Zugg Software :: View topic

Posted: Sun Oct 24, 2004 8:38 pm

To continue the discussion from the other thread regarding an IDE for Zeus.

Yes, an IDE is planned for Zeus. But I don't think this is needed in order to start selling Zeus initially. Right now, part of the power of Zeus, in my opinion, is the ability to just open a ZML file in Notepad, make a change, and then just run it. Any IDE for Zeus will need to be very lean and fast. If it takes as long to run the IDE for Zeus as it does to start up Visual Basic, then I've lost a big advantage of Zeus.

In any case, an IDE is a lot of work and really an additional project. I think just documenting Zeus fully and releasing the intial core interpreter will get things started, especially if I advertise that there are plans for an IDE in the future. But I don't think I'll be holding up eMobius for this.

Doing a very basic IDE that acts as an XML editor with knowledge of the classes and properties might not be hard and I'll consider that. But once you start down the path of an IDE, then people are going to want to position controls visually rather than via XML, just like you do in Delphi. And that kind of advanced visual IDE could take a while to code.

Adept Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 224 Location: USA

"But once you start down the path of an IDE, then people are going to want to position controls visually rather than via XML, just like you do in Delphi. And that kind of advanced visual IDE could take a while to code."

In the voice of eric cartman, "But Zuuuuug, that would be soooo kewl"

As long as there is documentation, I can live without an IDE. When you do release an IDE though, some people might freak out if it's not "visual". Anything that takes the extra work out eh? Who do you wanna market it to though, Do-it-all-for-me-because-i-don't-want-to-learn people, the die hard nitty gritty coders, or both?

If you release an IDE, maybe it would be a good idea to put it off until it is done visually, if your target audience are those comfortable with the program without having a visual ide that is.

Magician Joined: 13 Oct 2000 Posts: 463

The problem is that his product is in a unique area... it's easy to code for like HTML, but it's aimed at people who already know C/VB/whatever. People who write tools already have their beloved languages, and so it might be hard to sell them on a 'simple, easy' app platform. People who use VB or VB.NET are gonna wonder why they should use Zeus instead.

To be honest, I'm still not sure myself. In the cases where Zeus works, it works really well... but I don't always know, when I'm starting an app, whether Zeus will be able to handle it. If I go into a tool with uncertainty, I might feel more comfortable just opening .NET because I *know* it can do it, even if it'll take a little longer.

Having full documentation will help a lot. That's one of the biggest things keeping me from using Zeus right now.

Oh, and I'd like to suggest one huge favor. Something that plagues me daily in .NET... if you can, document what Zeus CANNOT DO as you discover it. Keep a list Zugg, of things people have posted on the forums asking 'how do I do X' and ppl say 'You can't, do it like Y instead'. Put the 'Zeus can't do X, do Y instead' in your documentation, searchable. You have no idea how many people will thank you. And this also makes a great list of 'future features' to draw upon. :-)