On 5/6/05, J Matisse Enzer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I've become scared that if Perl is to continue to be viable for large, > complex, multi-developer projects that the tools need to serious > catch-up with what is available for Java, for example. Things like: > > - Refactoring Support (see http://www.refactoring.com/) > - CVS and/or Subversion integration > - Support for integrating regression tests and auto-building > - Automated syntax and dependency checking > > I've been using Eclipse, with the EPIC plugin > (http://e-p-i-c.sourceforge.net/) and so far I like it. It uses > Devel::Refactor to support "extract subroutine", but a lot more is > needed to match what you can do with Java these days. > > What are others' thoughts on this?
I think you're absolutely right. Perl should have an IDE with Eclipse-like context-sensitivity and refactoring support. However, it's hardly in Perl's philosophy or interest to bless one. One thing is for sure. Perl 6 is providing enough introspection and parsing capabilities to make it possible to write a context-sensitive IDE, unlike Perl 5 (well, Perl 5 made it *possible*, I suppose, but Perl 6 will make it obvious). Perl 6 is exposing its whole grammar at the language level, so you can say "give me a syntax tree for this chunk of code" and it will. Even if there are modules that change the syntax with macros (though your editor might have trouble understanding what the macros mean). In other words, Perl 6 is open to the possibility of such an IDE, and is going to provide the machinery necessary to build a really good one, but I doubt it will become a development milestone. Luke
