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willdean
Tomato Guru
134 Posts |
 Posted - Apr 06 2004 : 12:47:14 PM
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Has anyone else on this group (most of us long-time persistees with VAX) tried going back to VA.NET recently?
Tiring of bashing my escape key and fruitlessly pounding on CTRL-SPACE, I've just reinstalled VA7.1.
It just works...
Wonderful.
Could somebody wake me when VAX is 90% as good as 7.1
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partnerinflight
Senior Member
37 Posts |
Posted - Apr 06 2004 : 1:49:19 PM
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Agreed. All that was needed for me in 7.1 was to fix it up for C#. This VAX symbols window? Hmm, no thanks. Comment spell check? No thanks. If I wanted to write whole pages in my comments I'd use Word.
Meanwhile I wistfully look at my coworkers' VS.NET2003 running without Visual Assist at all, and showing an IntelliSense window every time. Mine doesn't come up every time. Lately it doesn't come up even half the time. Coming to think of it, VAX has lately created the very problem it was trying to solve.
This going after features while sacrificing perf is a very Microsoftian methodology, and it just doesn't work. (Heh, especially when now you've got bloated software (VAX) living inside another piece of bloated software (VS.NET)) |
Edited by - partnerinflight on Apr 06 2004 1:52:19 PM |
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Uniwares
Tomato Guru
Portugal
2322 Posts |
Posted - Apr 06 2004 : 5:21:44 PM
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Well, using it mostly under VC6, I dont have any problems with it at all. It works. Most of the time better than VA6. The whole VS.NET IDE sucks and is in its own way even without VAX. So what you expect that VAX solves there?
The usefulness of spell checking may be questionable, the VAView is often a big time saver (except for some cases with templates).
I definitely appreciate the better parser of VAX, when you do mostly MFC development you can probably stick to VA6.
BTW: Support, please have a look at the parser of STI's "Understand for C++" [No, I dont support this product, just test driving it.]. This seems to be an excellent piece of parser, slightly slower than the VAX parser, but definitely more complete, specially when it comes to templates and complex class hierarchies.
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willdean
Tomato Guru
134 Posts |
Posted - Apr 06 2004 : 7:14:16 PM
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It just confuses matters to talk about different versions of the IDE. The VS.NET is better than VS6 at some things, and worse at others, but that's not the issue here.
I'm doing a comparison between VA7.1 and VAX on the same IDE.
Neither parse complicated template stuff very well (STL iterators are very hit-or-miss in both)
Under VA7.1 the IDE is faster, the CTRL-SPACE boxes are more reliable in their content and completion options which are now missing from VAX (like the CTRL-SPACE complete in the middle of a word) are still working. Generally, it's much less invasive when I don't want it to be, and much more reliable when I ask for its help. And reparse works instantly, rather than perhaps, after a few seconds. Perhaps. Maybe. If it feels like it.
The goto box is not as good in 7.1 as it is now in VAX.
The spelling stuff is a red herring, as that's in VA7 anyway.
I know that WT's style of development is to regress terribly around every major update, and then add back all the missing/broken features as people point out what's gone - so maybe VAX will be sorted out in time. I've certainly been depressed about their process in the past, but good stuff has eventually appeared. VAX has improved tremendously over the beta period, I'll concede.
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Erik Olofsson
Tomato Guru
111 Posts |
Posted - Apr 07 2004 : 06:34:37 AM
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| I agree, the only feature that I want to use nowadays is the enhanced syntax coloring. Unforturnately I cannot turn off the other features, but I would rather have the syntax highlighting, the bad parser and invasive popups than not the syntax highlighting. |
Cutting Edge Project Management
http://www.hansoft.se |
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gstelmack
Ketchup Master
USA
76 Posts |
Posted - Apr 07 2004 : 09:08:28 AM
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At least VAX is picking up my .i interface files finally. That was a key annoyance for me in VA7.1.
If I could get VAX to parse my Custom Directories headers (http://forum.wholetomato.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1999), I'd be ecstatic. I had warts with 7.1, I'm having similar but fewer and different warts with VAX. |
-- Greg Stelmack, Red Storm Entertainment |
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LarryLeonard
Tomato Guru
USA
1041 Posts |
Posted - Apr 07 2004 : 10:15:43 AM
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quote:
Could somebody wake me when VAX is 90% as good as 7.1?
This will probably get me banned for life, and feel free to delete this comment. (I'm a strong supporter of the idea that a board like this belongs to WT; you don't have to allow disparaging comments.)
Having said that, I know that WT is getting ready for a public release of the program, and frankly, I just don't feel like it's ready. If this were VA 1.0, maybe I'd say, yeah, ship it now, and fix the bugs that we get the most feedback from the customer for. But, as willdean has demonstrated, VAX's toughest competitor is VA, and my fear would be that VAX would suffer badly by comparison to it. Am I the only one that feels this way?
In my opinion, VAX needs more work before release: from my point of view as a "black-backgrounder", especially. In 1225, I've just started noticing the "VAX paints the top scan lines, VS paints the bottom issue", which I never saw before. How much more work it needs, I'm not competent to say, but there still seem to be a lot of rough edges, failed installs, crashes, and hangs.
Now some minor quibbles...
quote:
The usefulness of spell checking may be questionable ... If I wanted to write whole pages in my comments I'd use Word.
I have to strongly disagree with both of you here. First, putting documentation outside the source code is a famously failed idea: it never gets updated, no one reads it, it gets lost, etc. Second, I'm one of those annoying people that comments their code extensively. If a word is misspelled in a comment, that means that it is, for all practical purposes, invisible to a grep. Good luck finding all occurrences of the word 'customer' if some yo-yo spelled it 'custmoer' in one place. Having the spell-checker work in comments in invaluable to me.
quote:
This VAX symbols window? Hmm, no thanks.
I'm glad I'm not the only one that doesn't use the HCB. I don't know why I don't use it, it just doesn't speak to me, I guess. Maybe I'm just set in my ways. I'll try pinning the VAView window open and see if it grows on me.
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The VS.NET is better than VS6 at some things, and worse at others, but that's not the issue here.
You're right that isn't the issue, but I have to nit-pick: the .NET IDE is a terrible piece of crap, UI wise. Hell, "Quick C for Windows" (the forerunner of MSVC, c. 1991) had a better UI than this. I just don't think a day should go by without saying that...
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Uniwares
Tomato Guru
Portugal
2322 Posts |
Posted - Apr 07 2004 : 10:35:48 AM
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I sort of agree with Larry that VAX is not ready for prime time. But it does offer much more than VA6/7.1 could ever offer.
And, yes, VAX does not yet have the quality of VA6/7.1. As for the VS.NET IDE, I believe that WT is trying to do much, much more than this IDE was ever designed for. It is probably more fighting against the storm of interfaces than implementing features. In VC6 this is probably much more straight forward.
When I look through the list of yet open bugs, which only I have reported in the last 3 month or more, I end up with about 30 issues which are not solved. Most of them not "serious" by means of limiting functionality (except for my beloved templates  ) but they are adding up to a this-is-not-a-finished-product-experience.
Still way to go, but still going. Heads up. Its coming. |
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support
Whole Tomato Software
5566 Posts |
Posted - Apr 07 2004 : 11:18:44 AM
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Will: Do you recall if you had "Use Default Intellisense..." enabled on the "Text Editor|C/C++" node of our options dialog?
Erik: Enable "Use Default Intellisense..." and disable "Display suggestions..." in our options dialog. VA X will help only when MS cannot, and you don't see any popups with tomatos.
For those unsure about the HCB, make sure you Right+Click in the HCB and disable "Show current scope when typing." New installs of VA X have this option unset; old ones do not.
We hear your concerns about quality. We continue to crank through the list.
With hindsight, we understand Will's point about issuing too early. VA X had some big pieces on which we needed outside feedback. Were these features at all useful? We gathered steam quickly. |
Whole Tomato Software, Inc. |
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willdean
Tomato Guru
134 Posts |
Posted - Apr 07 2004 : 12:26:03 PM
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I don't recally, sorry. I would have almost certainly had it at its default setting.
I understand the dilemma about betas and people moaning about quality during them, and I certainly think they should shut up during the earlier stages of testing. I thought VAX was terrible when I first joined the beta, but it's certainly improved during it. But you're saying that you're *very* close to releasing this, and it would be slack as a beta tester and former enthusiastic recommender not to observe that the new product is not good enough (yet).
It wasn't until I went back to 7.1 that I realised how far it's still got to come.
All VA does is enhance the use of the IDE - *anything* which hinders that *at all* is a major bug. An extra 100ms to switch source tabs or after typing :: might not seem like anything much, but it quickly erodes the usefulness of the tool.
I can't help feeling that the VSIP stuff was 'because we can/should', and the VAView was 'because we're using VSIP'. The great thing about 7.1 is that it seems free from all the stupid add-on clashes which are apparently VSIP related. Is the terrible performance VSIP related too? Have you considered abandoning it - clearly the vast majority of the code isn't dependent on it, because VAX runs on VS6.
It would amuse me to go back to 4.x, when you did the whole editor yourselves, and see what that looks like now...
Will |
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support
Whole Tomato Software
5566 Posts |
Posted - Apr 07 2004 : 1:55:19 PM
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| We would keep VSIP regardless of the VA View. VSIP gives us a better interface to assignment of our commands. The menu, VA View and tomato in the splash are extras. Virtually all of VA X, and everything performance-related, is still bundled as an Add-in. |
Whole Tomato Software, Inc. |
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willdean
Tomato Guru
134 Posts |
Posted - Apr 07 2004 : 6:25:59 PM
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Interesting. So the drop in performance from 7 -> X is not VSIP related - I suppose that gives you some hope of improving it.
I had also assumed that the add-in clash problems were VSIP related - is that the case? They certainly seem a lot more serious with X than 7.1.
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support
Whole Tomato Software
5566 Posts |
Posted - Apr 07 2004 : 7:06:34 PM
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Your assumption there is hope is correct. We have hope. In fact, your comments have driven us to search for improvements. We have found several significant ones. We moved some code to a background thread; other code moved from a background thread to the main thread, ie the one that sees what you type. Changes are to be in next build.
We had a rash of VSIP-class problems at the start of beta. Virtually all are resolved. Add-in problems are no different for VA X than VA.NET 7.1. That said, we do have one add-in problem that prevents part of VA X from loading. Several people report this. VSIP works so they get a menu, toolbar and empty VA View but nothing else is alive. We are working on this one. Not easy since we don't have the problem ourselves. |
Whole Tomato Software, Inc. |
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willdean
Tomato Guru
134 Posts |
Posted - Apr 08 2004 : 03:24:26 AM
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quote:
In fact, your comments have driven us to search for improvements.
Well, that's gratifying! They weren't merely supposed to make you cry over your keyboards...
I hadn't realised that the add-in clashes were broadly the same. About the only add-in I want to use is Ankhsvn, and that works fine with 7.1 and not with VAX.
Outside the black box, I'm completely unable to tell if this is your fault, MS's fault or Ankh's fault, so I'm not blaming anybody here... Ankh blame you, but they would say that, wouldn't they.
I will try the next build of VAX, and be constructive in my criticism.
Can I rest assured that after moving all this code around, your automated test suite has again passed all its tests, with >90% code
coverage? 
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PatLuja
Tomato Guru
Belgium
416 Posts |
Posted - Apr 08 2004 : 03:32:35 AM
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Hello all,
I support what Larry has said. I also think VA X is yet a bit immature to go out into the world. And I also never use the HCB.
Maybe it a good time to poll how many people use the HCB regularly. The Whole Tomato team could learn from this how high the HCB should be on their ranking or how they should promote/explain the advantages of the use of the HCB.
And I hope the fine team of Whole Tomato keeps up its hope, because in spite of some bugs, I think it is a great product. (And they have a wonderfull service, as we all know...)
With kind regards,
Patrick Luja |
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support
Whole Tomato Software
5566 Posts |
Posted - Apr 08 2004 : 5:31:01 PM
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We hadn't spent time on the Ankh conflict since it received no other comments. Your post was the first we heard of the problem. Though still on our list, the problem was nowhere near the top. That said, Ankh seems fine for us. We'll reply in your original thread.
As for the HCB, its value is in reading new code. It offers less to the developer working with code s/he already knows. For now, we will document this facet in our description of the HCB. |
Whole Tomato Software, Inc. |
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Uniwares
Tomato Guru
Portugal
2322 Posts |
Posted - Apr 08 2004 : 7:25:50 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by support
As for the HCB, its value is in reading new code. It offers less to the developer working with code s/he already knows. For now, we will document this facet in our description of the HCB.
I dont agree with that. My main project has currently about 300.000 lines of code, and 300+ data structures and classes. And I can not, even if I try, remember all functions, structures, data members of these.
Here the HCB helps me orient myself. I know which class or struct I'm using, but the HCB shows me at a glance all that I need to know about it. All the little details, base classes, functions, enums, data...
Even if it still gets some things pretty wrong, most of the time its a big help for me to get the task done, quickly, without opening the file where the class or struct is defined. |
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Erik Olofsson
Tomato Guru
111 Posts |
Posted - Apr 12 2004 : 03:58:15 AM
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Turning on "use default intellisense when available" fixes pressing CTRL+Space after m_ so that's a great improvement.
I am however unable to disable popups after typing ( . -> and ::
The delay seems to have gone down (with default intellisense on) so it's not as irritating when they appear. Still they interfere with my typing, taking control over my ability to press up/down.
Personally I find the parser lacking. It's the secondary reason for me to use VA (the primary beeing syntax highlighting). In VS6 the VA parser was a great improvement over the built in parser, but in VS7.1 it does not offer much over the default parser (and often works worse). I can provide provide simple exampeles of where it fails if you are interested.
Generally I think your product is great. Removing all the small issues would make it feel much more polished and I think it would be better received. |
Cutting Edge Project Management
http://www.hansoft.se |
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