Re: [GNU-COBOL] COBOL specific editor???

[Tim Josling <tej@melbpc.org.au>]

I really do like color syntax highlighting as it means I can
comprehend code quicker, and it also helps to pick up syntax
errors like unterminated strings and comments.

I like auto-indentation - customisable of course - for similar
reasons.

But I don't think writing an editor is the job of this project.
What someone could do is contribute patches or modes for some of
the text editors. Emacs for example has modes for lisp, c, java
etc. It would not be too hard to add COBOL. You are not going to
get people to change text editors so the best bet is to enhance
the existing ones. It would also be 100-1000 times less work.

Same with debuggers. I would be looking for some enhancements to
GDB for COBOL rather than trying to reinvent the wheel from
scratch.

I like Emacs but I understand not everyone does. I like the alt-.
feature to go to any label (function macro or variable),
auto-indent, color syntax highlighting, ability to automatically
go to the line where a compile error occurred and of course total
customisability. Lisp is a necessary evil as far as I can tell
but some very smart people really like it (eg Eric Raymond).

Tim Josling

Herwig Huener wrote:
...
> I do not know wherefor you guys need that. An editor
> is a very individual tool, and nobody should be
> offended by being forced to use a sub-optimal editor.
> As the product of a editor is an ASCII-file, it is
> totally transparent whether it has been made by
> vi, joe, xedit, emac, PFE or even M$-NotePad.
> 
> To my mind, nobody needs syntax-highlighting. But
> other ppl may not share this opinion.
...
> Herwig Huener
> 
...

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