On Tue, 29 Jun 2010 07:56:09 -0400 Lee Spector <lspec...@hampshire.edu> wrote:
> > On Jun 29, 2010, at 1:05 AM, Mike Meyer wrote: > >> Yes emacs has built-in paren matching but emacs (like vi) is something > >> that has to be learned, not all newcomers will know it, I don't want > >> to force my students to use it (although I use it) > > > > But you're willing to force them to use some other editor? > > The ideal is to provide an editor that can be used without effort because it > follows the standard interface conventions of the platform. That's what's so > helpful about the editors in MCL, DrScheme, Processing, etc. Each has fancy > stuff too, available through platform-conventional menus etc., but you don't > need a lesson to do basic editing tasks (as you do with emacs and vi). So you don't want one editor, you want a three (mac/windows/unix). Or four (mac/windows/gnome/kde). Or maybe five (mac/windows/gnome/kde/wmiietall). Actually, have you looked at jedit? It's the only free Java editor that isn't trying to be an IDE. > > See, I find this funny. Getting emacs to do clojure indentation is > > pretty much exactly as hard as getting clojure to use some third party > > library: dump clojure-mode.el onto your load-path, and then load > > it. > > Not true. I had several hiccups in the process of getting emacs clojure mode > to work (maybe because I first tried an outdated way and then that left stuff > that clashed the next thing I tried... there are a a couple of clojure-mode > tools/installers out there) and so have others -- if you check the list > archives you'll see that periodic calls for help with this. Um, I've been watching the list for quite a while, and have never seen anyone with problems with just clojure-mode. What I have seen are people having problems with getting slime and swank set up and running in clojure-mode, but you don't need that to get smart clojure indenting. All you need is the clojure-mode.el file and requiring it. Of course, that clojure-mode.el encourages you to install clojure, slime, and swank-clojure doesn't help, but I had it doing clojure-specific indentation before starting down that rathole. > > Considering that I've never seen an IDE that I thought had an editor > > that was "good enough for real use", I find that statement highly > > subjective. > What I meant here was pretty simple: New users can begin using the editor > without any specific instructions about how to use the editor per se, and a > semester later they can be writing substantial programs in the same editor > without feeling like it's holding them back. In my experience that's true of > the editors in many IDEs for many languages. I think you're asking to much for the first step. They don't need clojure-specific indentation; they just need a simple-minded autoindent and paren matching. Those should be available in pretty much any editor. Clojure-specific is nice, but they can correct it by hand trivially. That won't get them to the second step, though. To me, that means you have to have an editor that's tightly coupled to a REPL. I need to be able to send a file from an edit buffer to the REPL, or send a marked region of text in the buffer, or the definition surrounding the point, and then type text at the reply to test the just evaluated code. All without having to touch the mouse. Here's where individual preferences comes to the fore - some people will want to do everything via the mouse, some won't want to touch the little rodent, some will want doc strings available in the editors, others will want them in the repl, yet others will want them in an external document. All of which is why I think that starting with "your favorite text editor with paren matching and auto-indent" is the right way to get started - at least for people who aren't learning to use a computer for the first time. > > Basically, you need someone to either a) write an editor for clojure, > > or b) provide instructions for setting up a suitable java-sourced > > editor (so it runs everywhere) to do clojure indentation, then bundle > > all that with clojure and clojure-contrib and a little bit of support? > > I think that several versions of "nearly the right stuff" are available but > that the bundling/instructions could be made a little more clear for > newcomers in every case that I know of (each case maybe needing a slightly > different tweak). If that's the case, is there some reason you haven't created this? I'd be more than happy to provide web space for it if you need it. <mike -- Mike Meyer <m...@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/consulting.html Independent Network/Unix/Perforce consultant, email for more information. O< ascii ribbon campaign - stop html mail - www.asciiribbon.org -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
