[fpc-pascal] Re: Permuted index (KWIC) of function descriptions

[Marco van de Voort]

In our previous episode, Ben Smith said:
> > time at least ;-) ) or support of this or that format in our textmode IDE.
> 
> Is there actually somebody that still uses a text mode IDE for day to
> day development? I couldn't justify spending any time on enhancing a
> text mode IDE, especially since there are thousands of better GUI text
> editors or GUI IDE's out there.

Not for day to day main app (I spend 40-50 hrs a week in Delphi), but I use
it a lot for quick and dirty work.  Scripting so to say, and little
modifications.  Also at work.  It keeps its state on a per directory basis
(multiple projects with their own context selectable by the dir where you
start), and compile is just pressing F9 after startup.

The configuration files are simple, short ini/cfg's that can be generated
(e.g.  to initiate a new project, or pass another directory to all
projects), and their contents are fixed pretty much since last century (my
2003 projects STILL start, though on Windows driveletter changes make that
less useful as on *nix)

And better is subjective, specially if not qualified with a workflow or
purpose, and nobody said that a choice has to be exclusive.

An ordinary texteditor is barely a substitute for an IDE btw. Poor session
support, no help, often inferior syntax highlighting.  The only one I
sometimes use is Joe (partially because joe-textmodeide-lazarus-delphi all
support wordstar extensions to some degree which makes switching bareable).
Cygwin on windows.
 
> > be indeed nice. ;-) Proper support for IBM .INF documents (including the
> > OS/2 API documentation) in his viewer would be very nice too. ;-)))
> 
> I remember using OS/2 years ago, and from memory the OS/2 API
> documentation (*.inf files) used many windows open at the same time in
> the VIEW program. I cannot see how that can ever be converted to
> something that will work in the textmode IDE. 

The textmode IDE is windowed, and now hardware modes don't matter anymore,
there is a lot more space than the classic 80x25 or 80x50.  I usually work
at 160x90 or so.

Multiply that by the font size, and there really isn't that much

> Plus you will also loose any bitmap images/screenshots in any such help
> files (INF, CHM, HLP, HTML etc).

Yes. But currently the help simply works best in the textmode IDE. It is
almost instantly there, and takes you to the right topic.  And both IDE and
help are extremely quick to start, so ideal for the little bits. The only
bit it needs is a disambiguation possibility (if multiple topic match, let
them choose). It's on my agenda :)

Moreover, I have been converting my "always on" machines to ARMs, which I can
access over ssh, and work directly in the IDE.

Sure there is remote X over ssh, and while that is even doable with nowadays
internet traffic (my rule of thumb is about 40kbyte/s bidirectionally to
work comfortably), for the quick checking or adaptation a ssh prompt and the
textmode IDE is way quicker.