I think it would be quite helpful to use a control-right-click or something like that to present a menu of help options. I imagine for C++ having a tree structured menu with help for all the math/bit operators, so the beginners can discover what ~, % an ^ do without having to consult the web or a book.
I imagine for assembly language having a collection of information in categories about integer math, floating point math, bit ops, looping, etc. I don't see any purpose in producing a better IDE than VS, CodeBlocks,... They have done very well at that goal and coming in a distant fifth place doesn't help much. Breaking new ground as a teaching IDE is a worthy goal and lots of help is needed.
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It seems to me that it would be quite valuable to provide a lot of canned code snippets for various common tasks. You can find snippets in textbooks and on the internet, so why not embed them in ebe? If someone is trying to write a loop to add the numbers in an array, would it be acceptable to have ebe provide a loop which does that? Clearly if I were trying to write code, I would prefer to be given these pieces. But what about teachers? Are they going to find ebe to be giving too much help?
I can imagine having thousands of snippets varying from 1 liners, to loops, to functions producing code like standard deviation.
This could be organized as simply dumb snippets to chunks of code with special variables to be replaced automatically using a dialog to tailor the snippet to the user's code.
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I did a slight addition to about.html to verify that javascript works. It does and it is part of the GUI thread. I would kind of like to do some interactive help with HTML and Javascript without impacting the main program. With the js in an infinite loop, the interpreter asked me if I wanted to kill it which was pretty friendly. I suppose that js could possibly consume way too much RAM and this might leave ebe in an unrecoverable state. I will try to chew up RAM in js and see if there is a limit imposed as there was for CPU time. If so then development of interactive help might be a fairly safe effort while leaving most of ebe alone for coding and debugging. We'll see.
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I ran into a problem with OS X not being very happy with my c++ template code toolbar. If it is in its proper position the docked widgets don't work properly. You can drag them with their title bars, choose one from a stacked collection (tabbed), and you can't place the keyboard focus on the terminal input line edit. You can drag the toolbar outside the toolbar area, but it is horizontal. It does allow the dock widgets to work normally when you move the toolbar. It would be OK with me if I could figure out how to start that toolbar outside the program, but so far - no luck.
I also have been thinking about placing these icons in a separate window. That leads me to consider the possibility of having a collection of add-on packs which could be selected and opened up in a separate window. The add-on packs could be collections of icons to insert code or possibly some javascript backed html teaching aids. Ideally these would be things which could be added on as separate resource files without changing the qtebe C++ code (once implemented).
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
I have been thinking of writing a arithmetic/boolean expression parser to use to illustrate or discover the value computed from a variety of expressions. The user would be allowed to define a collection of variables of basic types and this would allow the user to input values for these variables in a form. Also the form would have an area for expressions. The uses could enter one or more expressions which would be evaluated by the parser and the values placed in the form. The user could select what format to view the results. This is sort of a C++ spreadsheet.
So a person could define a variable named "n" of type int and then enter the expression "n << 3". Then the user could view the data as binary or hex to observe the effect of the shift operator. I would think this would be attractive to teachers who might convince some students to use the tool.
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How should ebe evolve?
In terms of its functionality, or how it's developed?
"Do you want to save or discard the changes made?" would be a good question if a file is modified from the original or pre-saved one
Context-sensitive help
I think it would be quite helpful to use a control-right-click or something like that to present a menu of help options. I imagine for C++ having a tree structured menu with help for all the math/bit operators, so the beginners can discover what ~, % an ^ do without having to consult the web or a book.
I imagine for assembly language having a collection of information in categories about integer math, floating point math, bit ops, looping, etc. I don't see any purpose in producing a better IDE than VS, CodeBlocks,... They have done very well at that goal and coming in a distant fifth place doesn't help much. Breaking new ground as a teaching IDE is a worthy goal and lots of help is needed.
Code Snippets
It seems to me that it would be quite valuable to provide a lot of canned code snippets for various common tasks. You can find snippets in textbooks and on the internet, so why not embed them in ebe? If someone is trying to write a loop to add the numbers in an array, would it be acceptable to have ebe provide a loop which does that? Clearly if I were trying to write code, I would prefer to be given these pieces. But what about teachers? Are they going to find ebe to be giving too much help?
I can imagine having thousands of snippets varying from 1 liners, to loops, to functions producing code like standard deviation.
This could be organized as simply dumb snippets to chunks of code with special variables to be replaced automatically using a dialog to tailor the snippet to the user's code.
Yes, It would be awesome, I like all ideas, and would be good to create those snippets for list, stacks and queues, and things that are useful. :D
Javascript could be useful
I did a slight addition to about.html to verify that javascript works. It does and it is part of the GUI thread. I would kind of like to do some interactive help with HTML and Javascript without impacting the main program. With the js in an infinite loop, the interpreter asked me if I wanted to kill it which was pretty friendly. I suppose that js could possibly consume way too much RAM and this might leave ebe in an unrecoverable state. I will try to chew up RAM in js and see if there is a limit imposed as there was for CPU time. If so then development of interactive help might be a fairly safe effort while leaving most of ebe alone for coding and debugging. We'll see.
Add-on packages
I ran into a problem with OS X not being very happy with my c++ template code toolbar. If it is in its proper position the docked widgets don't work properly. You can drag them with their title bars, choose one from a stacked collection (tabbed), and you can't place the keyboard focus on the terminal input line edit. You can drag the toolbar outside the toolbar area, but it is horizontal. It does allow the dock widgets to work normally when you move the toolbar. It would be OK with me if I could figure out how to start that toolbar outside the program, but so far - no luck.
I also have been thinking about placing these icons in a separate window. That leads me to consider the possibility of having a collection of add-on packs which could be selected and opened up in a separate window. The add-on packs could be collections of icons to insert code or possibly some javascript backed html teaching aids. Ideally these would be things which could be added on as separate resource files without changing the qtebe C++ code (once implemented).
C/C++ Teaching Tool
I have been thinking of writing a arithmetic/boolean expression parser to use to illustrate or discover the value computed from a variety of expressions. The user would be allowed to define a collection of variables of basic types and this would allow the user to input values for these variables in a form. Also the form would have an area for expressions. The uses could enter one or more expressions which would be evaluated by the parser and the values placed in the form. The user could select what format to view the results. This is sort of a C++ spreadsheet.
So a person could define a variable named "n" of type int and then enter the expression "n << 3". Then the user could view the data as binary or hex to observe the effect of the shift operator. I would think this would be attractive to teachers who might convince some students to use the tool.