Eclipse and the Python plugin

[lipska the kat]

On 03/08/12 14:54, rusi wrote:
> On Aug 3, 4:34 pm, lipska the kat<lipskathe... at yahoo.co.uk>  wrote:
>> A while ago someone asked me what I thought of the Eclipse plugin for
>> python, well I just downloaded and installed the latest version of
>> Eclipse for Java (Juno) followed by the Python plugin.
>
> Thanks Lipska for reporting back.
> I personally find the eclipse UI frightening but I am unwilling to
> conclude that its eclipse and not me.

snip.

I have no vested interest in Eclipse but I don't believe that you would 
feel the same once you got your head around the basics. I don't pretend 
to be an expert, far from it, but I have taught myself enough to go into 
a contract and hit the ground running, loading the source tree into 
Eclipse is a great way to start to understand the code and the libraries 
it uses. Well it works for me anyway.

> More to the point, it seems to me that eclipse was today what emacs
> was then -- seemingly too large but in time I expect it will not seem
> so large.

It can be bewildering I agree but the basics are not too intimidating.
I remember early versions of IBMs VisualAge for Java ... guaranteed to 
give you brain damage.

> So one more request from me:
>
> Can you try the refactoring support and tell us how it fares?

Well, I don't really have enough Python code to refactor anything at the 
moment however I did try something that may or may not prove to be 
informative.

If I create a Java class and right click in the code window and select 
refactor from the context menu there is a HUGE list of things I can do. 
Why I might want to do some of them I have no idea, but there they are. 
In contrast if I create a Python class and select refactor I get a 
significantly smaller list of things I can do. Inline local variable, 
Extract local variable, Extract method, Rename, Generate constructors, 
Generate properties and Override/Implement methods. I think this may be 
a result of Pythons different (from Java) grammar rules. I can write a 
Python class and call it Foo and save it in a file called Bar and it's 
no big deal (at least Eclipse doesn't get excited) If I try that in Java 
the sky falls in. Of course I'm about as far away from being a Python 
expert as it's possible to be.

Anyway, if and when I find out more I'll let you know. It will be a 
while though.

lipska

-- 
Lipska the Kat: Troll hunter, sandbox destroyer
and farscape dreamer of Aeryn Sun