What challenges does C++ present to IDE implementers?

[Steven T. Hatton]

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On Tuesday 13 April 2004 04:12 am, Fabio Fracassi wrote:
> On Monday 12 April 2004 21:24, Steven T. Hatton wrote:

> > 1) This is a really stupid question.  Shutup and go away.
> > 2) Hu?  WTH are you talking about?

> I'm not realy qualified to answer this, since I am just lurking around this
> list.
> I can only tell you what I thougt about your post, and it comes closest to
> 2). Its more like why do you want to know this/ What is the Point?
> Are you working on improvements?

Well, in a sense, yes. I really believe C++ has some weaknesses when it comes 
to supporting the developer.  People don't like comparisons to other 
languages.  Nonetheless, that other language that came out in the mid 1990s 
seems to do a better job of facilitating the creation of IDEs and related 
tools.

> Researching Languages?

I do enjoy thinking about language design, but this really is a C++ issue. 
There's a whole bunch of good software written in C++, and I would like to be 
able to contribute code.  There is far more to learn in the core language 
than in Java.  I suspect C# is a lot simpler.  Some of the stuff in C++ is 
just baggage from C.

In addition to the fundamental difficulties of learning the language, it is 
also more difficult to quickley and effectively integrate new SDKs into the 
development environment.  Or at least, that is the impression I have.

> What exactly are you interested in?
> Improvements in the toolchain? (ie. faster/smarter linker, precompiled
> header) 

Replacing the header with an interface definition.  The  precompiler is, in 
many ways, a kludge from an ancient age.  I'm really interested in bringing 
information about the development environment to the programmer in a quick, 
natural, and intuitive way.  I really don't know if there are any C++ IDEs 
which compare to the recent Java IDEs.  I don't want to mention product 
names, but the one Java product in particular I have in mind came from a 
company which really defined itself with its C++ IDE.  They may even be the 
ones who coined the acronym IDE.  Their most recent C++ IDE was written in 
Java.

> Or changes in the language (standard) itself? (support for AOP, 
> natice Signal/Slot, <your feature here>)

No, I'm not really trying to change the core language in that respect.  These 
are things that are better addressed by libraries and metaprogramming. 

> Your post reads as if you are mainly interested in the Parsing/Code
> Completion. AFAIK its Roberto Raggi who did the main work on these, and he
> seems to be quite busy right now.
>
> Fabio

That's pretty much what I expected.  

I've been working very hard to get up to speed with C++.  It's a language that 
takes after the name of it's creator. It's a bear of a language to learn.  I 
hope to return to the code completion of KDevelop and actually read the 
source.

STH
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