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I've been using Visual Perl with the Beta version of Visual Studio .NET for
a few months now. Using a beta version of any Microsoft product can be a
risky enterprise since they tend to make your computer go kablewy, but I'm
very happy that I took the risk. Visual Perl is the best development tool I
never knew I needed. In fact, I'm so attached to it that I'll probably be
writing more Perl applications in Windows instead of Linux. IT'S THAT GOOD.
Overview
I normally develop Perl applications in Linux, but a recent project required
a Windows environment. I figured
ActiveState
would be a good starting place. The
company develops tools for programmers and has been a strong supporter of Perl
on the Windows platform. They had recently released
Visual Perl,
a plug-in for
Microsoft Studio .NET. Now before I talk more about
Visual Studio,
you have to
understand that I've never used an Integrated Development Environment before
now; mainly because they tend to get in the way of, well programming.
You might be wondering what ActiveState Visual Perl has to do with Microsoft
Visual Studio. Sure, Visual Studio supports all the Microsoft languages plus
HTML, but
Perl? Well, apparently, Microsoft
has made it possible for 3rd party
vendors to integrate other languages into the tool. And ActiveState has
done that so well that you would never know that it wasn't part of Visual
Studio .NET out of the box.
I'll admit that I was a bit pessimistic that a Perl add-on to another product
would turn out to be any good. Actually, I was pessimistic that there
would ever be a tool better than notepad or WinVi for Windows. Boy was I surprised.
For the most part, Visual Perl provides the same features in Visual Studio that
you have for built-in languages like C# and VB.NET. If you've used Visual
Studio .Net, that saying a lot, because the tool is possibly the most
comprehensive development tool ever developed.
Installing Visual Perl
The first step in installing Visual Perl is to install Visual Studio .NET. I
installed the beta version that came with a magazine that I subscribe to.
By the time you read this, the first full
release of the product will be available for purchase. One thing to note though:
It's a real memory and disk hog. The installation took over 1 gigabyte of space
on my hard disk and usually slurps up over 100 megabytes of memory. What it
requires in resources it makes up for in functionality though.
Next, make sure you have a recent version of ActivePerl installed on your
box. If you don't, you can download it for free at
http://www.activestate.com.
Once Visual Studio and ActivePerl are installed, you'll want to head over to
the
download page for Visual Perl on the
ActiveState Web site. If you
aren't running Windows 2000 or XP, there are some
additional requirements for installation, which are outlined on the download
page.
When you register Visual Perl, you will be sent a trial license via email.
Once the license has expired, you will be required to purchase a license from
ActiveState. The cost at the time this article was written was $295 per copy.
Features
Let's take a look at some of the useful features that come with Visual Perl. I've
included a Screen Shot
so that you can get a
better feel for how these features look. In brief, Visual Perl includes the
following features:
Code Editor
Graphical Debugger
Regular Expression Toolkit
Class Browser
Project Manager
Perl Dev Kit integration
Source Code Control
One of the biggest things I appreciate is the ability to edit HTML,
ASP,
XML,
or any Microsoft language (C++, VB, C#) in additional to Perl. This may be
moot if you're strictly a Perl and/or C programmer, but Visual Studio will shine
in most modern computing environments that contain a mixture of languages and
technologies.
Another handy feature is the ability to bookmark places in a file and
navigate between them. This is useful when you are debugging a problem in
multiple parts of the code. If you have a large number of things to do in the
code, you can assign bookmarks to the tasks list. Double-clicking the task opens
the associated file and takes you directly to the bookmark. That's right, there's
a task list for those of us who have a a lot of bugs to fix or those that
just like to stay organized. This feature also comes in handy when working on a
team. Other programmers can open the project and split up the tasks and use the
bookmarks to find important places in the code.
