Re: refactoring using parser

On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 9:59 AM, Peng Yu <[email protected]> wrote:
[...snip...]
>> I'd say it depends! If you're comfortable with vim and refactoring would be
>> the only feature you'd use from the IDE, then the cost of switching would
>> probably be too high. But an IDE usually has other benefits as well, so you
>> might want to try it :-)
>
>
> What features that are available in an IDE (e.g., Eclipse) are missing in vim?

There's a lot, unfortunately. I wouldn't argue that they aren't
possible in Vim, but it's not easy to find many of the subtle features
present in any IDE that make it a joy to use (for that intended
purpose):

* Refactoring.  At absolute minimum, I'd need the following:
  * Rename (which may require renaming files)
  * Move
  * Extract Method
  * Inline Method
  * Pull up
  * Extract Interface
* View type hierarchy of currently selected instance / object
* Continuous Test Runner (run unit tests in background on file save
and display results)
* Re-run only failed tests or certain test packages
* Debug test, stopping at breakpoints, etc.
* Instantaneous feedback on bad syntax and semantics
* Find all references of * (an instance variable, a type, an interface, etc.)

... and I could go on despite being a huge Vim fan.  I save a huge
amount of time using automated refactoring tools.

That said, most IDEs are *painful* for basic text editing.  For Vim, I
recommend the following:

* Download and install VimPlugin
* Configure VimPlugin so that GVim is embedded within Eclipse
  * NOTE: This does little more than embed vim, you don't have full
access to refactoring, etc.
* Run Eclipse with a vim window side-by-side with a standard Eclipse Editor

By doing the above, I can use gvim for most text operations and a
different window for refactoring and other browsing methods. I find
this is slightly better than having Vim and Eclipse running
side-by-side as I have less focus issues and there's better
integration between the two.

I've thought about trying Eclim, but haven't yet.

If the language I'm working with has only minimal support for
refactorings within an IDE, I use vim much more exclusively.

--
Kaleb Pederson

Blog - http://kalebpederson.com
Twitter - http://twitter.com/kalebpederson


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