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< Model-driven visual RIFE plugin for Eclipse in the works   JavaOne session notifications >
Most annoying Eclipse bug still marked 'new' after 2.5 years

I always found it extremely important to have my source code look 'perfect'. Everything that needs to, has to align properly and the adopted coding style has to be used consistently throughout the whole project.

I've been using X-develop (and CodeGuide before) as my main IDE for many years now and I really like the productivity I get from it. However, since Eclipse is currently the most used IDE amongst the users of RIFE, and X-develop's plug-in interface focuses mainly on language editing features (no GUI integration of plugin components), I've been trying to get used to Eclipse.

It took me a couple of weeks to feel really comfortable, but then I ran into a very annoying bug that manifests itself on MacOSX, Linux and Windows: sans-serif monospaced fonts don't align properly! It turns out that this has been a known bug for almost two and a half years, and its status hasn't even been changed from NEW to something else!

eclipse_monospaced

The result is that many first tabs in my source code are only one pixel wide, causing the whole alignment to be screwed. If you introduce additional tabs to make up for it, the alignment will be wrong in all the other editors out there.

Maybe most developers find this a very minor issue, but it my book, displaying, editing and aligning text properly should be the firstmost important feature of an IDE. Text is what you look at the whole day!

The fact that an issue like this has never been attended to in such a long time really makes me wonder if the focus of the Eclipse project is totally wrong. What use is it to have incredibly advanced features, when a fundamental thing like text display is not even handled properly. I voted for the issue and commented on it, so I hope some Eclipse developer will pick this up and fix it. I doubt it will happen though.
posted by Geert Bevin in Java on Jan 14, 2006 12:11 PM : 10 comments [permalink]
 

Comments
Re: Most annoying Eclipse bug still marked 'new' after 2.5 years

I'm using Bitstream Vera Sans Mono 10pt on WinXP in Eclipse 3.1, and I can't reproduce this for the life of me.

Physically, I'm typing:

private[space]ElementSupport[tab]mElement; private[space]ElementInfo[tab][tab]mElementInfo; private[space]RequestState[tab]mRequestState; private[space]ElementState[tab]mElementState; private[space]Response[tab][tab]mResponse;

and everything is lined up perfectly. Tab size is set to 4.

Also checking it in OS X, I cannot reproduce it there, either. I can't agree with you when you say that the "focus of the Eclipse project is totally wrong" — come on, bugs that stick around for years is common in OSS projects! If it bugs you enough, fix it, or stop using Eclipse. :D

I work in a group of about 15-20 other people using Eclipse all day, and nobody has ever complained about this bug.
posted by Anonymous on Jan 14, 2006 7:35 PM
Re: Most annoying Eclipse bug still marked 'new' after 2.5 years
Intellij IDEA your choise then :) It will be free for you like Eclipse
posted by Anonymous on Jan 14, 2006 11:04 PM
Re: Most annoying Eclipse bug still marked 'new' after 2.5 years
It is after all an open source project. If it bugs you, just take a look at the source, find the bug, fix it and submit a patch. From past experience, I can say that that works better than any other strategy for getting bugs fixed.

btw, fixed width fonts are passé. Aligning code like that makes it look like cobol.
posted by Anonymous on Jan 15, 2006 12:41 AM
Re: Most annoying Eclipse bug still marked 'new' after 2.5 years

I recorded a little VNC session on Linux to show you that it actually happens, I typed in exactly what you also typed in.

Also I didn't say that the focus was wrong, but that it did make me wonder about it.
posted by Geert Bevin on Jan 15, 2006 12:08 PM
Re: Most annoying Eclipse bug still marked 'new' after 2.5 years
Sorry, but I like IDEA even less. I still prefer X-develop over everything. Shame that their plugin interface is not as extensive.
posted by Geert Bevin on Jan 15, 2006 12:10 PM
Re: Most annoying Eclipse bug still marked 'new' after 2.5 years
Heh, that's easy to say, and quite arrogant. It's open-source, fix it yourself. Such an attitude makes one want to use the project even less. I've been involved and/or started a lot of open-source projects. I spend my time on what I know best, ie. those things. I'm an expert there and get a lot of things done quickly. Each project has their experts at certain things. Having never used Eclipse, nor even developed with SWT would require an awful lot of effort and time investment, which I don't have and don't care to give to an IDE that isn't my primary choice anyway.
posted by Geert Bevin on Jan 15, 2006 1:13 PM
Re: Most annoying Eclipse bug still marked 'new' after 2.5 years
you really should try something like jalopy to do the source code formatting for you. oh, and tabs are evil... :-)
posted by Anonymous on Jan 16, 2006 7:22 PM
Re: Most annoying Eclipse bug still marked 'new' after 2.5 years
Looks like there's been some activity in the bug since you pinged it.
posted by Ed Burnette on Jan 17, 2006 3:54 PM
Re: Most annoying Eclipse bug still marked 'new' after 2.5 years
Yes, surprised me, I hope they can track it down :-)
posted by Geert Bevin on Jan 17, 2006 3:57 PM
Re: Most annoying Eclipse bug still marked 'new' after 2.5 years
You use /tabs/? <shudder> =)
posted by Anonymous on Jan 19, 2006 4:12 PM

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