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From: scott@sage.uchicago.edu (Scott Deerwester)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: A plea for a Structured Objective-C code browser in 2.0
Summary: Use GNU emacs
Message-ID: <1990Sep28.213826.4709@midway.uchicago.edu>
Date: 28 Sep 90 21:38:26 GMT
References: <27092@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
Sender: news@midway.uchicago.edu (News Administrator)
Reply-To: scott@sage.uchicago.edu (Scott Deerwester)
Organization: TIRA / UofC
Lines: 74
In-Reply-To: chase@boulder.Colorado.EDU (A. Chase Turner)

In article <27092@boulder.Colorado.EDU>, chase@boulder (A. Chase Turner) writes:
>I am listing my experience in programming environments -- in 
>descending order of preference:
>
>	ParcPlace's ObjectWorks -- both Smalltalk and C++
>	Symbolic's Genera programming environment
>	LightSpeed C on the Mac
>	Sun's dbxtool (for C and C++) 
>
>I rate NeXT's gdb and Edit at the very bottom.
>
>Don't get me wrong: I WANT to develop code on the NeXT platform 
>but I am finding myself completely dismayed at the disjoint cycle of 
>development I must waddle through:
>
>	- Write and modify code with Edit.
>	- Compile till gnu pukes.
>	- Correct syntax by walking through line numbers returned by 
>	   the compilier;  associate line number with code using 
>	   Edit's Select Line option.
>	- Syntax is okay but application is not behaving correctly -- 
>	   need to step through the code using gdb -- gave up 
>	   because it is too primative of a user interface
>	- Finally laced my code with printfs and successfully debugged 
>	   my application code....
>

I find myself in a very different cycle.  I just got done spending two
weeks writing a NeXT application that includes:

- An Interface Builder built front end with a custom view in it
- A couple of my own classes, one of which is the custom view
- Some pswrapped PostScript, with a few associated Objective C
  functions

The application evolved over the two weeks from something that does
little more than stick the custom view on the screen in a window so I
could debug the PostScript to a relatively sophisticated application
that reads data from files, etc.  My cycle is something like this:

- Once:
  - Muck with Interface Builder to define classes, outlets, actions,
    connections, look and feel, yada yada..
  - Unparse the classes I've defined.
  - Save from IB

- Loop:
  - From IB:
    - Parse files to define new outlets/actions.
    - Connect things

  - From Emacs:
    - Edit the Objective C and/or pswrap source files
    - M-x compile
    - ^X-`, ^X-n to step through and fix my syntax errors 
    - M-x gdb
    - Use ^X-SPC to set breakpoints, and run the thing

Works very well.  I was able to build an app that I like a lot in two
weeks that would have taken me months in any other platform I've
programmed in.  Granted, I didn't use Edit -- don't much like it --
and I interfaced to gdb from gnumacs, but hey, that was supposed to be
the idea, wasn't it?  Add that to my favorite C mode in gnumacs, and I
even limit the number of syntax errors I get, since the editor checks
my braces for me.

I was also able to read your article, compose my response to it, and
verify that all of the stuff I just said actually works, all from
gnumacs...
-------
Scott Deerwester            | Internet: scott@tira.uchicago.edu  | ~{P;N,5B~}
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