[cfe-dev] LLVM, Clang Development IDEs

Wed Sep 9 13:36:45 PDT 2015

For vim and C++ development you can find pretty mature tools/plugins like
Ycm (https://github.com/Valloric/YouCompleteMe) and Rtags (
https://github.com/Andersbakken/rtags). Both of them are using libclang for
completion and goto definition features. Ycm works on the actual buffer,
while Rtags processes the whole project. A project is identified by the
compilation_database.json file. In case of Ycm it is sometimes tricky to
derive the compilation flags for headers, so I am using some heuristics for
that (https://github.com/martong/ycm_extra_conf.jsondb). I am using both
Ycm and Rtags to browse and edit the clang codebase and I am quite happy
with them.
For debugging I am using vim's --servername and --remote-send switches plus
iterm2 to match file:line patterns and to navigate to that position in my
running vim instance.

Note, Rtags can be used with emacs as well.

Cheers,
Gábor

On Wed, Sep 9, 2015 at 7:41 PM Richard via cfe-dev <cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org>
wrote:

>
> [Please reply *only* to the list and do not include my email directly
> in your reply.  Thanks.]
>
> I posted on this previously and have had great success using CLion:
> <http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/cfe-dev/2015-February/041418.html>
>
> CLion has since been released and is no longer in early access program
> builds.  I recommend it highly for CMake projects.  It works great for
> CLang IMO.
>
> TL;DR History of the reviewer:
>
> - 1978: My first real editor was TECO, the ancestor of emacs.  IDEs were
>   non-existent.  I liked having an editor that was programmable.  I
>   still have a soft spot for TECO even though TECO programs read like
>   a binary file.
>
> - 1982: My second editor was vi.  I liked the modes (insert/navigate)
>   because it's similar to TECO and did visual presentation of my file
>   better than the macro package add-ons for TECO.  (Mostly this is saying
>   "I like curses.")  I still use vi for many small day-to-day editing
>   tasks, mostly email messages like this one.
>
> - 1988: My third editor and first IDE was emacs.  Handling multiple open
>   files was great but the lack of insert/navigation modes hurts my pinky
>   finger.  (Old joke: EMACS stand for Escape Meta Alt Control Shift.)
>   First approximation to something called an "IDE" because it let me
>   run the debugger and move a little => cursor over my source code as
>   I single stepped.  Emacs/gdb/M-x compile seems to have pretty much
>   remained identical since this time and not significantly improved in
>   any way for C/C++ development.  Despite all the programmability of
>   the editor, open source compilers remained deliberately crippled for
>   extension making it nearly impossible to provide high quality automatic
>   source-to-source transformations beyond simple find/replace operations
>   or move beyond the batch-oriented Makefile paradigm of compiling.
>
> - 1994: I played with the graphical GUI oriented software developer
>   tools from SGI (CASEVision?).  The emphasis seem to be on the pretty end
>   of things and I remember it being slower than emacs/dbx/M-x compile,
>   so I stuck with that.
>
> - 1997: I played with Borland's C++ Builder IDE.  I liked the VCL
>   concept but I wasn't a fan of introducing non-ISO syntax into C++ in
>   order to support it (for VCL's properties).  I found the multitude
>   of top-level windows with no ability to dock them into a single
>   top-level window arrangement too annoying, so I never pursued any
>   serious development using the IDE.
>
> - 1998: My fourth editor (2nd IDE) was Visual C++ 6.  This was the first
>   time I started programming for Windows and I initially had a Windows
>   version of emacs sitting side-by-side with VC6 for some editing tasks.
>   Over time I learned the keyboard navigation of VC6, learned the project
>   system, etc., and stopped using emacs for any code editing.  This was
>   my first real IDE that I used on a daily basis.  I have continued to
>   use this as my primary IDE on Windows as it evolved into Visual Studio
>   from Visual C++.  I have rarely used emacs since this time.
>
> - 2007: ReSharper (JetBrains) and Visual Assist X (Whole Tomato) add-ons
>   for Visual Studio.  While not IDEs themselves, these are such
>   a productivity boost for C# (ReSharper) and C++ (Visual Assist)
>   development that the difference before and after is astounding.
>   Visual Assist X introduced automated refactoring for native C++
>   development.  Their parser is ad-hoc but continues to be improved
>   and the results are pretty good.
>   <
> https://github.com/LegalizeAdulthood/refactor-test-suite/blob/master/results/VisualAssistXResults.md
> >
>   Other refactoring tool add-ons for native C++ development had promise
>   but were too buggy or negatively impacted the speed of editing.
>   Although they showed great promise, they were eventually discontinued.
>
> - 2011: My fifth editor (3rd IDE) was IntelliJ from JetBrains for Java.
>   I continued to use Visual Studio for C++ development.  I tried using
>   Eclipse for Java for about a month but it was really too painful and
>   eclipse-using coworkers could neither explain to me how to get things
>   to work properly or why things did what they did.  A quick download of
>   IntelliJ on their free trial and I never looked back.  The refactoring
>   support combined with structural analysis created an IDE that was
>   truly like having a partner that helped me with the drudgery of coding
>   while I concentrated on the creative part of coding.  IntelliJ level
>   of refactoring is the "Gold Standard" as far as I'm concerned.
>
> - 2015: My sixth editor (4th IDE) was CLion (JetBrains) for C++
>   development on Linux.  JetBrains also introduced the ReSharper for C++
>   add-on for C++ development on Windows with Visual Studio.  I tried the
>   early access program builds for CLion for several months, primarily
>   working on my contributions to clang-tidy.  It's really a tailored
>   version of the IntelliJ IDE for native C++ development using CMake
>   as a build system, so it wasn't like learning a new editor.  CLion
>   provides good automated refactoring support.
>   <
> https://github.com/LegalizeAdulthood/refactor-test-suite/blob/master/results/CLionResults.md
> >
> --
> "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" free book <
> http://tinyurl.com/d3d-pipeline>
>      The Computer Graphics Museum <http://ComputerGraphicsMuseum.org>
>          The Terminals Wiki <http://terminals.classiccmp.org>
>   Legalize Adulthood! (my blog) <http://LegalizeAdulthood.wordpress.com>
> _______________________________________________
> cfe-dev mailing list
> cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org
> http://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/cfe-dev
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/cfe-dev/attachments/20150909/effd51e1/attachment.html>