programming in linux

Sergei Steshenko · 03-24-2009, 10:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by theNbomr

All of the question about where/whether Kate (or almost any other editor, IDE, or other GUI tool) exists, points to the fact that vi is about the only text editor that is virtually guaranteed to be present on any Linux/Unix host. Learning the basics of vi will serve you well if you are going to be involved in Linux as a programmer or Sys-Admin for any length of time.
My take on IDE's is that they are great as long as they are actually helping to reduce complexity. When you are at a low spot on the learning curve, they are a component that actually adds complexity, and are therefore counterproductive. When I've had to sit down at an unfamiliar IDE, I have always found myself wondering whether the problem I was trying to solve at any particular instant was actually part of the overall, real problem, or simply a lack of understanding of the tool. If possible in these circumstances, I felt a lot more comfortable when I could jump back to good old commandline tools and Makefiles, which are a lot closer to the mainstream of my knowledge base, and are revealing, rather than concealing.

--- rod.

Working with UNIX-like systems since 1991 I still happily don't know 'vi'.

My favorite editor is 'nedit'; 'nano' and 'joe' are good console editors.

mbvo · 03-24-2009, 01:51 PM

the gcc and glibc manuals are great, but is there some sort of reference that for example i could search a function and get the description, list of paramaters and return variable type?

theNbomr · 03-24-2009, 01:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mbvo

the gcc and glibc manuals are great, but is there some sort of reference that for example i could search a function and get the description, list of paramaters and return variable type?

man pages and info pages provide all of this.
To look up the details on, say, printf() :

Code:

man printf
# or...
info printf

---- rod.

ta0kira · 03-24-2009, 06:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by theNbomr

man pages and info pages provide all of this.
To look up the details on, say, printf() :

Code:

man printf
# or...
info printf

---- rod.

Sometimes you'll need to specify e.g. man 3 printf (C functions) or man 2 read (system calls) because some functions have corresponding programs or shell built-ins (like the two I mentioned.) If it looks like you're at a command-line manpage, try either 2 or 3. Some of the more obscure glibc functions don't have manpages, however.

Quote:

Originally Posted by theNbomr

All of the question about where/whether Kate (or almost any other editor, IDE, or other GUI tool) exists, points to the fact that vi is about the only text editor that is virtually guaranteed to be present on any Linux/Unix host. Learning the basics of vi will serve you well if you are going to be involved in Linux as a programmer or Sys-Admin for any length of time.

This is a good point, altough one's primary development environment generally won't be a terminal on "some random Unix box." You can also generally count on at least one of pico, nano, jpico, or ee being on a given "modern" system. Another important thing to note is that console editors are good for editing and programming in a text-only environment; however, they're unsuitable as software development tools. In this context I define "programming" as the act of writing code and "software development" as the design and execution of multiple acts of programming in some sort of non-trivial way. Sure, you could write cat with vi, but I wouldn't expect to write a large application with it.
Kevin Barry

PS I've been meaning to get good at vi, but it "just isn't convenient."

Sergei Steshenko · 03-25-2009, 02:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mbvo

the gcc and glibc manuals are great, but is there some sort of reference that for example i could search a function and get the description, list of paramaters and return variable type?

Your question has already been answered; anyway try

man man

for starters; bookmark www.die.net .