Review of featured applications

[Shane Fagan]

On Fri, 2010-03-26 at 14:22 +1100, Robert Ancell wrote:
> On 26/03/10 14:05, Shane Fagan wrote:
> >> - Remove Eclipse
> >>     - Huge download
> >>     - Only supports Java out of the box
> >>     - The Eclipse brand is strong enough that it doesn't need promoting
> >>      
> > Im going to go out on the limb and suggest we replace it with
> > Monodevelop it supports mono,java,python,vala....etc although require
> > the user to install the support for each language.
> >    
> My review of all the supplied IDEs showed MonoDevelop to appear to be 
> the easiest to use, but:
> - I've never used an IDE for any significant period of time
> - I didn't use any of the proposed IDEs to do more that write a hello 
> world program.
> 
> We need to consider what sort of user clicks on featured applications 
> and which users would benefit from the suggested IDE.
> My experience of IDE users is:
>   - They're generally passionate users who have a preferred IDE (much 
> like text editors for non-IDE programmers).  So by suggesting an IDE 
> we're targeting people who haven't already chosen an IDE.
>   - IDEs tend be a part of a developer package.  If we suggest 
> MonoDevelop will users link well to documentation and the developer 
> community?  Or will it just be a fancy text editor/compiler?
> 
> Saying it in a simpler way:
> - Will an IDE encourage people to learn programming?
> - Will opportunistic developers be able to use it to complete their 
> desired project?
> - Will experienced developers find the suggested IDE helpful or will 
> they already use their existing IDE/do the research themselves?
> 
> 
Well no it wouldnt encourage people to learn programming. 
Hmmm I dont think there is any good python IDE for the opportunistic
developer.
I dont think many experienced developers use IDEs too much. The ones I
know in development companies use eclipse (or different flavors of
eclipse) or text editors. I use netbeans in college but for python I use
gedit. 

-Fagan