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digitalmars.D.ide - Visual D needs to support VS better

reply Profile Anaysis <PA gotacha.com> writes:

well in VisualD. Things like peak definition, find all 
references, debugging issues: variables not showing up, becoming 
corrupt requiring a clean of the solution, variables with 
different scopes but same name getting corrupt, the inability to 
watch variables properly due to scope issues, breakpoints not 
always functioning as expected, etc.

The things I use most in VS are the things that VD neglected to 
implement ;/ This makes the experience when programming VD very 
poor for me. While I can code and build just like in C++, which 
VD does a good job at, all the bells and whistles that have 
become an integral part of the programming experience for me are 
missing ;/

Because these features greatly enhance my productivity, I feel 
very inefficient when programming D code and this leads me to not 
desiring to use D or VD.

The debugging experience is almost painful because it is somewhat 
alien and does not function as VC++'s debugging experience does. 
Because it is so close, of course, it creates more of a mess than 
it helps in many cases.


my problems. I have had several experiences where the VD 
debugger(most mago and VS version) have show incorrect values 
leading me to believe I am having some other problem than what is 
really going on. Once I clean the project they start working 
again only to eventually become corrupt.

I know it must be hard work to main VD to keep it consistent with 
visual studio(which nearly changes every year), Until the D 
community comes up with a proper visual program environment, it 
is all that us "newbs" have(if I had to program out of notepad 
I'd probably hang myself, it's like using MS Paint vs Adobe 
Photoshop).

How hard would it be to add these features? I would think that 
many windows C++ would be more willing to get in to D if the 
hurdle was not so mind boggling(as it is almost better for it to 
be completely different, at least one doesn't go in with 
expectations and habits).

Any idea if you will ever get around to implementing these 
features and fixing some of the issues? (Seems like VD hasn't 
been updated in a while)
Jan 23 2017
parent reply Rainer Schuetze <r.sagitario gmx.de> writes:
On 23.01.2017 23:23, Profile Anaysis wrote:


 VisualD. Things like



 peak definition,


I never use it myself when working in C++, but I agree, it would be nice 
to have. At first glance there seems to be little support to implement 
it easily, though. The Code Definition window works, though.


 find all references,


The current implementation is very experimental. Never had the time to 
improve it though. Refactoring tools are pretty nasty because D is not a 
simple language...


 debugging
 issues: variables not showing up, becoming corrupt requiring a clean of
 the solution, variables with different scopes but same name getting
 corrupt, the inability to watch variables properly due to scope issues,
 breakpoints not always functioning as expected, etc.


[...]

 The debugging experience is almost painful because it is somewhat alien
 and does not function as VC++'s debugging experience does. Because it is
 so close, of course, it creates more of a mess than it helps in many cases.


The debugging experience very much relies on the debug info emitted by 
the compiler. Unfortunately this is a rather neglected part of the 
compiler as the main developers prefer printf debugging.

[...]

 Any idea if you will ever get around to implementing these features and
 fixing some of the issues? (Seems like VD hasn't been updated in a while)


There should be some improvements with the recent beta and the latest 
dmd release. If you have reproducible issues, please file them here: 
https://issues.dlang.org/
Jan 26 2017
parent reply Profile Anaysis <PA gotacha.com> writes:
On Thursday, 26 January 2017 at 08:24:37 UTC, Rainer Schuetze 
wrote:

 On 23.01.2017 23:23, Profile Anaysis wrote:

 [...]



 [...]


 I never use it myself when working in C++, but I agree, it 
 would be nice to have. At first glance there seems to be little 
 support to implement it easily, though. The Code Definition 
 window works, though.


 [...]


 The current implementation is very experimental. Never had the 
 time to improve it though. Refactoring tools are pretty nasty 
 because D is not a simple language...


But it shouldn't be hard to return something. I'd rather have 
invalid results than no results at all. A simple file search 
would do. If it returned entries that were in comments, I 
wouldn't mind.



 [...]


 [...]

 [...]


 The debugging experience very much relies on the debug info 
 emitted by the compiler. Unfortunately this is a rather 
 neglected part of the compiler as the main developers prefer 
 printf debugging.

 [...]

[...]


 There should be some improvements with the recent beta and the 
 latest dmd release. If you have reproducible issues, please 
 file them here: https://issues.dlang.org/


The 0.44b2 didn't help(or made things worse).
Jan 27 2017
parent reply Profile Anaysis <PA gotacha.com> writes:
also, "globals"(non-locals) do not show up in watch list/locals 
at all ;/ Makes it very hard to debug ;/

If I put, say, a variable outside a function, it will not be in 
any list and I cannot see it's value unless I make a local alias 
to it.
Jan 29 2017
parent Rainer Schuetze <r.sagitario gmx.de> writes:
On 30.01.2017 02:50, Profile Anaysis wrote:

 also, "globals"(non-locals) do not show up in watch list/locals at all
 ;/ Makes it very hard to debug ;/

 If I put, say, a variable outside a function, it will not be in any list
 and I cannot see it's value unless I make a local alias to it.


Unfortunately, there is no debug information about the current module 
scope. To watch globals, you need to specify them fully qualified (with 
module and package name, e.g. "pkg.module.var"). Depending on the 
debugger engine, you'll have to replace '.' with ' '.

Static variables inside extern(D) functions are supported in mago, 
because the scope can be extracted from the function name.
Jan 30 2017