Haskell support for Eclipse

Imam,

On 8/13/06, Imam Tashdid ul Alam <uchchwhash@...> wrote:
> hi Thiago,
> I'm sure a 990 Java files program is hard to maintain,

I didn't know there were so many. Thanks for the info. :-)

> so I thought I would make your life a bit easier :)
> this mail is mostly about syntax highlighting (not
> very important, however, the ease of use counts).

Thank you for your comments, I know there is a lot of ground to cover
on this arena (and on a lot others) for EclipseFP. And I have to
disagree here: this is indeed very important, I myself have dismissed
more than one application for just not looking good. Being at least
not ugly is important to attract and keep some less hardcore users.

> * highlighting the known functions (in the same file,
> HaskellSyntax.java) seems quite unnecessary to me. the
> list is long and ugly and by no means complete.

I would agree with you that we actually need /less/ syntax coloring
than we have right now. Sure there is a lot work for us to do on
syntax coloring. If you have already tried writing any programs using
the literate style, you know what I mean. But I would like to
experiment with some /less/ coloring like, for example, not coloring
library/Prelude functions and data types and focusing on keywords only
(much like what you propose). Eclipse's JDT does that and it looks
pretty good.

> instead, could you make functions, operators, and
> (type and classes) (my proposition: functions are
> simple, operators are bold, types a different color).

Hmmm... I also like this one. JDT does something very similar to this
regarding instance and class variables, for example. Instance
variables are shown in blue normal color and class variables are shown
in italics. It helps a lot when reading code, maybe we should
experiment with something along these lines too.

It seems like you already know much about the EclipseFP code base.
Would you be willing to make some patches to try some of your ideas?
If you wish to go on this quest, I will try to help you with whatever
I can (and I am sure there are other people on this group that will
too) and would be very glad to accept your patches into the main code
base.

Cheers,

Thiago Arrais
--=20
Mergulhando no Caos - http://thiagoarrais.blogspot.com
Pensamentos, id=E9ias e devaneios sobre desenvolvimento de software e
tecnologia em geral

> I
> myself have dismissed
> more than one application for just not looking good.

hmm, me too. most people interested in Haskell,
however, are more interested in the experiments they
can do with a language. Eclipse is great (the greatest
thing about it is the opensource platform), but those
poeple think too much with pen and paper, I suppose,
so they are happy with emacs.

> But I
> would like to
> experiment with some /less/ coloring like, for
> example, not coloring
> library/Prelude functions and data types and
> focusing on keywords only
> (much like what you propose). Eclipse's JDT does
> that and it looks
> pretty good.

agreed completely.

> 
> > instead, could you make functions, operators, and
> > (type and classes) (my proposition: functions are
> > simple, operators are bold, types a different
> color).
> 
> Hmmm... I also like this one. JDT does something
> very similar to this
> regarding instance and class variables, for example.
> Instance
> variables are shown in blue normal color and class
> variables are shown
> in italics. It helps a lot when reading code, maybe
> we should
> experiment with something along these lines too.

I am mostly an amateur Java programmer so I know
precisely what you mean. I feel that people who use
Java are not specially fond of the language but
basically the tools for it.

> It seems like you already know much about the
> EclipseFP code base.
> Would you be willing to make some patches to try
> some of your ideas?
> If you wish to go on this quest, I will try to help
> you with whatever
> I can (and I am sure there are other people on this
> group that will
> too) and would be very glad to accept your patches
> into the main code
> base.

wow. no actually I don't know much, just exploring.
for one, I don't understand the plug-in API, I
downloaded the code for EclipseFP to learn it ;)

yes I would like to undertake the quest (of course),
so is it Okay if I keep posting annoying questions
about how to actually do it?

for example, CVS confuses me and I don't think I have
permission to submit changes (I shouldn't be allowed
right now, right?) so how exactly do I submit patches
and where does it get integrated?

just tell me which webpages to look at.

thanks in advance,
Imam


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On 8/14/06, Imam Tashdid ul Alam <uchchwhash@...> wrote:
> wow. no actually I don't know much, just exploring.
> for one, I don't understand the plug-in API,

That's where everybody starts. I myself didn't understand the Eclipse
plug-in API very much before getting into this project. I had done
some basic stuff before, but now I know that I was barely scratching
the surface by that time. I certainly don't know everything that I
would like to know about it by now, but I am learning.

I am sure you'll enjoy the learning too.

> I
> downloaded the code for EclipseFP to learn it ;)

That's exactly where I started too. :-)

> yes I would like to undertake the quest (of course),
> so is it Okay if I keep posting annoying questions
> about how to actually do it?

Sure. Please feel completely home.

> for example, CVS confuses me and I don't think I have
> permission to submit changes (I shouldn't be allowed
> right now, right?) so how exactly do I submit patches
> and where does it get integrated?

We actually aren't using CVS for version control (although it is more
or less the standard inside Eclipse.org at least). We use Darcs
instead. You may have stumbled across it during your Haskell
adventures. In case you didn't, it is a distributed version control
system. You can find more info about it on the homepage:

http://www.darcs.net

You'll find links for a mailing list and a wiki there. After you get
Darcs, you'll be able to download our source code from the central
repo. You'll just need to do

darcs get --partial http://eclipsefp.sourceforge.net/repos/trunk

and you'll be all set. Remember the --partial flag. It is very
important if you don't want to wait a lot for the download.

You can prepare a patch bundle by using `darcs send'. Have a look at
the manual for the details. Just send me the resulting file and I will
merge your changes into the main repo.

This message is already getting pretty long, but after you manage to
make a patch bundle, I will tell you about our tests and how I am
using them to keep the code up-to-date.

Keep the questions coming.

Best regards,

Thiago Arrais

well I downloaded eclipseFP using darcs actually :) I
just thought... erm... with eclipse's integrated CVS
(and sf's strong preference) you guys might have been
using it :)

no worries then. darcs send does the trick. crystal
clear. thanks.

regards,
Imam

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