Is this a useful perl IDE I see before me ?

Bloodnok has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Greetings once again, most venerated ones,

I seem to have uncovered a shortfall in Eclipse/E-P-I-C and wondered if any fellow monks might be able to shed some light on it ...

Up until now I've been developing bespoke modules using h2xs, together with (g)vim, on the CLI. Lately, however, I've heard &/or read many glowing (admittedly, few perl orientated) reviews of the Eclipse environment and the E-P-I-C plugin, so I thought I'd give 'em a try.

I downloaded and installed, Eclipse and the E-P-I-C plugin (http://www.epic-ide.org/index.php) and started trying to use it/them to develop a couple of scripts I was working on.

Eventually, I realised that I had been more productive using (g)vim, so I downloaded and installed the vim Eclipse plugin (http://vimplugin.org/) - but to no avail - no vim capability.

Worse was to follow when I tried to use the IDE to develop a new module - I couldn't see any way of incorporating/embedding h2xs to start a new perl 'project' - and IMO Module::Starter just doesn't cut the mustard.

The big question is (for me anyway), is it me ... or was I really better off with h2xs, (g)vim and a command line prompt ?

Sits back once more to await flames ...

A user level that continues to overstate my experience :-))

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Re: Is this a useful perl IDE I see before me ? by jeffa (Bishop) on Nov 05, 2008 at 18:10 UTC
I find IDE's to be overrated and as such i spend zero time looking into them. However, since you have already invested some possibly valuable time into this, I recommend you don't give up just yet. If there is a plugin for VIM, then there stands a very good chance that others have installed it with success. Even though you don't see a way now to embed h2xs, there might be a way or a work around. While certainly I know the answer to the big question for _me_ ... i think you might be better off investing some more time into getting this IDE to work as you want it to. jeffa L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L-- -R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B-- H---H---H---H---H---H--- (the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)	[reply]
Re^2: Is this a useful perl IDE I see before me ? by Bloodnok (Vicar) on Nov 05, 2008 at 18:22 UTC
With grateful thanx to a fellow drummer. Rock on :-) A user level that continues to overstate my experience :-))	[reply]
Re: Is this a useful perl IDE I see before me ? by Joost (Canon) on Nov 05, 2008 at 19:06 UTC
Perl and lots of other more dynamic languages are not really a good match for a "traditional" IDE like Eclipse: you can use them, but those IDEs don't really add much over plain editors. A system that interacts with a running "image" (program) has more potential, like Emacs/Slime for lisp, or some of the small-talk environments show, though I haven't really found one that's as polishes as Slime. Sepia seems like a step in the right direction, though. "What should it profit a man, if he should win a flame war, yet lose his cool?"	[reply]
Re: Is this a useful perl IDE I see before me ? by LanX (Saint) on Nov 05, 2008 at 22:57 UTC
"Which Perl IDE worth to give up my old editor" is frequently asked and hard to answer. Mainly because there is no fixed set of criterias and definitions to measure IDEs (at least for non Java-like languages) ... in other words, it depends what you want and need for coding Perl. Since I found ECB for Emacs (in cperl-mode) I gave up searching and started investing the safed time in improving my Lisp knowhow and optimizing my keybindings. (even experimenting with viper-mode ; ) Since Vi and Emacs always underwent a co-evolution (much like Sovjet and US space programs ; ) I'm sure you may find something equivalent to ECB for Vi, ending your quest for the "best" IDE. : )	[reply]
Re: Is this a useful perl IDE I see before me ? by eighty-one (Curate) on Nov 05, 2008 at 18:54 UTC
I thought Eclipse was great for Java, but so far I haven't been to happy with it for anything else. For Perl development (and PHP, when forced to touch that stuff) I use, as you mentioned, vim with an assortment of command line utilities (mainly sed, grep, and awk). So far I haven't found a compelling reason to try an IDE, so I don't know if there's any great new features I'm missing. I'm betting the IDEs have features that will do everything I need, but I just don't want to take the time to learn how to use them. Plus there's the advantage of being able to log on to any Unix/Linux machine anywhere and be able to start developing without worrying about getting your preferred tool installed, or learning to use an alternate. I would like to find a nice VisualStudio.net style IDE with a Drag'n'drop GUI creator (for Perl or Java, or any language for that matter), but I haven't yet. But, as I'm writing this, I have ZooZ installing, so hopefully that'll work well. EDIT: ZooZ is pretty awesome :)	[reply]
Re: Is this a useful perl IDE I see before me ? by CountZero (Bishop) on Nov 05, 2008 at 20:46 UTC
I tried several IDE programs but still find Komodo the best one. There is a free "editor only" version available, but the full version is worth its price if you ask me. CountZero A program should be light and agile, its subroutines connected like a string of pearls. The spirit and intent of the program should be retained throughout. There should be neither too little or too much, neither needless loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming rigidity." - The Tao of Programming, 4.1 - Geoffrey James	[reply]