[Fife Linux Users Group] Linux IDE for Developers

[Barrie Dempster]

On Wed, 2006-04-19 at 22:05 +0100, John A Thomson of Roundtrip Solutions
Limited wrote:
> Hi Guys,
>  
> A new member over on Scottish Developers has just asked about Linux
> IDE:
> http://www.scottishdevelopers.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=810&post_id=2829&order=0&viewmode=flat&pid=2821&forum=3200#forumpost2829
>  
> Please, if you have any recommendation could you either post directly
> on this thread at Scottish Developers or reply to this one and I'll
> put up the recommendations.

The IDE has never really taken off in Linux, developers like hands on.
So there are so many command line tools and text editor integrated
features - that developers tend to prefer those to any IDE. This isn't
CLI snobbery! it's just developers are masters at gluing different
components together so the CLI is the perfect tool for them. Although he
did mention KDevelop and Eclipse which are among the most commonly used
IDE's.

Any development I would do would be using vim and the automake tools
(For creating GUI's I'd mix in Glade), that gives me syntax
highlighting, automatic indentation etc... plus the build scripts and so
on. Since Linux is a system where there are so many different components
all interacting the IDE isn't really a necessity - We're talking about
an OS where the documentation for the compiled programs and the syscalls
is in the same place and often installed with the base OS. The OS itself
is a development environment (even the source code is there). The demand
for IDE's on Linux has only become more prevalent as more Windows
users/developers move into the space and don't realise  that everything
they need is already there and it is a different development methodology
(I'm not arguing better - just different!)

I know that's not quite the answer he'll be looking for but it is the
way Linux development is commonly done - although obviously there are
exceptions. I'm not arguing for or against the two methods, the
important point is that Windows is coded within an IDE and Linux isn't
which is probably why coding on Windows is easier with an IDE and coding
on Linux is easier using command line tools. It's not always about
porting the code, sometimes the developer needs ported too!
 
> I'll also mention the fact that there are Linux User Groups in
> Scotland, providing website and contact details. Is there a defacto
> source of info on this subject?

http://www.lug.org.uk/
There are a lot of developers of large Linux based projects on ScotLUG
and EdLUG (smoothwall, debian, redhat, enlightenment, gnome, kde
etc....) So they would give more specific advice. It's important to note
what exactly he is coding - Kernel code is just silly in an IDE, coding
GTK GUI's you'd likely want to try Glade, coding for QT you might use
KDevelop or the Trolltech stuff.

It's also important to note that each of these IDE's just front-end
things like gcc/automake/cvs anyway so again they just combine
pre-existing tools, in much the same way as you would be doing just
using vim/cvs/gcc on the CLI. 


>  
> To finish off, hasn't it been quiet in here?

Indeed it has, myself and James have been away for a few weeks and I
know some of the other guys have been off and on the IRC channel (I'm
always idle when they are there).

We need to setup that mythical meeting!

-- 
With Regards..
Barrie Dempster (zeedz) - Fortiter et Strenue

              - http://reboot-robot.net -

"He who hingeth aboot, geteth hee-haw" Victor - Still Game

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