Hi, To me DrRacket (and prev. DrScheme) is the only IDE I have tried that really appealed to me, much thanks to its minimalistic GUI. If that makes it look lika a toy, then it's a good thing in my book.
Only thing I am really missing is GUI support for defining my own keybindings (I never had much luck with defining my own keybindings). Now I haven't hacked any racket for a while, so things may have improved in this respect without my knowledge. Raoul, DrRacket is a bit different from other IDEs, but it does not necessarily make it worse. Give it a little more time and you may become accustomed to it's way and even start to like it. cheers /Johan 2011/11/13 Eli Barzilay <e...@barzilay.org> > 20 minutes ago, Raoul Duke wrote: > > (a) oh based on previous experience, i expect you of all people to > > be blunt! so i don't mind at all! :-) > > I'll do that. > > > where i'm coming from: [...] > > No relevance, except: > > > i'm using [...] mac os x. (at home i use that or linux since > > my xp box is dead. > > OK. > > > > * it doesn’t look like a native app, so it is very off-putting > > and has unsettled me from the get-go. > > This used to be the case for linux only, before the gui rewrite, and > since then it looks native on all plaforms including linux. (And that > includes the gtk file dialog that I detest.) But to make it useful, > you'll need to get *specific* points across. This: > > > even just the basic app menus aren’t remotely native-app looking. > > this looks like something that was hacked up in tk circa 1987 or > > some other "i purport to be cross-platform but really i'm just stab > > in the eye on all platforms rather than something that feels cozy at > > home on each platform." yes, i know cross-platform is really, > > really hard. > > has zero useful content. I'm not the DrRacket developer, but had I > been, there is nothing in the above that I see as useful in fixing > whatever it is that bothers you. > > [On the meta side of inflammatory posts: like Shriram, I find this > borderline trolling. Unlike your text, I can specify exactly why: you > use strong language like "stab in the eye" and "bad taste in my > mouth". Yet you have not justified this in any concrete way, so I > find it surprising that something would be equivalent to a stabbed > eye, yet it's vague enough to not come with an explicit explanation. > For all I know, that's all because some box on the screen didn't have > round corners at the same radius or something similar.] > > > > * it seems to be serving too many different audiences out of the > > box. having to choose a language is pretty confusing. > > Yes, that's a good -- and known -- point. The default language should > be the "detect language in source", but that can confuse newbies who > use the student languages so it's not the default, yet, mostly because > there isn't a clear way to improve it. > > > is dr. racket aimed first at top-level PLT folks who grok > > multi-lingual stuff? i think that should be more ‘advanced’ and thus > > hidden. [...] > > It is. At the stage of not being aware of the "multi-lingual stuff", > you just need to write "#lang racket" and be done with it. The > default behavior of the "detect language in source" does just that. > > > > * killer bad: when i evaluate code from the top pane, my cursor > > gets moved to the bottom pane and i have to manually get it back up > > top to edit my program. > > I'd say two things about this: (a) you're admittedly using lispish > languages very little -- and what drracket does is something that most > of the people who do use it expect as the default. I wrote my code > and now I want to try things out. (b) There are cases where I want to > just run the code to see that there were no errors etc -- but that > boils down to a feature request to get a second key (maybe C-S-r?) > that will leave the focus in whatever window you were at. Such a key > makes sense, but if that'll make you happy than I'd argue that "killer > bad" is a huge exaggeration. > > > > * killer bad: clicking on Check Syntax > > * changes the ui drastically and i have no idea how to get > > back to how it was before i clicked it. > > How does it change the UI? FWIW, I see two things: an error popping > up if there is one, and colors changing. Both are part of what I > expect it to do. The only thing that I'd complain about here is the > "check syntax" name, which makes it seem like some trivial tool in one > of the mainstream language where "check the syntax" is a trivial > functionality. But I don't have a good idea for a better name, and > "check syntax" has been around for a really long time so it became > it's own kind of term in the racket world. > > > > * also there were no visible results of clicking it, no > > report card, no “ok” even. i had (+ 3 2) as the program. > > I suspect that this is the same as above. (Confusing it for something > it is not.) I know that if DrRacket changes to pop up some "Your > syntax checks fine!" it would be much less useful for me. > > > > * doing (+ 3 z) at least hilighted the z, but that was a > > really small thing and hard to see and hard to know what it means > > and what to do with it and where to go from there. the ui is not > > showing me what to do. > > Sounds like you're seeing something different than what I see. I get > the "z" with a red background, which in the year that I live at (2011) > is a universal sign of "something bad happened". In case the red bg > is unclear, I also get an error message at the top of the screen, with > the error that happened. It even says "Check Syntax Error Message" on > the left so I know where it came from. Finally, the cursor is right > next to the offending "z", so my UI is really trying to show me that I > need to do something there to fix the error. > > > > * hovering over the hilighted z does nothing. > > I guess that it could show something, but since there is the error > window at the top I don't know what else could be shown there. > > > > * at this point, basically literally 5 or 7 minutes into using > > it, i’m ready to throw it out. the system is apparently utterly > > unhelpful, and seems to really try to lead me down various crazy > > garden paths of doom. > > This goes on with the strong language: "utterly unhelpful" seems > awfully strong for having one and a half very minor complaints that I > can extrapolate from the above. > > > > * like, i guess i have to quit the entire app and start it again > > to get the 2 pane format back? [oh i guess i can "run" it again to > > get it back at least.] > > Um, I have to admit that I run into similar problems with applications > that I don't know. In such cases I a menu named "View" is something > that looks very promising in rectifying whatever it is that I want to > view. Did you try that? > > -- > ((lambda (x) (x x)) (lambda (x) (x x))) Eli Barzilay: > http://barzilay.org/ Maze is Life! > > _________________________________________________ > For list-related administrative tasks: > http://lists.racket-lang.org/listinfo/users >
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