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macuser1232

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 20, 2012
668
4
Which program for Mac is better for programming? Which program is better at coding a language then another? Is Eclipse only good for java? Can Coda do it all? Is Xcode only good for OSX/IOS coding languages and also C++?
 

kainjow

Moderator emeritus
Jun 15, 2000
7,958
7
Which program for Mac is better for programming? Which program is better at coding a language then another? Is Eclipse only good for java? Can Coda do it all? Is Xcode only good for OSX/IOS coding languages and also C++?

Xcode and Eclipse are made for compiling source code for mobile and desktop apps. Coda is for editing web pages and scripts for web design and development.

IMO, Eclipse for Java, Xcode for C/C++/Obj-C, Coda for HTML/CSS/PHP/etc.
 

macuser1232

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 20, 2012
668
4
Xcode and Eclipse are made for compiling source code for mobile and desktop apps. Coda is for editing web pages and scripts for web design and development.

IMO, Eclipse for Java, Xcode for C/C++/Obj-C, Coda for HTML/CSS/PHP/etc.

Dude that is exactly what I thought!! Knew it! haha. So would you recommend textmate instead of Coda? Or any other programming programs/softwares?
 

GorillaPaws

macrumors 6502a
Oct 26, 2003
932
8
Richmond, VA
Both Textmate and Coda are releasing major updates within the next year or two (most likely). In my opinion, Coda is better for web development, but Textmate is much more versatile, and is a great tool for all types of coding. Both have free trials, so why not download them both and see how they work for you. What kind of coding are you doing?
 

itsmrjon

macrumors regular
Jun 11, 2011
122
0
Chicago
I personally swear by textmate. It saves me huge amounts of time when writing large codes just because of the ability to make my own bundles and hotkey/tab everything I need.

However other people may not feel the same way. I still use XCode for Obj-C, but textmate for Fortran/C/C++/TeX and all other general purpose text editing.

Textmate is one of those things where you won't really like it until you learn to write/use the bundles. Then you'll be in heaven.

-----
As far as the other editors you mention. I've never liked Eclipse. I spent more time in the GUI than actually getting work done. Also I have no experience with Coda.

The best fit for you would be to try all of them and see what works best in your personal workflow. There really isn't a one size fits all solution. To this very day, many of the guys I work with still stand by vi and emacs.
 

macuser1232

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 20, 2012
668
4
Both Textmate and Coda are releasing major updates within the next year or two (most likely). In my opinion, Coda is better for web development, but Textmate is much more versatile, and is a great tool for all types of coding. Both have free trials, so why not download them both and see how they work for you. What kind of coding are you doing?

Well right now I'm doing HTML, Java, and soon to do some C and C++

----------

It's basically a debate on whether Coda or Textmate is better because both of them are good for HTML and CSS. To me it seems that Textmate can code any language but I'm not sure.
 

theluggage

macrumors 604
Jul 29, 2011
7,475
7,314
Xcode and Eclipse are made for compiling source code for mobile and desktop apps. Coda is for editing web pages and scripts for web design and development.

IMO, Eclipse for Java, Xcode for C/C++/Obj-C, Coda for HTML/CSS/PHP/etc.

Actually, Eclipse has good tools for editing HTML/CSS/PHP/Javascript too, about the only thing it doesn't do that Coda does is the visual CSS editor. The PHP/Javascript support in Eclipse goes beyond the syntax colouring and keyword lookup in Coda - e.g. if you comment your variables, classes and functions correctly as you write you'll get hints for those, too.

On the other hand, Eclipse can hellishly complex to configure and use efficiently (with Java's enthusiasm for impenetrable jargon and lots of documentation that assumes that you already know what you are doing) and while. e.g. it does do publishing of websites to a server, good luck understanding how to use it* :) Plus, not every plug-in has been well tested on the Mac and there are some glitches. Coda would be much easier to get into - but as long as I'm doing other stuff that benefits from the power of Eclipse, it makes sense to use it for HTML/PHP/JS as well.

(* personally, I find it better to write shell scripts that use rsync and symbolic links to publish files to servers - if you didn't understand that, go for Coda).
 

macuser1232

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 20, 2012
668
4
Nevermind about Eclipse. I switched to netbeans and I like it a lot better. I also got DreamWeaver which replaced Coda for me. I still might get textmate one day though. Not sure yet
 

zicoos

macrumors newbie
Feb 24, 2012
4
0
The only reason why I'm replying here is to let people know (the ones who don't already) of Sublime Text 2. It's a great text editor and I used it for Python/CSS/HTML/PHP.

Also, I use Xcode for trying to write my CPP game and for IntelliJ Idea for messing around in Java.

And even though Sublime Text is awesome, I really do love Coda, but Sublime Text is growing fairly quickly so I wouldn't be surprised if I completely ditch Coda/Transfer.
 

neut

macrumors 68000
Nov 27, 2001
1,843
0
here (for now)
Coda 2, May 24th

http://panic.com/coda/

About to move to Coda 2 from Komodo + Cornerstone + Cyberduck. Coda 2 is about to kick the lama's ass. With Diet Coda I don't see how any other packages are relevant?

I'm sure I'll still pull out TextWrangler for file comparison. It's still my choice for line by line merging.
 

larswik

macrumors 68000
Sep 8, 2006
1,552
11
A couple weeks ago I switched from Coda to Sublime Text 2. It has a gorgeous interface and I wrote a PHP script last week. It's worth a peek and you can download the beta right now for free.

http://www.sublimetext.com/
 

Watabou

macrumors 68040
Feb 10, 2008
3,425
755
United States
Sublime text 2 is great! And it blows Textmate in looks and speed imo. There's another text editor that's in development too that is similar to Textmate and Sublime Text: http://chocolatapp.com/. It's half baked right now but it does have potential.

I recently switched to using Vim though and I gotta say, it's really great. I might just stick to using Vim. It has an awesome number of awesome plugins and the keyboard shortcuts it has are really useful once you get used to it.
 
Last edited:

Ponury

macrumors newbie
May 30, 2012
1
0
Eclipse for PHP

For web projects - Eclipse with Aptana Studio plug-in works great. Have all functionality of Coda and in addition code curl. And its free! :)
 

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,419
43,307
Both Textmate and Coda are releasing major updates within the next year or two (most likely). I
Textmate has been promising this since what 2007, its been so long since an update I've given up and moved on to other text editors that the author regularly updates. Too bad since it was a great editor but it suffered from over promising and under delivering :(
 

Mikey7c8

macrumors regular
Sep 15, 2009
185
3
Montreal, Canada
Whilst I personally do all my front-end work in TextMate (HTML/CSS/JS) working in Eclipse does give you the advantage of syntax checking which TextMate (and the last version of Coda that i used) doesn't do.

Xcode can be used for similar stuff, though I've never used it for anything other than Obj-C stuff. I've seen it done, though.

But yeah, I generally agree that they're different tools that work best in different situations.

I wouldn't want to code in any compiled language using Coda/TextMate/Sublime Text but it can most certainly be done.

Clear as mud? Great. ;)
 

dodosan

macrumors newbie
May 31, 2012
3
0
Italy
Eclipse for c++ vs xCode

Hi,

I'm much interested in which ide is better to write c++ code on MacOSX.
Currently, I'm using Eclipse and honestly it's not too bad and it crashes only once or two per week.

Does xCode really support you while writing code? (I mean, is it really helpful?)
Is it really that good as advertised on the apple web site?
Besides the compiling time (that seems to be excellent with xCode), it seems that the binaries generated with the llvm compiler are sometimes slower than the gcc compiler (source: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=gcc_46_llvm29&num=1).
Does anybody have any direct recent experience?

Cheers

Dodo
 

shurcooL

macrumors 6502a
Jan 24, 2011
938
117
I think Xcode is excellent for C++/C++11 development. I use it myself (switched from Visual Studio 11/2010/older) and while it takes some getting used to, in the end you can become quite productive.
 

OsamaBinLogin

macrumors newbie
Dec 22, 2010
1
0
don't forget BBEdit!

I use mostly BBEdit, but I've been around the block a little. It's a great all-around text editor, and (i think) TextWrangler is the free version of BBEdit.

I find Coda to be pretty similar to BBEdit and I'd gladly use it as a substitute.

XCode I use a little as a random text editor, but really it's designed for compiled languages - C, C++, ObjC, iPhone etc. Has tag-like stuff and everything a good IDE has.

Eclipse, I found yeah, somewhat intimidating, but I did force myself to use it for a week, just as a text editor. It's OK, I would survive with that. Never got into the modules and addons, that make it special.

Sublime is pretty good; you can write your own modules pretty easily in Python. Modern and cool. But again it's a hackers tool so not everything is as smooth as it could be.

My biggest problem with many of these editors was the lack of cmd E to pick up a search string. On the Mac, there's a system-wide search string, shared between apps, but doesn't overwrite the clipboard. You select an error message in the terminal window or browser, cmdE, flip the window into your editor, cmdG and you're looking at the same error message in that program. No Find windows to get in the way, just really fast and cool. Safari and Chrome support it, Firefox doesn't. Coda and BBEdit and textedit xcode and just about anything from Apple supports it, including the terminal. Non-Mac people don't get it.
 

jared_kipe

macrumors 68030
Dec 8, 2003
2,967
1
Seattle
Coda2 has auto completion for scoped PHP variables and I LOVE it. Makes it so much more modern as an IDE and not just a text editor.
 
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