Re^2: Perl Development Environment - Revisited

[mercutio_viz]

...Allows me to switch between any number of files in the project. I've also installed the Clearcase plugin and the SQL explorer plugin.

Ditto. I like the freedom, flexibility, and convenience of doing all sorts editing/browsing/previewing with just one tool.

I still use gvim for non-project/one off things.

Agreed. You don't use a forklift when a pickup truck will do!

One of the things I love about Perl is that it is wonderful for quick-and-dirty hacks. In 5 or 10 minutes one can whip up a powerful ad-hoc script to do major data kung-fu. Before Perl I had to do jump through all sorts of hoops to do the kinds of things that Perl lets me do in a matter of minutes. Even Perl one-liners can be extremely powerful and, more importantly, extremely useful.

Another thing that I love about Perl is that it can do just about anything, and therefore lends itself to larger projects. For me to manage larger projects I need more than vim or emacs. I'll admit it: I need the GUI. I'm not too lazy to use non-GUI tools - I actually do know how to use the Perl debugger - but I am shamelessly addicted to my visual environment, especially when it comes to stepping through my program one line at a time, watching variable values change, etc. Yes, all can be accomplished with the cmd line debugger - but for me it's all in the presentation. I like to see as much as possible. My best analogy is that sometimes I'd rather look at a graph than at a bunch of raw data. Not always, but frequently.

Thanks for a lively, flame-free discussion! I appreciate all of the various viewpoints.

-MC