python vs java & eclipse

[Paul Boddie]

Stephen Eilert wrote:
>
> The support for Java is light-years ahead. Sometimes I feel that
> Eclipse is coding for me (quickfix, for instance).

Eclipse may be quite a technical achievement, but I found it
irritating. Aside from the misuse of screen real-estate, I found that
typing two characters and having what seemed like half my source file
underlined in red, with multiple messages telling me that I had yet to
define or import something or other when what I was about to do was to
write the declaration, all conspired to make me want to scream, "WTF do
you think I was going to type in about five seconds time? Work it out
and autocomplete it if you're so damned clever!"

So, Eclipse certainly has its share of detractors, too. ;-)

[...]

> That said, the code completion for Python is still in its early stages.
> There is a lot of room for improvement, even for a dynamic language.

Agreed. I don't believe in endless refactoring, and I think that's
frequently a symptom of using an overly inflexible statically typed
language (where it's more like "Refactoring" - the big R symbolising
the seriousness and heavy lifting involved), but there are often times
when I've wondered whether something could alert me to obvious
breakage, especially after fairly big changes, acting possibly within
the editing environment. I suppose pylint and similar tools have been
working towards that goal, but I often wonder about producing something
more subtle: something which is more clever than looking at modules and
globals, and yet doesn't nag you continously about things which you'll
discover almost immediately anyway.

Paul