisp editing vastly less painful, though DrRacket is pretty
good about visualizing bracket containment so that missing parens at least
are easily spotted usually. restructuring code and so forth though is just
so much more pleasant I find with Parinfer, especially the Atom version's
auto-reformatting (something I miss even in my favorite, VS Code!).

for the most part though, DrRacket always seems to just be "good enough"
that having everything in one easily accessed tool is worth what minor
conveniences I miss out on.

On Mon, Nov 27, 2017 at 11:48 AM, Robby Findler  wrote:

> It may help to disable online compilation. (Click on the little circle in
> the bottom to get a menu that lets you disable it.)
>
> Robby
>
> On Sun, Nov 26, 2017 at 9:21 PM Richard Cobbe  wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Nov 26, 2017 at 03:42:14PM +, Stephen De Gabrielle wrote:
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > I’ve noticed some list members use other editors or IDE’s.
>> >
>> > I know two big reasons for using a complex tool is it’s stickiness
>> factors;
>> > normally a combination of familiarity (hence speed) with a lot of
>> powerful
>> > features and non-transportable customisation.
>> >
>> > Putting stickiness factors aside, what features in other editors/IDE’s
>> > would you like to see in DrRacket?
>>
>> I generally switch back and forth between Emacs and DrRacket as
>> appropriate
>> for the task at hand.  DrRacket is good for code navigation, but if I'm
>> doing a lot of writing, I generally prefer emacs, largely for reasons that
>> others have mentioned in this thread.
>>
>> There is one particular issue, however, that I haven't seen come up: power
>> usage.  I haven't really investigated what's going on here, but DrRacket
>> drains the battery on my MacBook Pro quite rapidly (last experienced with
>> DrRacket 6.11 on MacOS 10.12.latest).  What's more, it appears to do this
>> even if the app is only open in the background and I'm not actually
>> interacting with it.  So if I don't have access to AC power, I generally
>> close DrRacket and stick with Emacs.
>>
>> If the DrRacket maintainers are interested, I'd be happy to help diagnose
>> the power problem in more detail, as time permits.  However, I don't
>> really
>> know what tests would be useful.  Suggestions welcome!
>>
>> Richard
>>
>> --
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Re: [racket-users] Alternatives to DrRacket

[Robby Findler]

It may help to disable online compilation. (Click on the little circle in
the bottom to get a menu that lets you disable it.)

Robby

On Sun, Nov 26, 2017 at 9:21 PM Richard Cobbe  wrote:

> On Sun, Nov 26, 2017 at 03:42:14PM +, Stephen De Gabrielle wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I’ve noticed some list members use other editors or IDE’s.
> >
> > I know two big reasons for using a complex tool is it’s stickiness
> factors;
> > normally a combination of familiarity (hence speed) with a lot of
> powerful
> > features and non-transportable customisation.
> >
> > Putting stickiness factors aside, what features in other editors/IDE’s
> > would you like to see in DrRacket?
>
> I generally switch back and forth between Emacs and DrRacket as appropriate
> for the task at hand.  DrRacket is good for code navigation, but if I'm
> doing a lot of writing, I generally prefer emacs, largely for reasons that
> others have mentioned in this thread.
>
> There is one particular issue, however, that I haven't seen come up: power
> usage.  I haven't really investigated what's going on here, but DrRacket
> drains the battery on my MacBook Pro quite rapidly (last experienced with
> DrRacket 6.11 on MacOS 10.12.latest).  What's more, it appears to do this
> even if the app is only open in the background and I'm not actually
> interacting with it.  So if I don't have access to AC power, I generally
> close DrRacket and stick with Emacs.
>
> If the DrRacket maintainers are interested, I'd be happy to help diagnose
> the power problem in more detail, as time permits.  However, I don't really
> know what tests would be useful.  Suggestions welcome!
>
> Richard
>
> --
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Re: [racket-users] Alternatives to DrRacket

[Damien MATTEI]

i use emacs with all Scheme implementations and also for Racket,when debugging 
i can use the racket editor that display information about trace calls
but i still modify in emacs and refresh only in DrRacket, in emacs i appeciate 
the syntax highlighting and the search and replace fast short-cuts and because 
i use those features  for a long time.

Damien


Le Sunday 26 November 2017 04:42:14 pm Stephen De Gabrielle, vous avez écrit :
> Hi,
> 
> I’ve noticed some list members use other editors or IDE’s.
> 
> I know two big reasons for using a complex tool is it’s stickiness factors;
> normally a combination of familiarity (hence speed) with a lot of powerful
> features and non-transportable customisation.
> 
> Putting stickiness factors aside, what features in other editors/IDE’s
> would you like to see in DrRacket?
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> Stephen
> 
> 
> -- 
> Kind regards,
> Stephen
> --
> Ealing (London), UK
> 


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Re: [racket-users] Alternatives to DrRacket

[Konrad Hinsen]

On 26/11/2017 16:42, Stephen De Gabrielle wrote:

I know two big reasons for using a complex tool is it’s stickiness 
factors; normally a combination of familiarity (hence speed) with a lot 
of powerful features and non-transportable customisation.


A third big reason is generality. The main reason why I prefer Emacs to 
DrRacket is that it does so many things unrelated to Racket. Anything 
that requires a text-based interface can be done in Emacs.


Putting stickiness factors aside, what features in other editors/IDE’s 
would you like to see in DrRacket?


Since I do use DrRacket from time to time for very Racket-specific 
things (e.g. the debugger and the macro stepper), I do have a small 
wishlist:


1) Paredit mode like in Emacs, sufficiently compatible that I can switch 
seamlessly between the two.


Well, that's it. Just one point.

Konrad.

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Re: [racket-users] Alternatives to DrRacket

[Matthias Felleisen]

> On Nov 26, 2017, at 11:27 AM, 'Royall Spence' via users-redirect 
>  wrote:
> 
>  DrRacket actually does the things it claims to do and isn't a broken mess.


Yes, it is an amazing tool. I occasionally escape to Emacs for tasks that I 
can’t do easily in Dr (e.g. rectangular editing) but never for long. 

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Re: [racket-users] Alternatives to DrRacket

[Richard Cobbe]

On Sun, Nov 26, 2017 at 03:42:14PM +, Stephen De Gabrielle wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I’ve noticed some list members use other editors or IDE’s.
>
> I know two big reasons for using a complex tool is it’s stickiness factors;
> normally a combination of familiarity (hence speed) with a lot of powerful
> features and non-transportable customisation.
>
> Putting stickiness factors aside, what features in other editors/IDE’s
> would you like to see in DrRacket?

I generally switch back and forth between Emacs and DrRacket as appropriate
for the task at hand.  DrRacket is good for code navigation, but if I'm
doing a lot of writing, I generally prefer emacs, largely for reasons that
others have mentioned in this thread.

There is one particular issue, however, that I haven't seen come up: power
usage.  I haven't really investigated what's going on here, but DrRacket
drains the battery on my MacBook Pro quite rapidly (last experienced with
DrRacket 6.11 on MacOS 10.12.latest).  What's more, it appears to do this
even if the app is only open in the background and I'm not actually
interacting with it.  So if I don't have access to AC power, I generally
close DrRacket and stick with Emacs.

If the DrRacket maintainers are interested, I'd be happy to help diagnose
the power problem in more detail, as time permits.  However, I don't really
know what tests would be useful.  Suggestions welcome!

Richard

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Re: [racket-users] Alternatives to DrRacket

[David Thrane Christiansen]

Hi Stephen,

> I’ve noticed some list members use other editors or IDE’s.
> 
> I know two big reasons for using a complex tool is it’s stickiness factors;
> normally a combination of familiarity (hence speed) with a lot of powerful
> features and non-transportable customisation.
> 
> Putting stickiness factors aside, what features in other editors/IDE’s
> would you like to see in DrRacket?

I use both Emacs and DrRacket for Racket code, Emacs for basically
everything else.

As you surmise, there are generally-useful Emacs packages and features
that keep me there. In particular:

1. Paredit: The DrRacket Paredit emulation is different enough to make
it much less convenient. In particular, it leaves lots of extra closing
parens floating around.

2. helm-ag: This lets me very quickly search everything in the closest
Git repo, without it having to be a big ceremony.

3. Magit: This is the best interface to Git on the planet, and having it
in the same editor is much more convenient than switching over to Emacs
just to Git.

4. Speed. Emacs is very snappy, while DrRacket sometimes noticably lags
after input.

5. General editing: Emacs has things like keyboard macros and the
ability to write a quick little on-off bit of elisp that make
large-scale editing far more convenient. As far as I can tell, I'd need
to write a DrRacket tool to make this happen, and that involves a lot
more ceremony than a quick defun in *scratch*. And filling is hard to do
without.

6. M-/ for autocomplete of anything open anywhere.

7. It works the same way for everything. I get all the same features
whether I'm working on Racket, Haskell, Idris, LaTeX, Agda, or a
Makefile (that's about in the order of frequency of editing for me).
It's great to have everything that makes sense in one work well in the
other.

8. Commands like motion and isearch work *everywhere*, not just in text
buffers. So there's no need for a separate search mechanism for things
like settings.

racket-mode supports some things that DrRacket doesn't, above and beyond
standard Emacs. In particular,
1. The ability to get a REPL in the context of a particular submodule,
which makes developing things like tests more convenient.

2. I can put custom indentation rules for my macros into a
.dir-locals.el so that they don't pollute a global indentation config.

3. There's a keybinding to cycle through paren shapes for the
surrounding expression, () -> [] -> {} -> (). I use this constantly.

So why use DrRacket?

1. Good support for languages like Scribble. I never got that working to
my liking in Emacs.

2. The macro stepper is extremely handy when it works, and being able to
inspect syntax objects in the interactions pane is wonderful when the
macro stepper doesn't work.

3. It's easier to create close integrations between a #lang and its
interface.  For example, binding arrows, adding tooltips showing types,
and designing interactive editing commands written in Racket. Doing this
in Emacs is not nearly as fun (and I know, I've done it for Idris).

4. Students use it, so they should be supported.

5. Much better control over subprocesses. It's far easier for a runaway
process in Emacs to make the computer very slow, while DrRacket stops it
when it allocates too much.

Hope that was useful. Thanks for your interest in making things even better!

/David

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Re: [racket-users] Alternatives to DrRacket

[Neil Van Dyke]

DrRacket is never going to be able to do everything as well as Emacs 
(and DrRacket can do some things a lot better than Emacs), but a few 
small conveniences that I'd like to see in DrRacket when I use it:


* Visually distinguish identifiers that start special syntax separate 
from `#lang racket/base` (or whatever Scheme-like lang), so, when 
reading code, you know whether some identifier you don't recognize JUST 
CHANGED ALL THE RULES.  See black bold variable names in screenshot: 
http://www.neilvandyke.org/temporary/20171126-quack.png


* Visually distinguish identifiers that define top-level names 
(variables, syntax extensions, unhygienic structs ahem, etc.).  See blue 
in screenshot.  I often visually scan for these names, and making them 
more prominent helps.  (Non-top-level, such as in `let` forms, would 
also be nice, though I don't have Quack doing that, and Quack just uses 
regexp kludges for the top-level ones.)


* Have Emacs-like "filling" of paragraphs of text in comments, including 
support for prefixed paragraphs like bulleted lists.  I sometimes make a 
lot of multiline TODO and code-explanatory comments, and as a compromise 
with the simple text-file representation of source code, and considering 
various 80-column tools and screen sizes that might be involved, I try 
to keep most of the code within the historical 79 columns. So, after I 
touch comments in DrRacket, I have to go to Emacs to re-fill them.


* Have a "tidy" feature like Quack's, which converts tabs to 
spaces, removes extraneous whitespace (ends of lines, multiple blank 
lines, beginning and end of file), and reindents the entire buffer.  
(This doesn't do automatic comment-filling in Emacs, because sometimes 
that requires human discretion or crafting, and can be a mess if the 
code already wasn't written for filling (e.g., if it loses some other ad 
hoc formatting, and ends up blending paragraphs together, destroying 
tables and ASCII art, etc.)


* Emacs-like indenting of comments with 1-semicolon (i.e., indented to a 
column independent of indent level and whether there is preceding code 
on the line; the column position is either a fixed one (40), or, if the 
preceding line has a 1-semicolon comment beyond that fixed column, then 
the column of that preceding comment).  This is an old Emacs 
convention.  I could live without this, but DrRacket's 1-semicolon 
comments indenting to the code indent level means that they get messed 
up when indenting in Emacs or DrRacket, or when doing Quack tidy.


Also, for experienced use of DrRacket (not for intro students), I'd like 
to get rid of some of the clutter outside of the text widgets, such as 
buttons and indicators that I don't need.  And I wish that various 
message subwindows that pop into the frame and then need their close 
boxes to be clicked would go away automatically (see how Emacs uses the 
message area, does isearch, etc.).


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Re: [racket-users] Alternatives to DrRacket

['Royall Spence' via users-redirect]

One thing I appreciate about racket-mode in emacs is the more
detailed syntax highlighting. I've attached two screenshots of the
same code in emacs and DrRacket. I think what's happening here is
that racket-mode highlights `for-clause` names and function
applications (sometimes?) while DrRacket does not. I might be
misunderstanding what I'm looking at.
Looking at the two screens, I didn't realize how much DrRacket was
highlighting until I tried to describe the differences. Now I've
adjusted DrRacket to match my emacs colors and find the code a bit
easier to navigate. The default dark colors in DrRacket seem to prefer
bolding over color change, which is less distinct to me.
I've got to say, though, that unlike most other IDEs (for any
language), DrRacket actually does the things it claims to do and isn't
a broken mess.
On Sun, Nov 26, 2017, at 10:42 AM, Stephen De Gabrielle wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I’ve noticed some list members use other editors or IDE’s. 
> 
> I know two big reasons for using a complex tool is it’s stickiness
> factors; normally a combination of familiarity (hence speed) with a
> lot of powerful features and non-transportable customisation.> 
> Putting stickiness factors aside, what features in other editors/IDE’s
> would you like to see in DrRacket?> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> Stephen
> 
> 
> -- 
> Kind regards,
> Stephen
> --
> Ealing (London), UK
> 


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[racket-users] Alternatives to DrRacket

[Stephen De Gabrielle]

Hi,

I’ve noticed some list members use other editors or IDE’s.

I know two big reasons for using a complex tool is it’s stickiness factors;
normally a combination of familiarity (hence speed) with a lot of powerful
features and non-transportable customisation.

Putting stickiness factors aside, what features in other editors/IDE’s
would you like to see in DrRacket?

Kind regards,

Stephen


-- 
Kind regards,
Stephen
--
Ealing (London), UK

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