All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report

Devel::PerlySense 0.0134

brian_d_foy on 2007-12-16T16:52:00

I just uploaded Devel::PerlySense 0.0134 to PAUSE. If you happen to use PerlySense [1], you may want to upgrade since a few nifty features have been added in the last versions:

  • Class Overview with the list of methods/properties that make up the API of the class (so that includes inherited methods). From this list you can use method Docs (d) and Go to (g), just like from within the source. [2]

  • In the Class Overview, things are rearranged a bit to show the most useful things at the top: the Inheritance tree and the API.

  • Run "perly_sense info" to display diagnostics about what PerlySense thinks your Project dir is, where your Home dir is located, etc.

  • A Cookbook page with clever tricks and common problem. Well, one of each so far.
I got a spontaneous That's fucking cool! reaction from a team mate the other day so if you happen to not yet use PerlySense, but use Emacs, you may want to give it a spin. I fixed the gripe in the CPAN review about fiddling with the elisp files, so that's one less hoop to jump through.


[1] I have no idea whatsoever if anyone actually uses this thing yet, but I'm guessing the user base is only slightly larger than... well, me.

[2] The API view is not at all finished yet, but it's still useful. Ideally, the methods should be ordered first by their POD heading, and then by their source location. And private methods of parent classes from outside the Project (i.e. when your classes inherit from CPAN modules) are rarely interesting and shouldn't be displayed at all, or at least be displayed in a more subdued font face.

What what what?

yDNA Barak on 2007-12-16T19:48:19

Getting timely notices about significant developments is wonderful. But they all seem to assume that everyone knows what the hell the thing is.

What. Is. It. Man!?!?

(Sure, I guess I could go look, but then what's the point of advertising?)

Re:What what what?

jplindstrom on 2007-12-16T23:43:03

Well, one click away from the journal entry is this description:

PerlySense is a Perl IDE back-end that integrates with editor front-ends, currently Emacs.

Conveniently navigate and browse the code and documentation of your project and Perl installation.

Run tests and scripts and syntax check source with easy navigation to errors/warnings/failing tests.

Highlight syntax errors, warnings and Perl::Critic complaints in the source while editing.

Re:What what what?

yDNA Barak on 2007-12-17T02:26:31

Your time must not be worth much.

Re:What what what?

educated_foo on 2007-12-17T07:44:59

...says the guy who takes the extra time to be a dick to people who give him free stuff. I really don't get this.

Re:What what what?

torin on 2007-12-17T19:18:53

I think that part of the point of getting such notices is that most people won't click through and when the description isn't there, then they just shrug and move on.
When you want to get the message out to more people, it helps to put a bit more information up front.

Yay

kwilliams on 2007-12-17T04:04:44

I truly love it when people put effort into better IDE-like support for Perl. Right now I'm undecided as to getting my emacs environment beefed up (e.g. packing in stuff like PerlySense) or trying to like (or make) the Eclipse tools better. EPIC does have some momentum ATM, it seems, thanks in large part to PPI. Since it looks like PerlySense is built on PPI too, I hope some of that momentum transfers its way too.

Re:Yay

jplindstrom on 2007-12-17T11:59:55

I'm not 100% sure how EPIC does its thing (I looked into it briefly last time they announced a release to see how command completion was done), but I think it could take advantage of PerlySense to get the information it wants to display and use.

That's the point of PerlySense being heavy on the Perl side and rather light on the Emacs side, to be able to reuse it across different front-ends (for example, I envision an HTML front-end to make it usable for a team regardless of editor preferences).