I recently asked a question on updating programming packages (on systems that provide programmer tools via packages) for which there has been no response. This leads me to ask the following question. As a software developer over the years, I've encountered enough bugs in tools that lead me to want to keep at the most recent stable release/update. The important caveat being that near the release date of a component, only clearly necessary changes are introduced. I would like to get a better understanding of the spectrum of how developers deal with new releases to the tools they use. So what do YOU do? Monitor mail lists and update to new releases after careful analysis or on a whim? Take whatever releases project management provides/permits? Out of desperation in response to a gnarly bug you're trying to fix? Something else entirely?
I would like to get a better understanding of the spectrum of how developers deal with new releases to the tools they use. So what do YOU do?
I grab the final release of the new tools as soon as it's available. That is in my private environment.
At work there is often just one specific version which is bought and expected to be used for several years. Developers cannot influence that.
At home I develop in Xcode. I maintain at least 2 versions of the environment, the current official release and the latest beta release. Both versions are kept up to date. If there are any issues with any of my projects and a new release of Xcode, I fix the issues with my project. Under no circumstances will I keep an older environment around for compatibility reasons. Most of my development is done against the stable API unless I need a feature from the beta API. All testing is done in both environments, so that hopefully I'll be able to catch bugs related to API changes as soon as possible. I don't know if I should credit my mad development skills or the quality of Apple's releases, but I rarely encounter any issues with API/SDK changes.
At work I develop in Visual Studio 2005 / Windows XP. It's horrible and there's nothing we can do about it.
Related
Apple introduced Xcode source editor extensions with Xcode 8.
Will Xcode 8 still support plugins served via Alcatraz?
Xcode 8 prohibits code injection (the way plugins used to load) for security reasons. You can circumvent this by removing the code signing on Xcode. Both of these tools are capable of simplifying that:
https://github.com/inket/update_xcode_plugins
https://github.com/fpg1503/MakeXcodeGr8Again
To work on Xcode 8+ without removing the code signing, plugins will have to be rewritten as Xcode Source Editor Extensions. Unfortunately, the APIs for these extensions only allow for text replacement at the moment, so they are not an adequate replacement.
I've filed a report on rdar, do not hesitate to express your mind as well:
Xcode is a primary tool for the development on all Apple platforms.
People can either love or hate it, the fact is it's still the most
powerful development tool around.
Lots of its power and usefulness has been achieved by 3rd-party
plugins, later covered by the Alcatraz project, which is the number
one extension management system for Xcode, as vital and needed as for
example npm is needed for Node.js. It's all based on a fair, aware
community developing its helpful open-source extras and publishing
them on GitHub. It's not a code-injecting ghetto targeting infecting
stuff. It's a community within a community.
Xcode 8 tends to drop support for these plugins, most often being
narrated as a security step in favour of preventing distribution of
injected stuff. This is false; you simply can't prevent that 'cause
there's always someone who finds the way. This step simply makes Xcode
was less usable, complicated and not that feature-rich. There are many
important plugins which developers love, contribute and move forward
to make Xcode even better, tell yourself honestly, mostly even better
than you could in a short period.
The community needs powerful stuff. Way more powerful than basic
source-editing magic. Please reconsider this step in a spirit of
community and support to your developers.
In last years, there's a move towards closing your platform. First
shutting down Spotlight plugins and its great Flashlight plugins
manager, which is simply great and now I need to disable Rootless to
use it. Now it's Xcode plugins. You're doing more and more to make
developers and power users feel sad and not having their computing
device in their hands.
There's a detailed discussion on Alcatraz repo, it says everything:
https://github.com/alcatraz/Alcatraz/issues/475
I'm attaching a list of great plugins I simply can't spend a day
without:
AxeMode – Xcode issues patching Backlight – active line highlighting
ClangFormat – code formatter DerivedData Exterminator – daily need
getting rid or bad stuff FuzzyAutocomplete – name says it all, still
more powerful than Xcode completion HighlightSelectedString MCLog –
console log filtering, including regexes OMColorSense Polychromatic –
variables colouring, cute stuff RSImageOptimPlugin – processing PNG
files before committing SCXcodeMinimap – love this SublimeText-thingy!
XCFixin_FindFix – fixing Find features XcodeRefactoringPlus – patching
Refactor functionality, still buggy, but less than Xcode without
plugin XToDo – TODOs collection ZLGotoSandbox – 'cause dealing with
your folders would be a hell without it
Most of them are not source code-related, thus deserve having a way to
be loaded and working like a charm again.
You can certainly load all your plugins by recode signing Xcode 8.0. All credits to the XVim team. They seemed to solve this problem.
https://github.com/XVimProject/XVim/blob/master/INSTALL_Xcode8.md
The Most Important Step From The Solution
There is no support and we can't expect any. Apple decides to shut down the ecosystem around the Alcatraz package manager before they have an api ready (extensions) that is able to do what the plugins were doing before. The extensions are currently limited to the text frame which does not allow to do much.
The main reason announced by apple is security and we can now disable code signing with effort to get back the most important features that were missing in Xcode.
Bad day for the community, bad decision from apple.
I also recommend the discussion on Alcatraz here: https://github.com/alcatraz/Alcatraz/issues/475
Most importantly if you want to support Alcatraz file a bug at http://bugreport.apple.com to make them aware that many people are suffering with this change
I did the same (openradar.appspot.com/28423208):
Xcode is a primary tool for the development on all Apple platforms.
People can either love or hate it, the fact is it's still the most
powerful development tool around.
Lots of its power and usefulness has been achieved by 3rd-party plugins, later covered by the Alcatraz project, which is the number
one extension management system for Xcode, as vital and needed as for
example npm is needed for Node.js. It's all based on a fair, aware
community developing its helpful open-source extras and publishing
them on GitHub. It's not a code-injecting ghetto targeting infecting
stuff. It's a community within a community.
Xcode 8 tends to drop support for these plugins, most often being narrated as a security step in favour of preventing distribution of
injected stuff. This is false; you simply can't prevent that 'cause
there's always someone who finds the way. This step simply makes Xcode
was less usable, complicated and not that feature-rich. There are many
important plugins which developers love, contribute and move forward
to make Xcode even better, tell yourself honestly, mostly even better
than you could in a short period.
The community needs powerful stuff. Way more powerful than basic source-editing magic. Please reconsider this step in a spirit of
community and support to your developers.
In last years, there's a move towards closing your platform. First shutting down Spotlight plugins and its great Flashlight plugins
manager, which is simply great and now I need to disable Rootless to
use it. Now it's Xcode plugins. You're doing more and more to make
developers and power users feel sad and not having their computing
device in their hands.
There's a detailed discussion on Alcatraz repo, it says everything:
github.com/alcatraz/Alcatraz/issues/475
I'm attaching a list of great plugins I simply can't spend a day without:
AutoHighlightSymbol - Add highlights to the currently selected token
ClangFormat – code formatter
DerivedData Exterminator – daily need getting rid or bad stuff
FuzzyAutocomplete – name says it all, still more powerful than Xcode completion
KZLinkedConsole - be able to click on a link in the console to open the relevant file and be faster to debug
PreciseCoverage - nicer gui than xcode provides to view the coverage
XcodeColors - shows colors in the console depending on log level (how else should a console be used?)
Most of them are not source code-related, thus deserve having a way to be loaded and working like a charm again.
If you do not make a fast step to support your community i'm sure we
will find another platform to work with.
Seems like this should work. Found some answers here:
https://github.com/alcatraz/Alcatraz/issues/475
The key seems to be to removing code signing in order to get existing plugins to work.
Apparently not :'(
https://github.com/alcatraz/Alcatraz/issues/475
We have to wait until someone convert the plugins into the new Xcode Extensions
I need to build a fairly simple app but it needs to work on both PC and Mac.
It also needs to be redistributable on a disc or usb drive as a standalone desktop app.
Initially I thought AIR would be perfect for this (it ticks all the API requirements), but the difficulty is making it distributable, as the app would require the AIR runtime to be installed to run.
I came across Shu Player as an option as it seems to be able to package the AIR runtime with the app and do a (silent?) install.
However this seems to break the T&C from Adobe (as outlined here) so I'm not sure about the legality.
Another option could be Zinc but I haven't tested it so I'm not sure how well it'll fit the bill.
What would you recommend or suggest I check out?
Any suggestion much appreciated
EDIT:
There's a few more discussions on mono usage (though no real conclusion):
Here and Here
EDIT2:
Titanium could also fit the bill maybe, will check it out.
Any more comments from anyone?
EDIT3 (one year on): It's actually been almost a year since I posted that question but it seems some people still come across it every now and then, and even contribute an answer, even a year later.
Thought I'd update the question a bit. I did not get around to try the tcl/tk option at the end, time constraint and the uncertainty of the compatibility to different os versions led me to discard that as an option.
I did try Titanium for a bit but though the first impressions were ok, they really are pushing the mobile platform more than anything, and imho, the desktop implementation suffers a bit from that lack of attention. There are also some report of problems with some visual studio runtime on some OSs (can't remember the details now though).. So discarded that too.
I ended up going with XULRunner. The two major appeals were:
Firefox seems to work out of the box on most OS version, so I took it as good faith that a XULRunner app would likely be compatible with most system. Saved me a lot of testing and it turned out that it did run really well on all platforms, there hasn't been a single report of not being able to start the app
It's Javascript baby! Language learning curve was minimal. The main thing to work out is what the additional xpcom interfaces are and how to query them.
On the down side:
I thought troubleshooting errors was a sometimes difficult task, the venkman debugger is kinda clunky, ended up using the console more than anything.
The sqlite interface is a great asset for a desktop app but I often struggled to find relevant error infos when something didn't work - maybe i was doing it wrong.
It took a little while to work out how to package the app as a standalone app for both PC and Mac. The final approach was to have a "shell" mac app and a shell pc app and a couple of "compile" script that would copy the shells and add the custom source code onto it in the correct location.
One last potential issue for some, due to the nature of xulrunner apps, your source code will be deployed with the app, you can use obfuscation if you want but that's something to keep in mind if you want to protect your intellectual property
All in all, great platform for a cross-platform app. I'd highly recommend it.
Tcl/Tk has one of the best packaging solutions out there. You can easily wrap a cross-platform application (implemented in a fully working virtual filesystem) with a platform-specific binary to get a single file executable for just about any modern desktop system. Search google for the terms starkit, starpack and tclkit. Such wrapped binaries are tiny in comparison to many executables these days.
Many deride Tk as being "old" or "immature" but it's one of the oldest, most stable toolkits out there. It uses native widgets when such widgets exist.
One significant drawback of Tcl/Tk, however, is that it lacks any sort of printing support. If your application needs to print you'll have to be a bit creative. There are platform-specific solutions, and the ability to generate postscript documents, and libraries to create pdfs, but it takes a little extra effort.
Java is probably your best bet, although not all Windows PCs will necessarily have Java (most should). JavaFX is new enough you can't count on it - you'll probably find a lot of machines running Java 1.5 or (shudder) 1.4. I believe recent Mac OS still ships with 1.5 (latest version may have changed to 1.6).
Consider JavaFX
It would run everywhere with a modern JRE ..!
AIR could be an option, but only if you don't mind distributing two different files (the offline runtime installer and your app), and expecting the user to run one and then the other. You do have to submit an online form at Adobe's site saying you agree to distribute the offline installer as-is, rather than digging out individual DLLs or whatever, before they give you the installer.
Unfortunately there's currently no way to get both an AIR app and the runtime to install from one file though. I'm not sure what the deal with Shu is, or whether it's doing anything that isn't kosher.
i would recommended zink. it has all the functionalities you require for desktop. however, the las time i used it it was a bit glitchy.
i was hung up by trying to write a 6M file to the disk. thought it trough and changed the code to write 512K chunks at a time (3min work, fast).
probably it still has some little annoying glitches like making you think on root lvl but the ease of use and the features are just way too sweet to ignore.
I'm writing a small free tool. It's currently in Beta testing using .NET 3.5 but there's at least one aspect from .NET 4 I'd like to incorporate.
So, is it jumping the gun a bit to release .NET 4 based software?
Thx!
Wait till atleast the public release of .NET 4.0 before releasing anything other than early beta software with it.
I'm excited about alot of the new stuff too, but beta software built on a framework that is itself in beta is a recipe for disaster if you ask me.
Writing code for 4.0 might make sense. Releasing for general consumption prior to its official release seems foolish to me. Minor changes in 4.0 between now and the official release could cause your code to break. It would likely be easy to fix, but until you do your users are mad at you for putting out (what appears to them to be) a buggy program.
I read somewhere that VS2010 comes with a go-live license, meaning you can. Not sure I would, though. (See other answers...)
Well, you'd be forcing people to download and install Beta software. People may be reluctant or even unable to do this so, if nothing else, you're limiting your audience.
Also anything built with the Beta software isn't guaranteed to be compatible with the final released version.
I wouldn't go for the full framework, but including libraries like the CTP for the Task Parallel Library if your application is heavily multithreaded would be OK since you can just ship the .dll with you application and your users won't have to download anything. However, even with the TPL I would watch out, it's quirky and can slow your algorithms by an order of magnitude on things that should seemingly run just fine. The CTP is already over a year old though.
I use Intellij Idea 7 for Java dev. My dev is 'limited' to all J2SE features plus light JSP, Servlets, and super light usage of JPA. No J2EE, no massive use of random frameworks, etc.
Is it worth upgrading to ver 8? "Worth it" to me means better "core functionality" in terms of speed (ESPECIALLY startup speed), memory utilization (seems like it starts having serious problems with four or more projects open), and auto bug-finding.
More frameworks supported and more languages supported (other than perhaps Haskell and C++), and more refactorings don't interest me at this time.
A while back, I installed a preview version of 8 and it seemed -exactly- the same as 7, as far as my needs were concerned.
Anyone loving the upgrade to 8, and if so, why?
Thanks
It also seems to be easier to configure a new project over top of a complex collection of existing code.
For example, something that you would naturally configure into 5 or more modules.
There is a really beautiful go to/create test wizard that is bound to ctrl-shift-T. Worth the upgrade by itself
The best way to tell is to check out the list of new features and decide for yourself. I haven't discovered any single feature so far that by itself is worth upgrading - the simplified UML view is quite nice, as is the improved Maven integration. The UI feels a bit more streamlined and faster. It seems like most of the attention has gone into non-Java features like better Flex support (which I am really thankful for as I don't like FlexBuilder but I haven't had a chance to use yet).
IntelliJ 8 has a configure plugins feature that allows you to disable plugins with dependencies. Nothing trial and error couldn't replicate, but it is nice.
Startup is only marginally slower. But indexing once opened is a lot faster than before, even unnoticeable for most projects, except after a commit to Subversion. It seems a commit to subversion triggers the indexing twice.
I am working on the Diana-EAP build - but 8 has git integration built in. The EAP has better git integration than the 8.0.1 release - it looks like that is something they are really focusing on.
Definitely not! Seems that the variables defined in our custom taglibs are no longer able to be used in the jsp (worked in 7.0.4). All red. No auto complete.
Oh, and the new settings menu is horrendous!
Some benefits of IntelliJ IDEA 8:
IDEA 8 supports Subversion 1.5 new functionality - e.g. merge tracking, which may be useful especially if your team (like ours) uses a lot of development branches and thus merging is frequent.
One detail I appreciated about IDEA 8: As you probably know, IDEA has had changelists for pretty long now, built on top of any underlying version control system - this is a really useful feature. So, now that Subversion itself supports changeslists, IDEA's changelist implementation has been changed so that it is perfectly compatible with Subversion's native changeslists. (For example, you'll be able to work with any changelists created in IDEA also when using svn command line tools directly.)
Edit: in your case, perhaps it is not worthwhile to upgrade. For me, at least, startup and file indexing seems to be somewhat slower in 8 than 7. [But for me personally the upgrade was definitely worth it, because it solved a long-standing VCS problem with IDEA 7 - it could hang "waiting for VCS sync to finish" for an hour or whatever after hitting Ctrl-K.]
I'm looking at rewriting an eMbedded Visual Basic app I wrote years ago. I'm unsatisified with it because of various problems clients keep having with it now and then over the years, mostly along the lines of the app not loading anymore because a required dll/activex control has gone missing! This is so frustrating and naturally difficult to debug when a client is using it far away. In alot of cases reinstalling the app doesn't fix the problem.
My preference would be to rewrite it in C# since I'm comfortable with C# and DotNet, but I'm also open to other platforms like blackberry or iTouch/iPhone so long as the platform can support maps and GPS. I'd start rewriting it in C# now but I can't be sure that I won't have the same problems in .net.
Has anyone else had similar problems with eVB apps which have gone away/persisted when moving to CF DotNet? Or would you suggest a different platform again?
Edit: Note that I wish to move away from eVB anyway, but if I move to CF DotNet I want to make sure I won't have the same missing dll/control problems.
I recommend .NET CF strongly, especially if you already know C# and .NET. Mono has been ported to the iPhone, so it is possible to write apps that will run on Windows Mobile and the iPhone. No Mono for Blackberry (yet, if ever), so that's a definite limitation. I personally can't stand Blackberries (I have both a Blackberry and a WM smartphone and the Blackberry makes me want to hang myself), but they do have a huge user base.
You should have migrated away from eVB years ago, but that's water under the bridge. If you want to continue targeting Windows CE/ Windows Mobile I'd recommend going to the CF - language is irrelevant, use what you're comfortable with.
There's no way to guarantee that whatever your "missing DLL" problem is won't happen again, since we have no idea what DLL went missing. If it was a 3rd party control, then you're at the mercy of the market. If the provider survives, it's likely their control will.
If you want to target iPhone/Blackberry then Java is more likely to be your language of choice - the tools I'm not as familiar with. Eclipse for Blackberry - iPhone may have their own tool.
As for Silverlight, you might look at it, but so far it's just way too slow to be a viable platform, at least on any WinMo device I've ever seen. We've delevered many, many CF apps for all sorts of verticals and have never had any usability problems (though we've been doing it a long time and know every limitation and what we should and should not be trying).
I suggest you take it one step further and look at Silverlight. One of the premises is that it's a more long-term-stable, portable, lightweight download and install, and it hasn't gotten krufty yet.
I think it has the potential to be the next VB for embedded. One of the difficulties with CF is that I've found it to be an insufficient subset of the real thing.
Another option is NS Basic/CE. It's highly compatible with eVB, so you will be able to keep most if not all of your code. The product has been continually updated so it runs on current devices.
The installer that NS Basic/CE creates includes all the dll files your program requires, so they will be included on installation.