XIDE vs. Visual Studio...

[Anonymous]

Okay, so you might see that I am back again, and I am one for the FoxPro guys, anxious to see where XSharp goes with VFP integration.

In the mean time, I am not sitting on the sidelines... Thanks to communication with very active user Johan, I have been tinkering with just plain old native X#, initially creating a simple WinForms form in XIDE and making it show my name in a pop up .Net window message box. Okay, with was neat to see.

Then I did the same exact thing from Visual Studio 2019 Preview because I already know Visual Studio pretty well, and I figure it is a better test for X# and it's full compatibility in the .Net world. In my opinion, testing from Visual Studio is a higher bar because it tests the language and its .Net integration in a better way that letting them "cheat" by having the XIDE do stuff for it that is not natively present in Visual Studio. I don't mean "cheat" in a negative or sarcastic way, but I do think if a ".Net language" cannot be fully and easily used in Visual Studio, then they have missed the mark.

In fact, the case that they wanted (or needed) to make a unique IDE is a bit redundant. Why? In my opinion, Visual Studio alone as the IDE would validate this language even more, rather than it having its own IDE. The minute it needs it own IDE, people are going to think there are some things it needs that are not present in the beloved Visual Studio, and therefor it might be discounted when being considered as a full and true .Net language.

So, please see that I am not here to be a mean critic, as I can barely even comprehend how smart all you people are to implement this stuff in the first place. I just wanted to offer some user feedback.

[Karl-Heinz]

Hi Matt,

XIDE has a long history and it doesn´t exist because of X#. It´s layout and the kind projects are managed are very similar to the "Visual Objects" IDE. Imagine, you would to able to work with .net in your beloved VFP environment.

regards
Karl-Heinz

[FoxProMatt]

It's interesting that when i google "XIDE" I do not find anything about it, and the only way I find anything about it is that it is referenced a lot in messages here, but there are no direct download links to it, and the only way I got it was to install X# package that I downloaded there, and along the way in the install process there was a check box that would install it.

Even in YouTube I could not find anything about it.

[Chris]

Hi Jeff,

You will find more mentions of XIDE as "VIDE" (or "VulcanIDE"). This IDE was written more than 10 years ago, and was meant to be used with probably the first ever xBase language for .Net, namely "CULE.Net" (Karl-Heinz may have some stories to share, Karl also ) and was named "CulEdit" back then. The simple reason why I created this IDE is simply because I personally cannot stand using VS at all and needed an IDE to test and write my programs in that language. Later, when I needed to do some c# programming as well, I added also c# support to the IDE...

Anyway, a few years later I got involved with Vulcan.NET, so naturally this language became the main supported one in the IDE, which was renamed to VulcanIDE, VIDE for short and stayed like that for several years. When vulcan was abandoned and we formed X#, it was then that it became XIDE, but it's basically the same base code as it was more than 10 years ago, with a lot of improvements of course during the years. In each language it has also served as proof for concept, as it was first compiled in CULE.Net, then in Vulcan.NET and now in X#.

Btw, during the vulcan days, management was trying to depreciate it and trying to make people not use it, so you will not find it mentioned in its documentation, but only in people's posts or websites who were using it and were being productive with it. Since it is just a completely free IDE, I also didn't bother much and I did not care about advertising it, making youtube videos etc. Now in X# we do not have that ****, people just have two options for an IDE, they can try out both and simply use which serves them best (or both).

Also there's no "cheat" in XIDE, X# is not designed to be used in a better or worse way with it. The compiler is just an executable and both IDEs simply call it and report its output to the user, no IDE has an "inside advantage" over the other.

[wriedmann]

Hi Matt,

maybe a note from a heavy XIDE user: I like XIDE and I use it for nearly all my X# programming, varying between 10 and 30 hours every week (the other time I use Visual Objects, and it depends on my projects what I use).
I like XIDE more than Visual Studio because I feel more productive with it. I'm a source code guy, and don't like painters, therefore an IDE for me must be source code oriented.
If you know Visual Studio, it will the better option for you, but I have about 20 year experience with Visual Objects and it's IDE, so I prefer XIDE.
And XIDE has some very interesting features like project and application import/export, autobackup, and a very easy to use plugin interface that I have used to add what I'm missing.
And then add a fantastic support by the author itself, and you may understand why XIDE has several users that won't miss it.

Wolfgang

[Juraj]

Hi Matt,

my view is that XIDE is better for those who are porting applications from VO. They can modify windows created in VO, which is a great advantage in this case. New codes I write in XSharp Core dialect as WPF and therefore I'm more comfortable with VS because XIDE does not contain WPF "xaml" editor. I admire Wolfgang, who writes WPF windows direct in XSharp.
It is for everyone who will use it.
Juraj

[lumberjack]

Matt/Wolfgang,

maybe a note from a heavy XIDE user: I like XIDE and I use it for nearly all my X# programming, varying between 10 and 30 hours every week
I like XIDE more than Visual Studio because I feel more productive with it. I'm a source code guy, and don't like painters, therefore an IDE for me must be source code oriented.
And XIDE has some very interesting features like project and application import/export, autobackup, and a very easy to use plugin interface that I have used to add what I'm missing.
And then add a fantastic support by the author itself, and you may understand why XIDE has several users that won't miss it.

I cannot actually add anything to what Wolfgang said. I am also a code man, and opening VS first then click XIDE. Well I already produce code when VS is still loading.
XIDE gives me direct access to the developer (will not mention his name), I picked up some "bugs" and voila within less than a day I had a fix in my mail. Thanks Chris! Nice little Helper, etc. I understand Clipper/VO and if you e.g. write lots of say Singleton classes, voila I type sing <Ctrl-H>, it ask me for the class name and voila auto completion Singleton class completed, no errors just add the methods specific to the class. Can post the details of how to do it if anybody interested.

[Chris]

Hi Juraj,

Hi Matt,
my view is that XIDE is better for those who are porting applications from VO. They can modify windows created in VO, which is a great advantage in this case.

VS does that, too

Chris

[FoxProMatt]

When a new version of XIDE is ready to be released, how is it distributed? I'm asking because there is no direct download link for XIDE, and not much visible info about it on this site, or any other, so as new-comers make there way here to investigate X#, the very IDE that seems strongly recommended is not very easily discoverable.

At lease a screen shot of it, and a landing page for it seems appropriate.

https://www.xsharp.eu/XIDE

[wriedmann]

Hi Matt,
normally, XIDE is distributed with X#, and so you will receive a new release every 3 months (on public releases) or every month (on FoX releases).
But if you detect a bug or need a new feature, normally Chris sends you an exe and a few DLLs, so you can upgrade your installed copy.
Wolfgang