On Tue, 21 Jun 2005, Jacques Garrigue wrote:

> By the way, do you plan to integrate your IDE in kdevelop (or something
> else)?
> If it is to be standalone, why not write it in ocaml?

I'm writing my own little IDE, based vaguely on DrScheme, just so that the
students have an easier time transitioning to it. One problem in this
course was that DrScheme was so friendly to program in and then suddenly
we dump them into ocaml using Emacs and Tuareg mode; suddenly they're
confronted with baffling error messages and an interface that is
unintuitive and hard for them to use (Emacs is great! Very powerful, too!
But try teaching a busy college student with almost no computer background
how to use it while having him develop a major project  ;)  Doesn't work
all that well.). My program is meant to be friendlier, more helpful, and
something they can just start using without any training period or having
to memorize key combinations. Hopefully that will make a difference.

As for writing in OCaml, part of me really wishes I was. The problem is, I
don't have extensive experience with OCaml and am not familiar with the
object system or any GUI toolkit interfaces it has. In short, it's much,
much faster for me to write it in C++ using QT (systems I already know
inside and out) than to teach myself the depths of OCaml as I am
writing. Since I'm trying to produce a fully functional and relatively
stable program by the end of the summer, speed is an issue so I chose the
C++ route. I definitely believe that it would be far nicer (at least
conceptually) to be writing in OCaml, though.


  -- Nate