File based development instead of repository/entity based development

[ArneOrtlinghaus]

In the message thread "Lost another big piece of code" there were discussions about the type of development.

I must admit: After working 24 years with VO I am (mentally) still fixed on the type the VO IDE displayed all the entitities. I changed my working completely to fit to this working. It was nice for example clicking on a single method and opening only this method. And it will still take months to change my way of viewing/searching/thinking code.

Now we see that the repository based developments like VO have vanished from the marked. There were more disadvantages than advantages. As computer CPU power and main memory has grown so much in the last 40 years, the original advantages of a database (repository) oriented code structuring have been replaced by other possibilities.

What is important for us "old" VO programmers: To see the advantages of current file based programming and try to adapt them one by one:
- Small files, mainly one class per file
- New hierarchical orders possible by introducing folders and so better support of many small files
- Other possibilities to access code in a structured way (combobox with all methods, possibility to open/close parts of code in the editor)
- New search mechanisms (better regular expressions for example)
- Possibility to edit files outside of the IDE
- In case of corruptions normally only single files and not the complete repository is involved
- Easier class maintenance by only one class declaration at the beginnen and an END CLASS statement instead of repeating always the class name for every method.

Arne

[wriedmann]

Hi Arne,
I agree with you that it may be hard for us VO programmers to change the editing approach.
I still see the repository/data base editing system better suited for programming, but as we have no other choice we have to adapt.
I also agree with the things we have to change several things, but sometimes putting one class per file does not helps much as there are large classes with many lines of code.
But as with most changes: not every thing is bad, and for loosing something we receive also something new (like the introduction of folders in the project organisation).
Wolfgang

[ArneOrtlinghaus]

Hi Wolfgang,
yeah, we'll have to keep up with the innovation...

The best test of a development environment is to introduce a new colleague into the own team.

In the last years we had many problems convincing new colleagues that they should have to work with the VO IDE. They were used to other possibilities. And always we told them: In the future we will move to X#/Visual Studio and everything will become better.

Now with Visual Studio and the full dotnet framework possibilities this has changed already a lot. We don't have to justify ourselves about an old fashioned IDE. May be there are still many things to enhance, but these are the next steps to take.

Arne

[ic2]

Hello Arne,

I literally see none of your list of "advantages" as an advantage above VO with the exception of the corruption repo vs 1 file. However in reality we've lost more code with the Winforms issue Kees experienced in 1 day than we lost in VO in this whole century (in which we did not lose any code).

So of course Wolfgang is right, as often, that if you want to benefit from other .Net (and sometimes even Visual Studio) advantages, you have no choice than to give up the benefits of VO. And I can also imagine that some (dis)advantages weigh heavier for some than for others. But in general messages like yours that VO is so old fashioned and VS is so fantastic always remind me of Hans Christian Andersen's tale "Kejserens nye klæder" (The Emperor's New Clothes)

Dick