[Mono-list] Decent IDE for ASP.NET development?

[Todd Berman]

On Tue, 2004-10-12 at 06:19 -0700, me wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 11 Oct 2004, Todd Berman wrote:
> 
> > > application. The main problem being that in Monodevelop every folder and 
> > > file has to be added to the project from the menu.
> > 
> > Ok, uhm, i dont understand why this is a problem. MonoDevelop cant just
> > guess what your files are.
> 
> But other IDEs aren't trying to manage their own separate filesystem. 
> Eclipse, as an example, is far different. If you're doing web development, 
> as I mentioned earlier, you often need to just throw a new directory or 
> some images into the same directory as the rest of your projct. Often this 
> will be because it's all part of one big CVS checkout, right. Eclipse will 
> pickup these filesystem changes and if you do a refresh they're suddenly 
> in the project directory. No needing to add them from a window. So, 
> frankly, I'm not used to that behavior, nor do I think it's optimal. 
> Additionally I've noticed that sometimes if I add a file or folder, if I 
> then delete it it will show as deleted, but actually still exist in the 
> filesystem. This is odd behavior to me.
>  

I see what you mean, but then you would get random stuff, like temporary
files, or build cruft, or random stuff you arent interested in in your
project as well. Is that desired?

> > >  You can't just copy 
> > > some images or an image directory into a folder. It's meant to deal with 
> > > source. 
> > 
> > As opposed to what? allowing you to add a image file to the project? I
> > believe that a) this is possible today b) doesnt serve much of a point.
> 
> Well, if you're doing a web development project, having an image as part 
> of your project DOES serve much of a point. 
> 

Only in the sense of deployment, and considering we don't really deal
with deployment (either generic, or web deployment) yet, it is
relatively moot at this time.

> > > And even then it doesn't seem to handle integrating its view of a 
> > > project with the filesystem (like Eclipse does, for example).
> > 
> > Explain exactly what that means, because where I'm sitting (and I use
> > MonoDevelop every day for 8 hours a day) it absolutely integrates its
> > view of a project with the filesystem.
> 
> What I mean is if I copy a directory into my project folder I can't see 
> it via MonoDevelop. It's not there. This is different behavior than I'm 
> used to with other IDEs.
>  

I am not sure, but I believe vs.net works in the same way.

> > MyProjectFolder/src/SomeFolder/SomeOtherFile.cs
> > I have this in MonoDevelop:
> > 
> > MyProject
> > > src
> >  > SomeFile.cs
> >  > SomeFolder
> >   > SomeOtherFile.cs
> > 
> > and on my filesystem I have
> 
> Right. Probably because you put them there. But what if you just copied a 
> directory into your project folder. Would you be able to see it in 
> Monodevelop? I don't in my copy.
> 

Yup, I added the files and directories I am interested in.

As miguel said, it would be trivial to write code that watches your
directories and automatically adds files to the project, but is that
really the best option?

I store random files that I am not interested in seeing in my project
inside the project folder.

Also, when MD integrates with revision control, this behaviour becomes
sub-optimal as well. You don't want stuff like that automatically
'added' and at the same time, you do want your project to accurately
represent your revision control repository, because in theory (or
reality) whatever you are storing in revision control is most likely
something you are interested in working with.

I am totally up for ideas on how to work all this out, and any patch
work would be reviewed, and commented upon (and most likely accepted). I
would prefer to see some discussion about potential pros/cons of
automatically adding files to your project, and other points I brought
up here.

However, this discussion should take place on the monodevelop-list
(which is accessible through the lists.ximian.com website).

--Todd