In article <13mma3usmk57r97@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
"Chris Burrows" <cfbsoftware@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> "Mike Sieweke" <msieweke@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
> news:msieweke-47449D.00050919122007@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > What is a good IDE for a Pascal-family language (Pascal, Oberon,
> > Modula-3, etc.)? The emphasis is on "Integrated".
> >
> > My requirements are as follows:
> >
> > - integrated editor, compiler, debugger, and class browser
> > - set breakpoints in the editor (no need for a separate debugger)
> > - single-stepping shows the current line in the editor
> > - watchpoint window to view variables while single-stepping
> > - expression window to evaluate expressions
> > - full checking for overflow, range, null pointers, etc.
> >
>
> Turbo Delphi Explorer:
>
> http://www.turboexplorer.com/delphi
I played with Delphi for a few hours and came away slightly
underwhelmed. It seems surprisingly clunky for a product with
so many years of development behind it. It probably has every
feature you could ever want, if you can only figure out how
to use them.
It doesn't seem to sup****t multiple editor windows. Tabbed
editing is the only option. That's OK if you like tabbed
editing, which I don't.
It didn't detect use of an un-initialized pointer. It did
detect an error accessing beyond the end of a string. You
can set a breakpoint by clicking in the mysterious grey
column in the editor. At least it has an integrated
debugger.
It flickers an awful lot while compiling and running a
console application, as windows pop up and disappear and
change sizes. The debugger is a separate mode with a
different window layout, instead of being just an extra
panel. The default layout in debug mode is to take over
the screen and block the console window. The flickering
comes partially from hiding the main window and popping
up the debug window, and from switching back when the
program ends.
Many of these are minor irritations, which you can live
with if they don't add up to be a major irritation. The
cost (free) could make it easier to endure.
To be fair - Delphi is a big toolkit for developing full-
featured Windows applications. The interface builder
seems to be easy to use and very powerful. If you're
working on a large project, it's worth the time to learn
a complex tool like this. If I reach a point where I
want to ****t my code to Windows, I may use Delphi.
In the mean time I'll keep looking for something else.
Mike
--
Mike Sieweke
Duluth, GA
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