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Getting started with FPC - Part 2 - by Aiwendil
Some comments about editors
As many of you might recall there was in the good old days an great IDE called turbo.exe (the IDE for TP/BP) and several projects has been started to copy it (heck, I have tried it a couple of times myself). But if there is one thing borland know it is how to write good IDE's so most attempts have failed.
Luckily enough any editor will do for coding in pascal so just pick your favorite editor and start coding.. :) just remember that all files with pascalcode should end with .pp .pas or .inc (portable pascal (this is from what fpc is developed), pascal (duh), inc (includes)), fpc will recognize .pp and .pas without the extensions, but try use .pas as much as possible since almost all pascal-compilers will recognize such files.
Most of you will have no use of reading further than this...
The choice of editor is an difficult task, all has it advantages and disadvantages. I will make a short list based on my own opinions about the advantages and disadvantages of the different editors I use mainly for coding..
| Name |
Advantages |
Disadvantages |
| notepad |
small
easy to use
widespread |
Single windowed
win only
can only handle small files |
| edit.com |
small
widespread
multiple windows
easy to use |
M$ only
messy syntax for advanced stuff
hard to configure |
| pico |
small
widespread
good help
easy to use |
Single windowed
May drive you crazy from time to time
Has an autoformater for text |
Turbo.exe
(5.5) |
small
wordstar syntax
good help
easy to use
can run compilers
multiple windows |
wordstar syntax
takes time to get used to
M$ only |
Turbo.exe
(7.0) |
small
flexible
fast
easy to use
can run compilers
good help-system
easy to use help
normal syntax
wordstar syntax
useful clipboard
multiple windows |
M$ only
can't load files that are above 1M |
As you might have suspected already I prefer Turbo.exe (7.0) when I'm on a M$-platform... :)
But as you can see, the more an editor gets it will either grow in size or become platform dependant. As for an example we have emacs, it is really bloated but some like it since it can do almost anything (I wouldn't be suprised if I see it run X some day), and we have pico, small, fast, flexible, hated.. I like pico myself.
Usually the best solution (as with everything) is too try as many editors as possible, keep thoose you like, remove the others, or write your own :)
Remember that the editor you use must be soft to your eyes, be stable, have easy to use keyboard controls and not have even the smallest glitch that will annoy you. You will most likely look at it a lot so make sure that disctrations as backgroundimages, clocks (and other moving objects) can be turned off if they exist. This is however true for all kinds of programs where you type a lot.
Hope it helped
//Aiwendil
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