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digitalmars.D - Editor recommendations for new users.

reply Nicholas Wilson <iamthewilsonator hotmail.com> writes:
So I will be doing a workshop on programming for the biology 
department at my university and I was wondering what would best 
suit the users.

The following are a must:
     support windows & mac ( the more consistent between the two 
the better)
     free
     no large install footprint, preferably simple install 
procedure (running on laptops)
     syntax highlighting
     straightforward to use

anything else is a bonus.

Whats your experience with what you use?

Many thanks
Nic
Aug 27 2017
next sibling parent reply Dukc <ajieskola gmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 10:05:29 UTC, Nicholas Wilson wrote:

 So I will be doing a workshop on programming for the biology 
 department at my university and I was wondering what would best 
 suit the users.

 The following are a must:
     support windows & mac ( the more consistent between the two 
 the better)
     free
     no large install footprint, preferably simple install 
 procedure (running on laptops)
     syntax highlighting
     straightforward to use

 anything else is a bonus.

 Whats your experience with what you use?

 Many thanks
 Nic


Those all apply to Geany. It's much like Notepad++ but 
crossplatform.

I'm sure there are other good options too. The problem with geany 
is that it's syntax highlighting and auto-completion depend on 
having the file where the symbol's defined open. But that's 
because it's primarily a lightweight editor, not so much an IDE. 
It has some ide features, but I am not using them and don't know 
whether you can could solve these by creating a geny project.
Aug 27 2017
next sibling parent Nick Treleaven <nick geany.org> writes:
On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 10:28:29 UTC, Dukc wrote:

 The problem with geany is that it's syntax highlighting and 
 auto-completion depend on having the file where the symbol's 
 defined open.


No, Geany supports generation and automatic loading of global 
tags files:
http://www.geany.org/manual/current/#symbols-and-tags-files
Aug 30 2017
prev sibling parent Dukc <ajieskola gmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 10:28:29 UTC, Dukc wrote:

 I'm sure there are other good options too. The problem with 
 geany is that it's syntax highlighting and auto-completion 
 depend on having the file where the symbol's defined open. But 
 that's because it's primarily a lightweight editor, not so much 
 an IDE. It has some ide features, but I am not using them and 
 don't know whether you can could solve these by creating a geny 
 project.


Also, like Lopatin said, DLangIDE is, at least theoretically a 
very good option. Despide being a real IDE, it is much smaller 
than Geany I meantioned, despite Geany being considered 
lightweight. And it's highlighting doesn't depend on files being 
opened fo editing. I have just started to use it, trough. Whether 
it's stable and polished enough to work well, I cannot tell yet.
Sep 05 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent Moritz Maxeiner <moritz ucworks.org> writes:
On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 10:05:29 UTC, Nicholas Wilson wrote:

 So I will be doing a workshop on programming for the biology 
 department at my university and I was wondering what would best 
 suit the users.

 The following are a must:
     support windows & mac ( the more consistent between the two 
 the better)
     free
     no large install footprint, preferably simple install 
 procedure (running on laptops)
     syntax highlighting
     straightforward to use

 anything else is a bonus.

 Whats your experience with what you use?

 Many thanks
 Nic


Textadept [1] matches your requirements.
I found it lightweight, responsive, and easy to use&extend.
I'm only on Sublime Text [2][3] because it's shinier.

[1] https://foicica.com/textadept/
[2] https://www.sublimetext.com/
[3] Depending on your definition of free (libre vs beer) it might 
also qualify
Aug 27 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Petar Kirov [ZombineDev] <petar.p.kirov gmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 10:05:29 UTC, Nicholas Wilson wrote:

 So I will be doing a workshop on programming for the biology 
 department at my university and I was wondering what would best 
 suit the users.

 The following are a must:
     support windows & mac ( the more consistent between the two 
 the better)
     free
     no large install footprint, preferably simple install 
 procedure (running on laptops)
     syntax highlighting
     straightforward to use

 anything else is a bonus.

 Whats your experience with what you use?

 Many thanks
 Nic


vim or SublimeText
Aug 27 2017
parent reply Anonymouse <asdf asdf.net> writes:
On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 12:11:14 UTC, Petar Kirov 
[ZombineDev] wrote:

 vim or SublimeText


I want to get into vim. It has to be vim, can't be Neovim or gvim 
or any other clone; I'm doing it for a Linux class. I'm on Arch 
Linux (or Manjaro), so I have plenty available from the official 
repos and plenty more from the user AUR repos.

The wiki page on vim[1] lists several plugins which I assume are 
mutually exclusive. DSnips[2] was very easy to install by just 
installing UltiSnips and placing d.snippets in its appropriate 
place, but it seems to only provide, as the name suggests, 
boilerplate snippets. Dutyl[3] seems much more interesting but 
also more daunting, considering that my vim knowledge so far 
largely consists of :wq and :q!.

Are those the two alternatives available to me?


[1]: https://wiki.dlang.org/D_in_Vim
[2]: https://github.com/kiith-sa/DSnips
[3]: https://github.com/idanarye/vim-dutyl
Aug 30 2017
next sibling parent Petar Kirov [ZombineDev] <petar.p.kirov gmail.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 30 August 2017 at 11:28:35 UTC, Anonymouse wrote:

 On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 12:11:14 UTC, Petar Kirov 
 [ZombineDev] wrote:

 vim or SublimeText


 I want to get into vim. It has to be vim, can't be Neovim or 
 gvim or any other clone; I'm doing it for a Linux class. I'm on 
 Arch Linux (or Manjaro), so I have plenty available from the 
 official repos and plenty more from the user AUR repos.

 The wiki page on vim[1] lists several plugins which I assume 
 are mutually exclusive. DSnips[2] was very easy to install by 
 just installing UltiSnips and placing d.snippets in its 
 appropriate place, but it seems to only provide, as the name 
 suggests, boilerplate snippets. Dutyl[3] seems much more 
 interesting but also more daunting, considering that my vim 
 knowledge so far largely consists of :wq and :q!.

 Are those the two alternatives available to me?


 [1]: https://wiki.dlang.org/D_in_Vim
 [2]: https://github.com/kiith-sa/DSnips
 [3]: https://github.com/idanarye/vim-dutyl


To be honest, I'm not the right one to ask. I prefer vim (to be 
specific, now I use Neovim, though not to the level that I can 
tell difference :D) mainly because it works inside the terminal, 
it's easy to use (well, after I learned it), offers a ton a 
customization, requires no complex setup and I can find it on 
almost any machine.
I don't use any D specific plugins, the D syntax file that's 
included in the default installation is good enough for me. A 
couple of years ago I was into setting up IDEs and language 
specific plugins on editors, but nowadays I just don't bother.

My advice would be to start a basic vim installation, learn the 
difference between the different modes (normal, insert, visual, 
terminal - specific to nvim, etc.), learn the basic normal mode 
commands, windows splitting, macros, and so on. The best way to 
learn vim is to make it your default editor so that you're forced 
to be proficient with it. At first your productivity will be 
quite low, because you will be constantly looking basic stuff up, 
but after a while it will become part of your muscle memory, just 
like Ctrl+A/Z/X/C/V are probably now. There are plenty of good 
guides to follow, e.g.:

http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2012/03/21/why-vim/
https://scotch.io/tutorials/getting-started-with-vim-an-interactive-guide
https://gist.github.com/bpierre/0a0025d348b6001394e0
https://danielmiessler.com/study/vim/#gs.rvBIWrI
Aug 30 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent reply b4s1L3 <b4s1L3 b4bu.b4> writes:
On Wednesday, 30 August 2017 at 11:28:35 UTC, Anonymouse wrote:

 Dutyl[3] seems much more interesting but also more daunting, 
 considering that my vim knowledge so far largely consists of 
 :wq and :q!.


Yeah, haha, that's the basic command you need to know when the 
time comes to rebase a git branch in console mode.
Aug 30 2017
parent Petar Kirov [ZombineDev] <petar.p.kirov gmail.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 30 August 2017 at 15:27:43 UTC, b4s1L3 wrote:

 On Wednesday, 30 August 2017 at 11:28:35 UTC, Anonymouse wrote:

 Dutyl[3] seems much more interesting but also more daunting, 
 considering that my vim knowledge so far largely consists of 
 :wq and :q!.


 Yeah, haha, that's the basic command you need to know when the 
 time comes to rebase a git branch in console mode.


You can use any editor you want for git interactive rebase, or 
any other git command that needs an editor. Vi(m) is just the 
default if you haven't configured core.editor. For more info see: 
https://git-scm.com/book/tr/v2/Customizing-Git-Git-Configuration
Aug 30 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent Jonathan M Davis via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> writes:
On Wednesday, August 30, 2017 11:28:35 Anonymouse via Digitalmars-d wrote:

 On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 12:11:14 UTC, Petar Kirov

 [ZombineDev] wrote:

 vim or SublimeText


 I want to get into vim. It has to be vim, can't be Neovim or gvim
 or any other clone; I'm doing it for a Linux class. I'm on Arch
 Linux (or Manjaro), so I have plenty available from the official
 repos and plenty more from the user AUR repos.


gvim and vim are the exact same program (in fact on my system, gvim is
literally a symlink to vim). It's just that gvim starts vim in a Window, so
you can actually do stuff like resize it. It does come with some GUI menu
junk on the top by default, and using that certainly wouldn't help you learn
vim, but if you use gvim and just don't use the menu stuff at the top,
you're using normal vim except in a window. And if you put

" hide menu
set guioptions-=m

" hide toolbar
set guioptions-=T

in your .gvimrc, all of the GUI stuff goes away. That's what I did, and I
almost always use gvim, because then it's not tied to the terminal, and it's
nice and resizable. But if I do need to use vim in a terminal (e.g. because
I'm using ssh without X forwarding or because the machine I'm using doesn't
have X installed), it's exactly the same as in the GUI window. The only
hickup there that I'm aware of is that the coloring works differently
between gvim and running vim in a terminal, because gvim has a better range
of colors. So, your .vimrc defines the colors for them separately, and if
you're picky about the colors, you have different options in gvim than in
the terminal. But all of the commands are identical, because it's the same
program.


 The wiki page on vim[1] lists several plugins which I assume are
 mutually exclusive. DSnips[2] was very easy to install by just
 installing UltiSnips and placing d.snippets in its appropriate
 place, but it seems to only provide, as the name suggests,
 boilerplate snippets. Dutyl[3] seems much more interesting but
 also more daunting, considering that my vim knowledge so far
 largely consists of :wq and :q!.

 Are those the two alternatives available to me?


 [1]: https://wiki.dlang.org/D_in_Vim
 [2]: https://github.com/kiith-sa/DSnips
 [3]: https://github.com/idanarye/vim-dutyl


All I use is the D syntax file so that the syntax highlighting works
correctly. I've never seen any need for anything else.

- Jonathan M Davis
Aug 30 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent "H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d" <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> writes:
On Wed, Aug 30, 2017 at 04:24:47PM -0600, Jonathan M Davis via Digitalmars-d
wrote:

 On Wednesday, August 30, 2017 11:28:35 Anonymouse via Digitalmars-d wrote:

 On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 12:11:14 UTC, Petar Kirov

 [ZombineDev] wrote:

 vim or SublimeText


 I want to get into vim. It has to be vim, can't be Neovim or gvim
 or any other clone; I'm doing it for a Linux class. I'm on Arch
 Linux (or Manjaro), so I have plenty available from the official
 repos and plenty more from the user AUR repos.




[...]

 All I use is the D syntax file so that the syntax highlighting works
 correctly. I've never seen any need for anything else.


[...]

I use vim for D coding (well, all coding... and actually, I'm also
typing this in vim), and I don't even use a syntax file.  D is not like
Java where you need an IDE to deal with the verbosity; it's actually
quite comfortable to write, and if formatted properly, easy to read
without needing any special highlighting.

But that's just my personal preference.  YMMV.


T

-- 
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who can count in binary, and
those who can't.
Aug 30 2017
prev sibling parent =?iso-8859-1?Q?Robert_M._M=FCnch?= <robert.muench saphirion.com> writes:
On 2017-08-30 11:28:35 +0000, Anonymouse said:


 ... considering that my vim knowledge so far largely consists of :wq and :q!.


If you want to learn it fast up to a level that covers 90% of what you 
need www.shortcutfoo.com is your friend.

-- 
Robert M. Münch
http://www.saphirion.com
smarter | better | faster
Sep 02 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Ecstatic Coder <ecstatic.coder gmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 10:05:29 UTC, Nicholas Wilson wrote:

 So I will be doing a workshop on programming for the biology 
 department at my university and I was wondering what would best 
 suit the users.

 The following are a must:
     support windows & mac ( the more consistent between the two 
 the better)
     free
     no large install footprint, preferably simple install 
 procedure (running on laptops)
     syntax highlighting
     straightforward to use

 anything else is a bonus.

 Whats your experience with what you use?

 Many thanks
 Nic


+1 for Geany

If it's to learn D programming, then I strongly advice CoEdit 
(despite I think that Geany's automatic brace insertion and copy 
paste features work MUCH better).
Aug 27 2017
parent user1234 <user1234 12.hu> writes:
On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 12:14:18 UTC, Ecstatic Coder wrote:

 If it's to learn D programming, then I strongly advice CoEdit 
 (despite I think that Geany's automatic brace insertion and 
 copy paste features work MUCH better).


For learning D but also if you program **only** in D. When the 
syntax is not D there's a generic highlighter (1 color for the 
identifiers and 1 other for the ascii symbols), so if you 
practive other PL alot, an editor + plugin migh fit better. In my 
case i'd probably use Geany as well not being fan of the other 
trands. THough i'm satisifed with Coedit.
Aug 27 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Ryion <ryion 4210x.com> writes:
On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 10:05:29 UTC, Nicholas Wilson wrote:

 So I will be doing a workshop on programming for the biology 
 department at my university and I was wondering what would best 
 suit the users.

 The following are a must:
     support windows & mac ( the more consistent between the two 
 the better)
     free
     no large install footprint, preferably simple install 
 procedure (running on laptops)
     syntax highlighting
     straightforward to use

 anything else is a bonus.

 Whats your experience with what you use?


Visual Studio Code seems to be what you need.

https://code.visualstudio.com/

Easy to install, Support Windows, Linux, Mac. Has plugin support 
from WebFreak001 his Code-D / Serve-D(beta) plugin.

Kitchen and sink support. Easy to use ( as seen with the 
popularity ). Relative low memory footprint for the functionality 
( compared to several IDEs that do the same ).

Moved to Visual Studio Code a long time ago and loving it. They 
are now adding multiple workspaces to the editor, to make things 
more easy for people and plugin architecture. Did i mention 
massive plugins?

Git Integration to make it easier to teach people what Git is and 
what the difference it makes in programming projects.
Aug 27 2017
parent reply Moritz Maxeiner <moritz ucworks.org> writes:
On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 13:15:41 UTC, Ryion wrote:

 On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 10:05:29 UTC, Nicholas Wilson 
 wrote:

 The following are a must:
     no large install footprint


 Visual Studio Code seems to be what you need.

 [...]

 Relative low memory footprint for the functionality ( compared 
 to several IDEs that do the same ).

 [...]


The (must) requirement was install footprint, not memory 
footprint, and as Visual Studio code uses the electron 
framework[1] its install footprint is gigantic (about 180MB vs 
e.g. TextAdept's 20MB).
Aug 27 2017
next sibling parent reply Jerry <hurricane hereiam.com> writes:
On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 15:17:51 UTC, Moritz Maxeiner wrote:

 On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 13:15:41 UTC, Ryion wrote:

 On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 10:05:29 UTC, Nicholas Wilson 
 wrote:

 The following are a must:
     no large install footprint


 Visual Studio Code seems to be what you need.

 [...]

 Relative low memory footprint for the functionality ( compared 
 to several IDEs that do the same ).

 [...]


 The (must) requirement was install footprint, not memory 
 footprint, and as Visual Studio code uses the electron 
 framework[1] its install footprint is gigantic (about 180MB vs 
 e.g. TextAdept's 20MB).


It isn't that gigantic in comparison. You can say the same thing 
in comparison with vim which is only a 2MB install size, 20MB in 
comparison is gigantic. The requirements are rather vague, you 
can interpret it in a number of ways. I wouldn't consider 200MB 
gigantic in comparison to 20MB cause there is literally no 
difference of use for me. You'd have to have a really shitty 
laptop for it to be an issue.
Aug 27 2017
parent reply Moritz Maxeiner <moritz ucworks.org> writes:
On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 16:22:44 UTC, Jerry wrote:

 On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 15:17:51 UTC, Moritz Maxeiner 
 wrote:

 On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 13:15:41 UTC, Ryion wrote:

 On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 10:05:29 UTC, Nicholas Wilson 
 wrote:

 The following are a must:
     no large install footprint


 Visual Studio Code seems to be what you need.

 [...]

 Relative low memory footprint for the functionality ( 
 compared to several IDEs that do the same ).

 [...]


 The (must) requirement was install footprint, not memory 
 footprint, and as Visual Studio code uses the electron 
 framework[1] its install footprint is gigantic (about 180MB vs 
 e.g. TextAdept's 20MB).


 It isn't that gigantic in comparison.


It's nearly ten times the size, so yeah, it is relative to 
Textadept.


 You can say the same thing in comparison with vim which is only 
 a 2MB install size,
 20MB in comparison is gigantic.


Indeed, but that's only the raw executable, not the full package 
(which includes things like syntax highlighting), which adds 
another 26MB.
But, yes, Textadept and vim+vim-core (Gentoo speak) are both 
gigantic required to bare bones vim. But bare bones vim doesn't 
fulfill the syntax highlighting requirement IIRC.


 The requirements are rather vague, you can interpret it in a 
 number of ways.


The sensible interpretation imho is "as low an install footprint 
as possible while still fulfilling the other requirements". I'm 
not aware of anything below ~20MB install footprint that fulfills 
the other requirements, but I'd be interested if you know any.


 I wouldn't consider 200MB gigantic in comparison to 20MB cause 
 there is literally no difference of use for me.


The thread is about OP's requirements.


 You'd have to have a really shitty laptop for it to be an issue.


Not relevant.
Aug 27 2017
next sibling parent reply Adam D. Ruppe <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 18:08:52 UTC, Moritz Maxeiner wrote:

 Indeed, but that's only the raw executable, not the full 
 package (which includes things like syntax highlighting), which 
 adds another 26MB.
 But, yes, Textadept and vim+vim-core (Gentoo speak) are both 
 gigantic required to bare bones vim. But bare bones vim doesn't 
 fulfill the syntax highlighting requirement IIRC.


I don't know how it is packaged on your system, but the vim 
syntax highlighting for D is like 12 KB and pretty easy to just 
drop in and use on its own.
Aug 27 2017
parent Moritz Maxeiner <moritz ucworks.org> writes:
On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 18:14:07 UTC, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:

 On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 18:08:52 UTC, Moritz Maxeiner 
 wrote:

 Indeed, but that's only the raw executable, not the full 
 package (which includes things like syntax highlighting), 
 which adds another 26MB.
 But, yes, Textadept and vim+vim-core (Gentoo speak) are both 
 gigantic required to bare bones vim. But bare bones vim 
 doesn't fulfill the syntax highlighting requirement IIRC.


 I don't know how it is packaged on your system, but the vim 
 syntax highlighting for D is like 12 KB and pretty easy to just 
 drop in and use on its own.


One can definitely splice together one's own minimal vim with D 
support, but that would require more work than simply installing 
the right packages (which I assumed the requirement "simple to 
install" to exclude).
The 26MB I spoke of are localizations (manual, messages, 
keymaps), default shipped .vim files (like netrw, color schemes, 
languages, compiler support), docfiles, and vim-tutor, all of 
which are AFAIK part of the canonical vim distribution.
Aug 27 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Ryion <ryion 4210x.com> writes:
On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 18:08:52 UTC, Moritz Maxeiner wrote:

 It's nearly ten times the size, so yeah, it is relative to 
 Textadept.


 You can say the same thing in comparison with vim which is 
 only a 2MB install size,
 20MB in comparison is gigantic.


 Indeed, but that's only the raw executable, not the full 
 package (which includes things like syntax highlighting), which 
 adds another 26MB.
 But, yes, Textadept and vim+vim-core (Gentoo speak) are both 
 gigantic required to bare bones vim. But bare bones vim doesn't 
 fulfill the syntax highlighting requirement IIRC.


 The requirements are rather vague, you can interpret it in a 
 number of ways.


 The sensible interpretation imho is "as low an install 
 footprint as possible while still fulfilling the other 
 requirements". I'm not aware of anything below ~20MB install 
 footprint that fulfills the other requirements, but I'd be 
 interested if you know any.


As the OP did not state any requirement, he can consider 2GB as 
small. Vague requirements do not invalidate the recommendation.

Laptops have 1TB harddrives as good as standard.

Even on a "small" 128GB SSD, it pales in comparison to the 10GB 
that Windows alone takes. Let alone the page file, swapfile, 
hibernation file etc...


 I wouldn't consider 200MB gigantic in comparison to 20MB cause 
 there is literally no difference of use for me.


 The thread is about OP's requirements.


 You'd have to have a really shitty laptop for it to be an 
 issue.


 Not relevant.


As the OP has not stated the size of the laptops it needs to be 
installed upon, the discussion about 180MB vs 20MB or 2MB is 
irrelevant. We are not talking a 4GB Visual Studio installation. 
And its 160MB for the 32Bit version. :)

So if the OP has other requirements, HE can state them in this 
topic, instead of you making up ideas as to what YOU consider 
small. Your comments are irrelevant without knowing the OP his 
expectations.

So again please do not distract from the topic.
Aug 28 2017
parent reply Moritz Maxeiner <moritz ucworks.org> writes:
On Monday, 28 August 2017 at 20:48:44 UTC, Ryion wrote:

 On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 18:08:52 UTC, Moritz Maxeiner 
 wrote:

 It's nearly ten times the size, so yeah, it is relative to 
 Textadept.


 You can say the same thing in comparison with vim which is 
 only a 2MB install size,
 20MB in comparison is gigantic.


 Indeed, but that's only the raw executable, not the full 
 package (which includes things like syntax highlighting), 
 which adds another 26MB.
 But, yes, Textadept and vim+vim-core (Gentoo speak) are both 
 gigantic required to bare bones vim. But bare bones vim 
 doesn't fulfill the syntax highlighting requirement IIRC.


 The requirements are rather vague, you can interpret it in a 
 number of ways.


 The sensible interpretation imho is "as low an install 
 footprint as possible while still fulfilling the other 
 requirements". I'm not aware of anything below ~20MB install 
 footprint that fulfills the other requirements, but I'd be 
 interested if you know any.


 As the OP did not state any requirement, he can consider 2GB as 
 small.


If there's nothing significantly smaller that fits the other 
requirements, yes.
As those exists, no.


 Vague requirements do not invalidate the recommendation.


I don't consider the requirement to be vague if taken together 
with the other *must* requirements. On its own, I would agree 
with you.


 Laptops have 1TB harddrives as good as standard.

 Even on a "small" 128GB SSD, it pales in comparison to the 10GB 
 that Windows alone takes. Let alone the page file, swapfile, 
 hibernation file etc...


All red herrings.


 I wouldn't consider 200MB gigantic in comparison to 20MB 
 cause there is literally no difference of use for me.


 The thread is about OP's requirements.


 You'd have to have a really shitty laptop for it to be an 
 issue.


 Not relevant.


 As the OP has not stated the size of the laptops it needs to be 
 installed upon, the discussion about 180MB vs 20MB or 2MB is 
 irrelevant.


Except I'm not arguing that ~20MB is small. It's just small 
compared to 180MB in this specific context as both fulfill the 
other requirements.
If I knew of a 2MB recommendation that fits the other 
requirements (such as easy to install) I would say 20MB is 
gigantic and consider my own recommendation to be invalid.


 We are not talking a 4GB Visual Studio installation. And its 
 160MB for the 32Bit version. :)


You say that particular discussion is irrelevant, yet you pursue 
it.


 So if the OP has other requirements, HE can state them in this 
 topic, instead of you making up ideas as to what YOU consider 
 small.


I'm not making up any ideas about what's small in terms of a 
fixed number; I've merely argued about size in relationship to 
each other, i.e. 180MB is gigantic only in relation to the 20MB 
under the assumption that both fulfill all other requirements. 
With regards to the requirements I've stated what I consider the 
sane interpretation, but if the OP clarifies that point to a hard 
number, that would indeed be helpful.


 Your comments are irrelevant without knowing the OP his 
 expectations.


I consider OP's expectations to be clear from his posted 
requirements, so until OP has indeed clarified, I disagree.


 So again please do not distract from the topic.


Why "again"? You've not stated so before AFAICT.
Regardless, I disagree that discussing the validity of 
recommendations in a thread specifically made to gather such 
recommendations is a distraction from the topic; I would contend 
that it lies at the heart of the topic.
Aug 28 2017
parent reply Ryion <ryion 4210x.com> writes:
On Monday, 28 August 2017 at 21:17:19 UTC, Moritz Maxeiner wrote:

 Why "again"? You've not stated so before AFAICT.
 Regardless, I disagree that discussing the validity of 
 recommendations in a thread specifically made to gather such 
 recommendations is a distraction from the topic; I would 
 contend that it lies at the heart of the topic.


The poster asked for programs that fit his (vague) criteria, it 
is NOT up to you to determine what those criteria are and then 
belittle people there posts that try to help out with there own 
recommendations. The fact that you can not see this even now, 
really is a issue.

And i am not referring to this topic alone or those that i 
personally post in. There are many where the same patterns are 
viable and i notice the pattern, that its always your name next 
to those posts.

Is it so hard for you to not always override topics here and 
constant "straw man" or other terms calling. And i use this term 
because because you constantly write "irrelevant", "straw man 
argumentation", "but I don't care" and other belittling 
statements that seem to indicate that your opinion means more 
then others. Or how you supposedly do not care and have no issue 
pointing it out half a dozen times.

It gets very fast tiresome. You are the only poster that i see 
here that is non-stop doing this. If you do not like something or 
find it irrelevant, then do not respond to it. But they way you 
act, like posts are below or irrelevant to you...

This is the "again" i refer to. You do this is a lot of topics. 
You dissect people there posts and write how it is irrelevant to 
you or some other clever looking down terminology. It totally 
distracts from the topic at hand and frankly, makes people less 
likely to continue topics.

Its this kind of attitude that in MY personal opinion makes this 
mailing board toxic for new users. While you are not impolite, 
the way you act upon people the posts makes it hard to have a 
honest discussion with you without it turning off-topic or simply 
scaring away people.

So again polity again, to refrain from acting like this and let 
people have there own opinion without you dissecting every piece. 
Its turns topic off-topic and adds no value to the discussion. I 
await your next well written comment how what i wrote is 
irrelevant and how you do not notice this behavior.

This site really needs a proper forum with the ability to block 
specific posters and make this board less toxic. Because 99.9% of 
the people here are nice but your behavior is hard to deal with. 
And i am sure you will disagree with this.

Stay out of my posts and stop looking down on people and we will 
get along. This is my last post on this off-topic issue.
Aug 29 2017
parent Moritz Maxeiner <moritz ucworks.org> writes:
On Tuesday, 29 August 2017 at 14:05:13 UTC, Ryion wrote:

 On Monday, 28 August 2017 at 21:17:19 UTC, Moritz Maxeiner 
 wrote:

 Why "again"? You've not stated so before AFAICT.
 Regardless, I disagree that discussing the validity of 
 recommendations in a thread specifically made to gather such 
 recommendations is a distraction from the topic; I would 
 contend that it lies at the heart of the topic.


 The poster asked for programs that fit his (vague) criteria, it 
 is NOT up to you to determine what those criteria are


We're repeating ourselves here, so we're going to have to agree 
to disagree, as I don't agree that that's what I was doing.


 and then belittle people there posts that try to help out with 
 there own recommendations. The fact that you can not see this 
 even now, really is a issue.


I don't consider the way I argue to be belittling and I resent 
the accusation.
Side point: DlangIDE invalidates my recommendation, as well


 And i am not referring to this topic alone or those that i 
 personally post in. There are many where the same patterns are 
 viable and i notice the pattern, that its always your name next 
 to those posts.

 Is it so hard for you to not always override topics here and 
 constant "straw man" or other terms calling.


I have to point out that when I attribute "straw man" to a quote, 
it's because the author of that quote has responded to something 
I wrote, but argued against a point that I did not make, which is 
a logical fallacy. The same applies to other such fallacies such 
as "red herring" and if you do catch me in one, I do hope you 
point it out, as it is hard to see when one is committing one 
oneself.


 And i use this term because because you constantly write 
 "irrelevant", "straw man argumentation", "but I don't care" and 
 other belittling statements that seem to indicate that your 
 opinion means more then others.


I don't see how pointing out logical fallacies constitutes 
belittling (again, please do point them out if you catch me in 
one).
W.r.t. the "I don't care" (I assume you refer to the website 
thread): If I perceive someone trying to engage me in a topic I 
have no interest in after I've commented about general procedure 
(which applies to the topic being turned from idea to tangible 
result) I can either ignore them, or point out that it doesn't 
interest me. I consider the first option to be ruder.
Lastly the "irrelevant": If someone disagrees with me dismissing 
their argument like that I welcome a counter argument as to why 
they do consider it relevant to the point I was making in the 
quote they replied to.


 Or how you supposedly do not care and have no issue pointing it 
 out half a dozen times.


I pointed it out again when despite earlier comment(s) on the 
subject the attempt to engage me in it was made again.


 It gets very fast tiresome. You are the only poster that i see 
 here that is non-stop doing this. If you do not like something 
 or find it irrelevant, then do not respond to it.


I generally don't; if someone responds either to me, or posts in 
a discussion I've joined, that's another matter, though.


 But they way you act, like posts are below or irrelevant to 
 you...


If they were I wouldn't take the time to respond.
I point these things in responses to me out because I hope for a 
reply containing an actual counter argument to the point I was 
making.


 This is the "again" i refer to. You do this is a lot of topics. 
 You dissect people there posts and write how it is irrelevant 
 to you or some other clever looking down terminology. It 
 totally distracts from the topic at hand and frankly, makes 
 people less likely to continue topics.


I strongly disagree that pointing out logical fallacies distracts 
from the topic at hand, because that's what logical fallacies do.
W.r.t. post dissection: Addressing individual points allows the 
exchange of specific arguments and counter arguments.


 Its this kind of attitude that in MY personal opinion makes 
 this mailing board toxic for new users. While you are not 
 impolite, the way you act upon people the posts makes it hard 
 to have a honest discussion with you without it turning 
 off-topic or simply scaring away people.


I'm not sure if you're making the point that you want to write 
things to me that you don't want to expose others to, or that you 
don't feel that you can have a discussion with me on account of 
how I write. For the former: You can send me a private email. For 
the latter: The best I can do is assure you that I'll refrain 
from responding to you first in a thread (unless there are 
exceptional circumstances); if you respond to me, that's another 
matter.


 So again polity again, to refrain from acting like this and let 
 people have there own opinion without you dissecting every 
 piece.


Again, if someone replies to me with a logical fallacy, I will 
point that out; the same way I would expect them to point it out 
if I were to do it.
I will also address the individual points they were making as a 
response to me as I don't see how that conflicts with them having 
their opinions.


 Its turns topic off-topic and adds no value to the discussion. 
 I await your next well written comment how what i wrote is 
 irrelevant and how you do not notice this behavior.


Thank you for saying they are well written.
I don't consider what you wrote irrelevant, as it did not deviate 
from the point we were discussing and it did cause me to reflect 
and reevaluate.
In hindsight it would've been better for me not to respond first 
to you and wait for OPs evaluation of the recommendations; it 
doesn't change my earlier mentioned position that I consider his 
requirements being clear enough, but I did unnecessarily escalate 
first, for which I apologize.
The other behavior you mention when I respond to someone 
responding to me, however, is quite deliberate (as I've explained 
in the above), because I consider pointing out flaws in a 
discussion vital to that discussion's usefulness.


 This site really needs a proper forum with the ability to block 
 specific posters and make this board less toxic. Because 99.9% 
 of the people here are nice but your behavior is hard to deal 
 with.


If it interests you, the forum is a web frontend for a newsgroups 
server [1]. If you have a newsgroup reader (most major desktop 
mail clients support subscribing to newsgroups), you can use that 
interface; most such newsgroup readers include a killfile to 
which you can add people whose posts you don't wish to see.


 And i am sure you will disagree with this.


I don't disagree, as it's an opinion, not an argument in a 
(technical) discussion.


 Stay out of my posts


If that is what you wish, outside of exceptional circumstances, I 
won't respond to you first.


 and stop looking down on people


I repeat that I resent this accusation.


 and we will get along. This is my last post on this off-topic 
 issue.


[1] http://www.digitalmars.com/NewsGroup.html
Aug 29 2017
prev sibling parent reply Jerry <hurricane hereiam.com> writes:
On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 18:08:52 UTC, Moritz Maxeiner wrote:

 The requirements are rather vague, you can interpret it in a 
 number of ways.


 The sensible interpretation imho is "as low an install 
 footprint as possible while still fulfilling the other 
 requirements". I'm not aware of anything below ~20MB install 
 footprint that fulfills the other requirements, but I'd be 
 interested if you know any.


The install requirement is arbitrary, and why 20MB? It just seems 
like you are trying to advertise that program for some reason.


 I wouldn't consider 200MB gigantic in comparison to 20MB cause 
 there is literally no difference of use for me.


 The thread is about OP's requirements.


So replace me with anyone.


 You'd have to have a really shitty laptop for it to be an 
 issue.


 Not relevant.


It is relevant, shit, even with a shitty laptop you can upgrade 
the hdd and then it becomes a non-issue anyways.
Aug 30 2017
parent reply Moritz Maxeiner <moritz ucworks.org> writes:
On Wednesday, 30 August 2017 at 21:30:44 UTC, Jerry wrote:

 On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 18:08:52 UTC, Moritz Maxeiner 
 wrote:

 The requirements are rather vague, you can interpret it in a 
 number of ways.


 The sensible interpretation imho is "as low an install 
 footprint as possible while still fulfilling the other 
 requirements". I'm not aware of anything below ~20MB install 
 footprint that fulfills the other requirements, but I'd be 
 interested if you know any.


 The install requirement is arbitrary, and why 20MB? It just 
 seems like you are trying to advertise that program for some 
 reason.


Because of the programs recommended until that post nothing was 
below that while meeting the other requirements (there were 
others in the same range, vim being one). The (later) DlangIDE 
recommendation, however, lowered that to about ~5MB (beating both 
my recommendation and vim in the process).


 I wouldn't consider 200MB gigantic in comparison to 20MB 
 cause there is literally no difference of use for me.


 The thread is about OP's requirements.


 So replace me with anyone.


 You'd have to have a really shitty laptop for it to be an 
 issue.


 Not relevant.


 It is relevant, shit, even with a shitty laptop you can upgrade 
 the hdd and then it becomes a non-issue anyways.


Your argument implicitly assumed a specific reason (albeit a 
generally sensible one) as to why low install size was a (must) 
requirement (physical storage limitations being only one possible 
reason; shared devices with fixed disk quotas or devices owned by 
the university with certain policies being other possibilities). 
That is why I didn't (and don't) think it as relevant to the 
specific point about being as low as possible I was making.
Aug 30 2017
parent reply Jerry <hurricane hereiam.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 30 August 2017 at 22:42:40 UTC, Moritz Maxeiner 
wrote:

 On Wednesday, 30 August 2017 at 21:30:44 UTC, Jerry wrote:

 On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 18:08:52 UTC, Moritz Maxeiner 
 wrote:

 The requirements are rather vague, you can interpret it in a 
 number of ways.


 The sensible interpretation imho is "as low an install 
 footprint as possible while still fulfilling the other 
 requirements". I'm not aware of anything below ~20MB install 
 footprint that fulfills the other requirements, but I'd be 
 interested if you know any.


 The install requirement is arbitrary, and why 20MB? It just 
 seems like you are trying to advertise that program for some 
 reason.


 Because of the programs recommended until that post nothing was 
 below that while meeting the other requirements (there were 
 others in the same range, vim being one). The (later) DlangIDE 
 recommendation, however, lowered that to about ~5MB (beating 
 both my recommendation and vim in the process).


It's one of the most useless requirements in that list though. 
The only reason people mention install size is to boast about it. 
I think he just didn't want to install something like Visual 
Studio which takes 10+ GB.


 I wouldn't consider 200MB gigantic in comparison to 20MB 
 cause there is literally no difference of use for me.


 The thread is about OP's requirements.


 So replace me with anyone.


 You'd have to have a really shitty laptop for it to be an 
 issue.


 Not relevant.


 It is relevant, shit, even with a shitty laptop you can 
 upgrade the hdd and then it becomes a non-issue anyways.


 Your argument implicitly assumed a specific reason (albeit a 
 generally sensible one) as to why low install size was a (must) 
 requirement (physical storage limitations being only one 
 possible reason; shared devices with fixed disk quotas or 
 devices owned by the university with certain policies being 
 other possibilities). That is why I didn't (and don't) think it 
 as relevant to the specific point about being as low as 
 possible I was making.


Fancy way of agreeing with me, not sure what you are even going 
on about anymore if you agree.
Aug 31 2017
parent Moritz Maxeiner <moritz ucworks.org> writes:
On Thursday, 31 August 2017 at 23:20:52 UTC, Jerry wrote:

 On Wednesday, 30 August 2017 at 22:42:40 UTC, Moritz Maxeiner 
 wrote:

 On Wednesday, 30 August 2017 at 21:30:44 UTC, Jerry wrote:

 The install requirement is arbitrary, and why 20MB? It just 
 seems like you are trying to advertise that program for some 
 reason.


 Because of the programs recommended until that post nothing 
 was below that while meeting the other requirements (there 
 were others in the same range, vim being one). The (later) 
 DlangIDE recommendation, however, lowered that to about ~5MB 
 (beating both my recommendation and vim in the process).


 It's one of the most useless requirements in that list though.


That depends on OP's use case.


 The only reason people mention install size is to boast about 
 it.


I disagree.


 I think he just didn't want to install something like Visual 
 Studio which takes 10+ GB.


I don't know and don't want to speculate. My personal implicit 
assumption is only that as this is the general NG, not the learn 
NG, that OP has good reasons as to why that's a requirement (on 
the learn NG I would've asked for the reasons first before 
recommending anything myself, though that's beside the point).


 It is relevant, shit, even with a shitty laptop you can 
 upgrade the hdd and then it becomes a non-issue anyways.


 Your argument implicitly assumed a specific reason (albeit a 
 generally sensible one) as to why low install size was a 
 (must) requirement (physical storage limitations being only 
 one possible reason; shared devices with fixed disk quotas or 
 devices owned by the university with certain policies being 
 other possibilities). That is why I didn't (and don't) think 
 it as relevant to the specific point about being as low as 
 possible I was making.


 Fancy way of agreeing with me, not sure what you are even going 
 on about anymore if you agree.


I provided an explanation why I dismissed your argument as 
irrelevant to the point I was making. That does not mean I agree 
with you.
Aug 31 2017
prev sibling parent Manu via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> writes:
On 28 August 2017 at 01:17, Moritz Maxeiner via Digitalmars-d <
digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:


 On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 13:15:41 UTC, Ryion wrote:


 On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 10:05:29 UTC, Nicholas Wilson wrote:


 The following are a must:
     no large install footprint


 Visual Studio Code seems to be what you need.

 [...]

 Relative low memory footprint for the functionality ( compared to several
 IDEs that do the same ).

 [...]


 The (must) requirement was install footprint, not memory footprint, and as
 Visual Studio code uses the electron framework[1] its install footprint is
 gigantic (about 180MB vs e.g. TextAdept's 20MB).


I kinda feel like 'large' probably begins roughly when footprint is
measured in GB... it's 2017 after all!
Even in 2000 180mb was only 'kinda-big-ish' ;)
Aug 27 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 10:05:29 UTC, Nicholas Wilson wrote:

 So I will be doing a workshop on programming for the biology 
 department at my university and I was wondering what would best 
 suit the users.

 The following are a must:
     support windows & mac ( the more consistent between the two 
 the better)
     free
     no large install footprint, preferably simple install 
 procedure (running on laptops)
     syntax highlighting
     straightforward to use

 anything else is a bonus.

 Whats your experience with what you use?

 Many thanks
 Nic


I only use vim, including the GUI version when I was on Windows a 
couple years ago, but I recently saw this blog post that suggests 
Sublime would be a good choice for noobs, who might be 
overwhelmed by vim's learning curve and want a more GUI-like 
experience:

https://medium.freecodecamp.org/why-i-still-use-vim-67afd76b4db6
Aug 27 2017
parent Ecstatic Coder <ecstatic.coder gmail.com> writes:
 I only use vim, including the GUI version when I was on Windows 
 a couple years ago, but I recently saw this blog post that 
 suggests Sublime would be a good choice for noobs, who might be 
 overwhelmed by vim's learning curve and want a more GUI-like 
 experience:

 https://medium.freecodecamp.org/why-i-still-use-vim-67afd76b4db6


I've already tried Sublime Text, and I agree that it's much more 
user-friendly than Vim.

But Geany is quite close to Sublime Text.

And it's 100% free and open source, really cross-platform, easy 
to download and install (14mb for the windows installer), while 
using very little resources and being very complete and 
user-friendly.

If you need a simple D IDE with all batteries included, I still 
think that CoEdit may be the best option, for the same reasons...
Aug 27 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Vadim Lopatin <coolreader.org gmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 10:05:29 UTC, Nicholas Wilson wrote:

 So I will be doing a workshop on programming for the biology 
 department at my university and I was wondering what would best 
 suit the users.

 The following are a must:
     support windows & mac ( the more consistent between the two 
 the better)
     free
     no large install footprint, preferably simple install 
 procedure (running on laptops)
     syntax highlighting
     straightforward to use

 anything else is a bonus.

 Whats your experience with what you use?

 Many thanks
 Nic


Try DlangIDE : https://github.com/buggins/dlangide

Simple IDE with DUB based project format, uses DUB to fetch 
dependencies, build and run projects. Support of basic debugging.
Syntax highlight, code completion, go to definition - using DCD.

Supports Windows, mac, linux.
Precompiled binaries for Windows: 
https://github.com/buggins/dlangide/releases

Distribution size for Windows - 5.4Mb zipped. Includes DUB and 
mago-mi debugger.


For Mac, it's easy to build it using DUB.
Aug 29 2017
parent Vadim Lopatin <coolreader.org gmail.com> writes:
On Tuesday, 29 August 2017 at 08:15:08 UTC, Vadim Lopatin wrote:

 On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 10:05:29 UTC, Nicholas Wilson 
 wrote:

 So I will be doing a workshop on programming for the biology 
 department at my university and I was wondering what would 
 best suit the users.

 The following are a must:
     support windows & mac ( the more consistent between the 
 two the better)
     free
     no large install footprint, preferably simple install 
 procedure (running on laptops)
     syntax highlighting
     straightforward to use

 anything else is a bonus.

 Whats your experience with what you use?

 Many thanks
 Nic


 Try DlangIDE : https://github.com/buggins/dlangide

 Simple IDE with DUB based project format, uses DUB to fetch 
 dependencies, build and run projects. Support of basic 
 debugging.
 Syntax highlight, code completion, go to definition - using DCD.

 Supports Windows, mac, linux.
 Precompiled binaries for Windows: 
 https://github.com/buggins/dlangide/releases

 Distribution size for Windows - 5.4Mb zipped. Includes DUB and 
 mago-mi debugger.


 For Mac, it's easy to build it using DUB.


New DlangIDE version v0.7.60 is released.
Windows binaries are available here 
https://github.com/buggins/dlangide/releases
Aug 30 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent Jonathan M Davis via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> writes:
On Wednesday, August 30, 2017 16:42:46 H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:

 On Wed, Aug 30, 2017 at 04:24:47PM -0600, Jonathan M Davis via 


Digitalmars-d wrote:

 On Wednesday, August 30, 2017 11:28:35 Anonymouse via Digitalmars-d 




wrote:

 On Sunday, 27 August 2017 at 12:11:14 UTC, Petar Kirov

 [ZombineDev] wrote:

 vim or SublimeText


 I want to get into vim. It has to be vim, can't be Neovim or gvim
 or any other clone; I'm doing it for a Linux class. I'm on Arch
 Linux (or Manjaro), so I have plenty available from the official
 repos and plenty more from the user AUR repos.




 [...]


 All I use is the D syntax file so that the syntax highlighting works
 correctly. I've never seen any need for anything else.


 [...]

 I use vim for D coding (well, all coding... and actually, I'm also
 typing this in vim), and I don't even use a syntax file.  D is not like
 Java where you need an IDE to deal with the verbosity; it's actually
 quite comfortable to write, and if formatted properly, easy to read
 without needing any special highlighting.

 But that's just my personal preference.  YMMV.


It's possible to read pretty much any language without syntax highlighting,
but I find that it makes it faster when you have good syntax highlighting,
and I see no reason not to take advantage of it. Regardless, everyone has
different preferences, so it's good that we're not all restricted to using
exactly the same editor and setup.

- Jonathan M Davis
Aug 30 2017
prev sibling parent "H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d" <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> writes:
On Wed, Aug 30, 2017 at 06:21:36PM -0600, Jonathan M Davis via Digitalmars-d
wrote:
[...]

 It's possible to read pretty much any language without syntax
 highlighting, but I find that it makes it faster when you have good
 syntax highlighting, and I see no reason not to take advantage of it.
 Regardless, everyone has different preferences, so it's good that
 we're not all restricted to using exactly the same editor and setup.


[...]

I don't care for syntax highlighting mainly because I find the
kaleidoscopic effect very distracting on my eyes.  With non-highlighted
code my attention can be focused on what I'm trying to do rather than
being drawn by this color over here and that color over there. That, and
it rarely blends well with my choice of terminal default colors.  I turn
off all color settings on "modern" *nix shell utilities for this same
reason, too.  I find them more of a distraction than an aid.

Also, I use ssh remote terminals a lot, and terminal colors often don't
translate properly from one terminal to another.

But yes, hooray for choice.  If everyone else had to suffer the
colorless environment I enjoy, not many people would be here today.  :-D


T

-- 
Heuristics are bug-ridden by definition. If they didn't have bugs, they'd be
algorithms.
Aug 30 2017