[plug] web development

[Peter Wright]

Hi Wayne,

On Fri, Jan 11, 2002 at 05:26:52PM -0800, Wayne Vovil wrote:
> Hi
> 
> I have slowly been setting up my system (SuSE 7.1 Prof) for desktop
> development. Yes, I like playing around with linux; but my prime reason
> for using ANY operating system (and linux is my choice, followed by OS/2,
> z etc) is application development. I am primarily interested in
> programming (love it!). My current work / home / not sleepy hours are
> devoted to COBOL (yes it still lives!),

Run away! <pete runs away>

> java, c/c++, python (but sadly no longer my beloved smalltalk)
> programming.

Oh well. At least some of the languages you mention are worth investing
time with. :)

> I am a member of sporting organisation for whom I volunteered to do
> Access programming. My own club which is a member of this org has also
> asked me to take over doing their web pages.
> 
> So, finally I get to the questions!
> 
> What are the recommendations - application wise - for producing HTML,
> javascript and pdfs under linux? I have heard of a few, such as Bluefish.

Okay - um - it's a bit of a tricky question, specifically as you've merged
a PDF-related question into a web-related question - and I think they're
fairly different areas. So I'll just ignore the PDF side at the moment
(which is probably appropriate, since I know little about it :).

To attempt a brief summary - well, Bluefish looks all right. Hell, try it
out and see if it does what you want.

Quanta Gold ( http://www.thekompany.com/products/quanta ) I think does at
least some of the sort of stuff you want, although you'll have to be
serious enough to pay money for it :-).

There is a related Quanta Plus project ( http://quanta.sourceforge.net/ )
which is free to download. I'm not sure exactly what the relationship
between Quanta Gold and Quanta Plus is, but I suspect it's similar to that
for KDE Studio and KDE Studio Gold  - theKompany makes a number of
improvements to a GPL-ed application and then sells the improved version.
Which, before any rabid FreeSoftware(tm) people complain, is _perfectly_
legal under the GPL - hell, RMS used to do it himself :).

Looks like the CoffeeCup HTML editor (which I've heard of, but never used)
is also available free for Linux (not open source though):

http://www.coffeecup.com/linux/

For general C/C++ development, you might want to have a look at
KDevelop ( http://kdevelop.kde.org/ ) and the aforementioned KDE Studio
Gold ( http://www.thekompany.com/products/ksg/ ).

For Python (and other scriptish languages that can be used for web
development), you may want to have a look at Komodo:

http://www.activestate.com/Products/Komodo/

I think it's a free download, and there are a couple of low-cost licensing
options ( http://www.activestate.com/Products/Komodo/pricing_and_licensing.plex )
- well, looks like the 21-day evaluation license is free, anyway. :)

For Python and Ruby dev work, Blackadder looks very interesting, even
though it's not out of beta yet:

http://www.thekompany.com/products/blackadder/

You can also download a somewhat limited demo version of this.

As a general high-powered text editor, I've heard a lot of good things
about JEdit ( http://www.jedit.org/ ).

> cheers
> Wayne

Of course, I can't make any personal recommendations about how good/bad any
of these products are, as I've never used them (well, aside from KDevelop
briefly, and that was excellent) - much as with the other two who responded
to your question before me, I just use vim. :-)

Pete.
-- 
http://akira.apana.org.au/~pete/

-- 
Klingon programmer sayings:
4. "I have challenged the entire quality assurance team to a
Bat-Leth contest. (pause) They will not concern us again."