IDE integration - first steps

[Charles]

We can at least start to take some baby steps on IDE integration. Earlier this year, I found adding language support to Visual Studio to be arcane and painful. Two other IDEs are SharpDevelop and MonoDevelop, both of which are based on managed code, .NET interfaces, etc. They should be easier to work with. The pay offs will include autocompletion, API help and debugging.

MonoDevelop was forked from SharpDevelop at some point so once we get one working, we may find it reasonable to get the other going. But I'd like to start with one and focus on it.

SharpDevelop is under LGPL while MonoDevelop is under GPL. I'm not sure if those licenses dictate the license of the add-ins for the IDEs. I don't think LGPL does. I'm not sure about GPL and add-ins. But then I see this at http://monodevelop.com/Developers:

All new code must be licensed under either a MIT X11 (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php).

Code and libraries licensed under version 2 of the LGPL (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/lgpl-license.php) license are acceptable under extraordinary circumstances.

Code licensed under the GPL (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-license.php) cannot be accepted.

...so I'm a bit confused.

SharpDevelop only runs on Windows AFAIK while MonoDevelop runs on Windows, Linux and (supposedly) Mac.

SharpDevelop is older and gets more Google hits. It may be more popular.

If you want to read up on these two:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=sharpdevelop
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=monodevelop

Questions for you, dear reader:

(1) Do you have a preference between the two IDEs?

(2) Regarding hosting, I've been eyeballing Bitbucket, Google Code and others. Any preference there?

[jonathandavid]

Tricky question...

SharpDevelop seems like a more "polished" product (someone in my team uses it all day and seems to have no complaints), but I would never vote for it as the only supported IDE because its Windows only (and there no plans as far as I know to make it portable). I fear that having Cobra so tied to the Windows platform might harm its image considerably.

MonoDevelop, on the other hand, might not be so stable (especially when run in platforms other than Linux, I guess), but at least it seems possible to install it on all platforms (although the current Windows installation procedure seems far from simple..

It is sad, but the only satisfying solution I see is to support both. As you said, this might be eased out by the fact that they are both "branches" of the same project. Furthermore, there seem to be Boo plugins for both IDEs, I would say that that should streamline the development of the Cobra plugin considerably.

Anyway, if I were to choose only one IDE, I'd say MonoDevelop without hesitation (multiplatform is a must IMO). Incidentally, Mono is able to run Java applications thanks to the IKVM virtual machine. That might be a plus given the plans to add a Java backend to Cobra.

As for hosting, I have no idea. I personally don't like Google Code very much, and about BitBucket I admit I don't know anything. What's wrong with good old sourceforge? Most "large" open source libs/apps seem to be hosted there...

Regards,
Manuel

[Charles]

Keep in my mind my question is where to *start*, not where to *finish*. We're not locked into the first IDE we support and I agree we'll eventually support both.

What version of SharpDevelop is your teammate using? Can you find out?

IKVM is not Mono only. See http://www.ikvm.net/

Also, you jogged my brain. I'm on Windows and Mac for my desktop and use Linux only on servers. So MonoDevelop needs to run easily and run well on Windows or Mac or I won't be able to contribute much!

Regarding SourceForge, it is in decline for various reasons including regressions on features, poor interface, slowness, etc. If you search for discussions on these hosting projects, you'll find plenty of complaints about it. I won't use it this time around.

[jonathandavid]

Keep in my mind my question is where to *start*, not where to *finish*. We're not locked into the first IDE we support and I agree we'll eventually support both.

What version of SharpDevelop is your teammate using? Can you find out?

2.2. Says it works like a charm.

IKVM is not Mono only. See http://www.ikvm.net/

I see. I just read about it on the Mono website and thought it could be useful.

Also, you jogged my brain. I'm on Windows and Mac for my desktop and use Linux only on servers. So MonoDevelop needs to run easily and run well on Windows or Mac or I won't be able to contribute much!

I haven't tried it myself, so I was perhaps not entitled to give an opinion so lightly. I just extrapolated my experience with other Linux apps "ported" to Windows. The easiest way would be to try it out, but the installation instructions really throw me back.

On second thoughts, if most Cobra users use Windows/Mac like you and me do (I'm a Windows guy right now, although planning to switch back to Linux in a few months), it would be wise to go for the SharpDevelop plugin first. After all, people can always run it on VirtualBox if they're on Linux or Mac.

Regarding SourceForge, it is in decline for various reasons including regressions on features, poor interface, slowness, etc. If you search for discussions on these hosting projects, you'll find plenty of complaints about it. I won't use it this time around.

Sorry to hear that, there are great projects hosted there. Wonder if it's easy for them to move to an alternative hosting solution. It's true now that you mention it that I've experienced really slow sourceforge downloads recently (sometimes the download did not even start), but thought it was a problem with my internet connection.

Regards,
Manuel

[agustech]

SharpDevelop 2.2 works fine and already has Boo support which may helps us.
SharpDevelop 3.0 has many bugs yet to be usable. Same goes for Monodevelop from my experience.

[Charles]

Should we target SharpDevelop 3.0 on the basis that it will be more stable by the time we finish the Cobra integration. Or is that too risky where we might finish and it would still be unusable?

[Charles]

Installing MonoDevelop on Windows does indeed look like the opposite of joy.

Installing on Mac was easy in a way--they have a package--but launching produces instant failure. The app icon shows up in the doc, the hard drive churns, the icon shrinks out of existence and that's it.

So in terms of where to *start*, I'm thinking a SharpDevelop 2.2 project on Bitbucket which I will kick off soon barring further feedback.

[jonathandavid]

So in terms of where to *start*, I'm thinking a SharpDevelop 2.2 project on Bitbucket which I will kick off soon barring further feedback.

I second that. It shouldn't be too hard to switch to 3.0 once an stable version is released.