Editors or IDEs for training
Gabor Szabo
So I have a new little project called Padre to become an IDE for Perl.
I talked about it with quite a lot of people on YAPC::EU.
The immediate response of most of them was that they don't need any IDE
as they are ok with vi or emacs.
After some more explaining they did like some of the ideas but mostly they
agreed that the main target might be people with little or no Perl background,
especially from the Windows world.
As you - the trainers - encounter such people quite often I wonder what do
you currently use during training? What do you recommend to your students?
I for one usually cannot give them vi or emacs as they don't know
either of those.
In my classes they are usually using Notepad++.
If you can imagine something that is better than what you have now,
what would that be? What do you feel is missing from the current environment
of your students?
If you would like to check out the project, its web site is
but you can install if from CPAN directly as well.
regards
Gabor
--
Gabor Szabo http://szabgab.com/blog.html
Perl Training in Israel http://www.pti.co.il/
Test Automation Tips http://szabgab.com/test_automation_tips.html
Simon Andrews
On 18 Aug 2008, at 15:31, Gabor Szabo wrote:
> As you - the trainers - encounter such people quite often I wonder
> what do
> you currently use during training? What do you recommend to your
> students?
>
> I for one usually cannot give them vi or emacs as they don't know
> either of those.
> In my classes they are usually using Notepad++.
I actually use Eclipse with the EPIC plugin for my perl courses.
http://www.epic-ide.org/index.php
Eclipse is a bit heavyweight, but it actually works out pretty well.
I don't have to spend much time going over how to use shells /
consoles as they can do all of the work from within eclipse. It also
makes it really easy to access perldoc whilst writing their programs.
The IDE is pretty good as well. It has interactive highlighting,
variable name completion, and will identify errors as they type. In
earlier versions of the plugin it used to be a bit of a pain running
a new script for the first time, but they've improved this in later
releases.
I've noticed that even when shown something like emacs later on, most
of the students tend to stick with using eclipse.
TTFN
Simon.
Smylers
> As you - the trainers - encounter such people quite often I wonder
> what do you currently use during training?
My current job doesn't involve training, but previously we did public
training on Linux (Gnome), and installed every editor we could find in
Debian.
Most users ran Vim out of choice; some preferred one of the Emacsen or
even Pico/Nano (which we definitely didn't recommend). For users not
already familiar with a Unix editor we suggested GEdit or Kate.
> What do you recommend to your students?
>
> I for one usually cannot give them vi or emacs as they don't know
> either of those.
It's less of a problem when delivering in-house training. Some
companies have standardized on a particular editor; others let
individual developers choose. At Microsoft (where, unsurprisingly, I
was teaching on Windows) some of the class chose gvim.exe or other
appropriate editors, but the most popular editor chosen, for coding in
Perl, was Notepad.
A susprising number of organizations make their developers use vi (or a
clone) but the staff haven't learnt it and are quite inept at it. This
is very useful as a trainer: it provides plent of opportunities to see
somebody struggling with vi and point out a shortcut they didn't know.
Bonus tips which make an attendees' life easier, but which aren't on the
topic the training is supposed to be about (like vi on a Perl course),
seem to make them happy. And happy attendees generally make the
training (and the feedback) better.
Smylers
Sean Quinlan
'use' an IDE for training. I'm teaching Perl, not how to use a
programming tool. Personally I've been using Komodo Edit lately and been
quite happy with the most recent version.
For me there is only one item that is critically important for a class
though, and that is that whatever editor/IDE used in a workshop have
solid syntax highlighting support (well, as well as the usual
cut/copy/paste/undo etc. ;). Generally selecting an editor is part of
working with the IT staff at the location where I'll run the workshop.
If there is one that the organization has 'standardized' on I'll use
that, and if not I'll suggest one or two appropriate to the platform.
When the workshop starts I then tell the students that if they have
access to an editor they like better they should feel free to use that
instead.
HTH,
Sean
On Mon, 2008-08-18 at 17:31 +0300, Gabor Szabo wrote:
> Hi ppl,
>
> So I have a new little project called Padre to become an IDE for Perl.
>
> I talked about it with quite a lot of people on YAPC::EU.
> The immediate response of most of them was that they don't need any IDE
> as they are ok with vi or emacs.
> After some more explaining they did like some of the ideas but mostly they
> agreed that the main target might be people with little or no Perl background,
> especially from the Windows world.
>
> As you - the trainers - encounter such people quite often I wonder what do
> you currently use during training? What do you recommend to your students?
>
> I for one usually cannot give them vi or emacs as they don't know
> either of those.
> In my classes they are usually using Notepad++.
>
>
> If you can imagine something that is better than what you have now,
> what would that be? What do you feel is missing from the current environment
> of your students?
>
>
> If you would like to check out the project, its web site is
>
> http://padre.perlide.org/
>
> but you can install if from CPAN directly as well.
>
>
> regards
> Gabor
>
>
--
Sean Quinlan <se...@quinlan.org>
Jacinta Richardson
> So I have a new little project called Padre to become an IDE for Perl.
Excellent!
> As you - the trainers - encounter such people quite often I wonder what do
> you currently use during training? What do you recommend to your students?
For our general enrolment courses we usually have windows on the desktop and a
linux server. Those who will be primarily using windows, use Perl on that and
we provide them with PerlEdit[1]. Everyone else sshes into the server and uses
vim (almost exclusively)[2] or emacs (occasionally) or nano (extremely rarely).
[1] PerlEdit: http://www.indigostar.com/perledit.html It's free enough, easy to
install, very easy to use, has some neat Perl features (syntax highlighting,
perldoc lookup, inline error feedback). We'll swap it for something else that
was more free, as easy to install and use, as soon when we find out about such.
[2] Sometimes they think they're using vi, but they're not.
All the best,
Jacinta
--
("`-''-/").___..--''"`-._ | Jacinta Richardson |
`6_ 6 ) `-. ( ).`-.__.`) | Perl Training Australia |
(_Y_.)' ._ ) `._ `. ``-..-' | +61 3 9354 6001 |
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Johan Vromans
> So I have a new little project called Padre to become an IDE for
> Perl.
Although I extremely appreciate your work (and I'm very impressed by
the results you got in such a short time) I personally would take one
of the existing (pluggable, flexible, extendible) IDEs and add good
Perl support to it.
My current choice would be to use Eclipse with EPIC. And if EPIC does
not do what we want/need, to put energy in EPIC.
> The immediate response of most of them was that they don't need any
> IDE as they are ok with vi or emacs.
There's a big difference between seasoned perl developers, and people
that are taking their first course on Perl... The first group knows
how to use their tools, the second often doesn't.
-- Johan
Peter Scott
> As you - the trainers - encounter such people quite often I wonder what do
> you currently use during training? What do you recommend to your students?
People who are already using something will use that same thing come hell
or high water :-) I like vim on Windows and emacs on *nix for the syntax
highlighting and suggest either of them, but I cannot afford to take time
in a class showing people how to use a tool as opposed to learning the
language. I need the shortest path to getting them editing a program, and
that's usually what they're already using. Notepad if necessary.
I'm referring to hands-on classes of course. Lecturing is different.
--
Peter Scott
http://www.perlmedic.com/
http://www.perldebugged.com/
Michael Running Wolf
On Aug 18, 2008, at 7:31 AM, Gabor Szabo wrote:
> As you - the trainers - encounter such people quite often I wonder
> what do
> you currently use during training? What do you recommend to your
> students?
I recommend whatever they're familiar with.
In the open enrollment classes I teach, we run SuSE, so the W32 folks
occasionally don't know vi(1) or emacs(1).
So that we can focus on the language, not the tools or the IDE, I
tell them that kate(1) is notepad-like enough that they can get by.
That "tool talk" doesn't usually take more than 20 seconds. Since
kate(1) has color hilighting, I've got 90% of what I want from a
beginner's editor -- the ability to notice unbalanced quotes easily so
that they can focus on real syntax problems.
In 15+ years of teaching open enrollment and on-site classes, I can't
remember a *language* class (Perl, JavaScript, HTML, Shell, C...)
where the folks were returning to similar-enough environments and came
in with similar-enough gaps that teaching a *tool* or *IDE* would have
been more helpful than distracting.
Over the years I've considered getting "promo licenses" from some
language IDE's (ActiveState comes to mind) to distribute to students,
figuring that it would help the company and the students and also
"Perl, the technology/culture/community". Given the TMTOWTDI-ness of
the culture, I've never pursued it, always figuring that I can't pick
a *language* topic whose time budget I'd sacrafice for *tool* time.
Hope this helps...
Michael Wolf
Gabor Szabo
<MichaelRu...@att.net> wrote:
>
> On Aug 18, 2008, at 7:31 AM, Gabor Szabo wrote:
>>
>> As you - the trainers - encounter such people quite often I wonder what do
>> you currently use during training? What do you recommend to your students?
>
> I recommend whatever they're familiar with.
>
> Hope this helps...
>
Well, this was an almost 1.5 years old thread but it it interesting
most of the people
responding did not think it is a good idea at all.
Anyway since the original question Padre have made some progress
so let me take this opportunity and ask around:
Have any of you tried Padre? Do you think it can provide you with
something that
will make teaching Perl easier? Making it stick better?
If you have tried it, are there things you think would further improve
it for beginners/students?
regards
Gabor
http://padre.perlide.org/