[erlang-questions] Re: Erlide packageability (was Re: "Erlang as a First Language" -- crazy? or juststupid?)

[Vasilij Savin]

Greetings,

On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 2:37 PM, egarrulo <egarrulo@REDACTED> wrote:


> I wouldn't tell a beginner to use an editor to develop anything. A language
> lacking an IDE - and by "IDE" I mean an editor with syntax-highlighting and
> interaction with language's compiler and source-level debugger, at least -
> such language is not worth learning, IMHO. I've done that in the past...
> never again.
>

I do not see a problem running make file by hand. Also, debugger is not as
useful in developing distributed or concurrent systems due to violation of
real time properties, so that is irrelevant for Erlang I believe.

Why does Java need Eclipse or like, because it is hugely complicated
language. The names are too long to remember, there are hundreds of classes
to sift through even in mid-sized project. You need tools to combat that
complexity. There is no way around if you want to develop in OO way.

At least as far as my experience goes, Erlang is much more compact and
laconic language compared to Java. Some things would be really nice, like
syntax highlighting and checking online, as function completion, but you can
survive programming Erlang in text editor, but doing so in Java would be
madness.

Also, you learn language not because of tool support, but if it allows to
express your intentions more clearly in machine-understandable way. That is
why we have myriads of languages for different domains. Tool support comes
once there is considerable market for them.

In my opinion, tool support is currently coming to Erlang as it becomes more
popular and mainstream (hopefully).

Regards,
Vasilij Savin