Hi everyone,
I'm considering to start an open source project for building an IntelliJ based Progress Development Studio.
Why? Before Progress I worked with a couple of languages like Python, .NET and Java (These days Kotlin b.t.w.) using IntelliJ based IDE's and MS Visual Studio. From that point of view moving to Progress feels like moving to the Dark Ages. Working with Progress in Eclipse feels like going back to the Stone age.
For those of you that have worked with the IntelliJ platform or Visual Studio know what I'm talking about.
Before I start development I have some questions:
I do realize this will be a huge amount of work to create a new IDE for Progress Development, but I'm sure that it will pay off on the long run.
If you think you like doing it and you have a lot of time on your hands, then go for it. If your goal is to have a reasonable editor, you might also want to look at Piew, Visual Studio Code or Notepad++ with the 3P plugin.
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When you say PSDOE feels like dark ages compared to IntelliJ it is because you like IntelliJ better than Eclipse or just feel like the PSDOE implementation could be better?
> • Is there any demand in the Progress community for an IDE based on IntelliJ?
I wouldn’t say so, we did tried something like that with Zamolxis albeit our aim was to build a development environment that can work on Linux/OSX… as with anything most of Progress community is happy with whatever Progress put on the table, not easy to get them to taste anything else not approved by PSC (kudos to PSC for that).
> Are there any licensing issues I should take into account? Would Progress even allow me to create a new IDE?
You would probably need the runtime for the build process but I wouldn’t even attempt to bundle any Progress license, just let the users specify the DLC location and don’t bother about licenses. Will Progress allow you to create a new IDE? No idea if they can actually stop you but if this is not using anything from PSDOE, aka it will just replace the PSDOE all together, then they will definitively see it as competition and then it’s probably up to you if you want to ‘fight’ them :)
> Are there other developers that would like to contribute to this project?
Depends how do you want to implement the language (DSL), if you think using the xtext approach can be an option we might be able to help with the language syntax, if you want to go with MPS then we probably won’t be able to help much.
>> I do realize this will be a huge amount of work to create a new IDE for Progress Development, but I'm sure that it will pay off on the long run.
Are you talking about an open source project aren’t you? How do you think this will ‘pay off’, even on the long run? :)
Good luck, as Patrick said… if you feel up for the task just go ahead and have a go at it, just try to manage your expectations.
Regards,
Marian
Marian Edu
Acorn IT
www.acorn-it.com
www.akera.io
+40 740 036 212
Thanks Patrick and MIke,
I was aware of VS Code, Notepad ++ and the OEDT Plug-in.
Piew is new for me.
Why do I want to do this. I think it could be a good solution, and "Because I can" :)
Hi Marian,
Thanks for you reply so far.
I'm not aware of the difference between xtext and MPS. Could you tell me something more about that? Or where I can find some good documentation about those?
Kind regards,
Johan
I don’t know much about MPS but that seems to be the default DSL plugin for IntelliJ - https://www.jetbrains.com/mps/, Xtext is something we’ve worked on and that can be used for both Eclipse and IntelliJ - https://blogs.itemis.com/en/get-started-with-xtext-and-intellij-idea-in-5-minutes. I can’t however comment on differences nor have an idea which one is better so it’s all up to you I guess, if you want to go the xtext way though we might be able to share the DSL part that we use for Eclipse plugin.
Thanks Marian,
I'll take a look at it and take it into consideration.
