What other good IDE alternatives exist?

Solar2D General Questions/Discussion
#1

Hi,

Been slowly trying all of the available IDEs for Corona SDK and I must say I’m a little disappointed that none of them are perfect in all ways… I’ve tried ZeroBrane, Glide, Sublime Text2, Eclipse/Koneki, Outlaw, IntelliJ with addons, CodeHelper and probably another one in there too.

None of them is 100% suitable with missing autocompletion of the Corona SDK, and parameters, simple and easy interface etc.

Most of the Corona material is outdated and points you to the old name of an old tool, which all makes me wonder what is everyone using and why does the Corona seem to not care about this glaring important aspect of learning Corona SDK - a good IDE can make a huge difference to the speed and quality of applications.

Thoughts?

#2

Wow… so none then?

#3

Hi gslender, you probably should give the community a little more than half a day to reply.  Building an IDE isn’t easy and it takes time to get it right.  If you look at the resources Apple has for XCode, Microsoft has for Visual Studio and the Eclipse team and the years they’ve put into it, you can see it’s a daunting task.  Most of the folks building 3rd party ID’s for Corona are small shops and the progress they have made is incredible in such a short period of time.  Why don’t we have our own?  We are a small shop too and we are choosing to spend our resources on building the SDK.  Without a competitive, rich and well rounded SDK to use, there isn’t much of a point of having an IDE. 

#4

Fair points - I guess I’m wondering why you’d start an SDK in Lua if the quality/maturity of IDEs to use with it is so poor, you’d actually have to build one? I’m new to this stuff, but I’m sitting back puzzled as to why such a good SDK exists, but yet the tools to do anything with it seem so immature and yet good IDE and tools exist for other mature languages?

What does Lua do that is so much better than say Java or C++ etc, that a cross platform SDK couldn’t be made with it ?? 

I know this is going off topic, but I’m puzzled that the choices are so scattered and immature and was hoping someone might chime in with " I use XYZ and you should check it out" and I can then contrast my expectations and use with what others are happy with… 

Fair?

PS - I thought I posted this yesterday, so figured the over night delay in being in down-under might have enlisted a response…

#5

I can’t speak to all the reasons, but C based languages are very syntax heavy languages which makes it harder for people to learn.  It’s also designed to be a scripting language for existing compiled binaries which makes it practical to build an engine that can run in two drastically different environments from one common set of code. 

#6

Wow… so none then?

#7

Hi gslender, you probably should give the community a little more than half a day to reply.  Building an IDE isn’t easy and it takes time to get it right.  If you look at the resources Apple has for XCode, Microsoft has for Visual Studio and the Eclipse team and the years they’ve put into it, you can see it’s a daunting task.  Most of the folks building 3rd party ID’s for Corona are small shops and the progress they have made is incredible in such a short period of time.  Why don’t we have our own?  We are a small shop too and we are choosing to spend our resources on building the SDK.  Without a competitive, rich and well rounded SDK to use, there isn’t much of a point of having an IDE. 

#8

Fair points - I guess I’m wondering why you’d start an SDK in Lua if the quality/maturity of IDEs to use with it is so poor, you’d actually have to build one? I’m new to this stuff, but I’m sitting back puzzled as to why such a good SDK exists, but yet the tools to do anything with it seem so immature and yet good IDE and tools exist for other mature languages?

What does Lua do that is so much better than say Java or C++ etc, that a cross platform SDK couldn’t be made with it ?? 

I know this is going off topic, but I’m puzzled that the choices are so scattered and immature and was hoping someone might chime in with " I use XYZ and you should check it out" and I can then contrast my expectations and use with what others are happy with… 

Fair?

PS - I thought I posted this yesterday, so figured the over night delay in being in down-under might have enlisted a response…

#9

I can’t speak to all the reasons, but C based languages are very syntax heavy languages which makes it harder for people to learn.  It’s also designed to be a scripting language for existing compiled binaries which makes it practical to build an engine that can run in two drastically different environments from one common set of code. 

#10

I’ve been using TextMate with the Corona bundle. So far it’s been the best tool for me. 

#11

I’ve been using TextMate with the Corona bundle. So far it’s been the best tool for me.