Re^4: Free Perl IDE for a begginer

[Anonymous Monk]

Well... I've been looking for an IDE too. For a few years I have used PSPad to edit my scripts. It has good syntax highlighting and nice little features here and there. But I can't make it execute the scripts in a practical way. Let alone debugging... So I tried Eclipse + EPIC. Full of features. Surely powerful. But again, not practical. Just to start, I can't open a script by double-clicking on it in Explorer. As I probably do that 30~50 times a day, I'm sure I won't stand it for more than a few days. Open Perl IDE: nice interface, good features. Not as good an editor as Eclipse or PSPad, but good enough, I guess. I think I only miss the bracket highlighting of PSPad. A nice touch is the parameter line (for command-line arguments), next to the console, very easy to access. However, it doesn't seem to manage code snippets, and it has a nasty habit of creating a *.vpd file for each *.pl file I open. Overtime, my system will get cluttered with so many *.vpd files. It also hasn't been updated for quite a few years. Perl Express: used to be paid for, now it's free. Editor seems to be very similar to Open Perl IDE. But it supports code snippets and doesn't seem to create anything in my disc upon file opening. However, to enter command-line arguments, I have to open a menu, which is kind of annoying. The Open Perl IDE solution for this is way better. All three have an integrated debugger. I haven't tested them a lot, but I don't think I need anything better. Looks like they can all execute my scripts step-by-step and show me STDOUT and variable contents. That's enough for me. In summary: I'm inclined to try Perl Express for a while. Until I manage to run and debug with PSPad. Or until I get Open Perl IDE not to create (useless?) files in my discs. VMat

[Anonymous Monk]

Just found another annoyance in Perl Express - from time to time it requires me to "visit the sponsor's website". Besides, I finally figured out how to compile and debug with PsPad. By "debug" here I mean to check out STDOUT/STDERR and go from log window to the code window in a click (based on line number pointed out by Perl.exe). Nothing fancy, but enough for the moment. For those who are interested, change the "LOG Parser" option in Highlighter Settings to something like "* line %L, near". I guess I'm staying with PsPad, after all. VMat