IDEA for non Java language

Hello Mickael,

we are considering launching a new "IDE" project for Erlang.

I was wondering what was the last state of other language support in
IDEA ?

You can look at our Ruby and Groovy plugins (both quite advanced, both in
active development, and both open-source) to get an idea of what's currently
possible.

We are considering either IDEA or Netbeans has an implementation
basis, as the Netbeans API seems more powerful (Schliemann for
grammar, Jackpot for refactoring).

In my opinion, these features will make the very beginning of your project
easier, but later on you'll find that IDEA's approach is more powerful. Although
I'll admit that my knowledge of NetBeans' features is very limited.

The main missing area in IDEA's custom language support is currently debugging.
If you plan to implement a debugger for a custom language, you won't be able
to reuse any parts of IDEA's Java debugger - you'll need to implement the
entire UI and backend from scratch.

IDEA seems to insist in creating a Java project (from the project
wizard for example).

It's improved a bit in 7.0 (for example, it prompts you to create a new IDEA
project rather than a Java project), and will be improved even more in subsequent
releases.

--
Dmitry Jemerov
Software Developer
JetBrains, Inc.
http://www.jetbrains.com/
"Develop with Pleasure!"

We are considering either IDEA or Netbeans has an implementation
basis, as the Netbeans API seems more powerful (Schliemann for
grammar, Jackpot for refactoring).

As far as I know Jackpot is a Java-specific thing.
Can you provide an example of refactoring another language (JavaScript?)
using Jackpot?

-tt

Thank you for your reply. I will look at the Ruby module.

I will also look at the development version (7.0) to check the diffence with IDEA 6.

Any plan to make debugger integration possible in the future ?

Regarding Jackpot, I had read here that in was language independant:
http://www.ryandelaplante.com/rdelaplante/entry/a_comparison_of_netbeans_6

but it says later on that it relies on javac.

From further research, it appear that you are right. Jackpot is Java only, so useless for my purpose.

--
Mickaël Rémond

Mickael Remond wrote:

Thank you for your reply. I will look at the Ruby module.

I will also look at the development version (7.0) to check the diffence with IDEA 6.

Any plan to make debugger integration possible in the future ?

I would suggest to look at simple language plugins first, for instance
JFlex:
http://plugins.intellij.net/plugin/?id=263
Ruby and Groovy are just too big.
Also this document has a lot of great info:
http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/plugins/developing_custom_language_plugins.html

In addition, the source for the bundled JavaScript plugin is also available.

Hello Mickael,

Any plan to make debugger integration possible in the future ?

While we don't have any definite plans for future releases yet, I can say
that we would like to provide debugging support for Ruby and JavaScript in
future versions of IntelliJ IDEA, and we will try to make the new debugger
reusable for other languages.

--
Dmitry Jemerov
Software Developer
JetBrains, Inc.
http://www.jetbrains.com/
"Develop with Pleasure!"