Talk:Programming tool

Merged
Merged in text from Software tool.

Software configuration management (SCM)
Many thanks to the author of the new article on SCM History. These tools are part of an unremarked set, undiscussed on this page, until this edit. Yet what true practitioner can claim any kind of professional expertise without some use of a tool like RCS, CVS, PVCS, SCCS, SourceSafe, ClearCase, etc.169.207.115.129 00:10, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Which is the meaning of ''These environments can make searching and editing much easier, however they lack the ability to massage code, like old Unix tools. '': As the sentence is currently constructed, it could have any of these meanings, whch s/b rewritten to one of these meanings. Ancheta Wis 10:11, 19 May 2004 (UTC)
 * 1) The IDEs lack the ability to ...
 * 2) The old unix tools lack the ability ...
 * 3) Both the IDEs and the unix tools lack ...
 * 4) The IDEs lack but the unix tools do not lack ...

Is the list of tool categories complete?
Msreeharsha 16:33, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Doesn't seem like it, I updated it a bit, but it can still use more work. Plus I think it needs some kind of better ordering, it's getting difficult to find things. Maybe alphabetical, or broken down into sub-categories based on the phase of development, or ...? Arthurrh 17:36, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

What about testing?
Many programmers feel that testing is an essential part of the development process, rather than a separate step. So, I was surprised not to see any explicit coverage of test-related tools (eg, support for BDD, CI, TDD, etc.) Is the feeling that these are subsumed under the other categories (eg, static analysis and formal verification tools, correctness checking tools)? RichMorin (talk) 17:50, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

I think this is a valid point since the example categories you mentioned are either not synonymous(static analysis) or more specific (formal verification and correctness checking).

An example would be a tool that continuously runs tests after any changes to relevant code. I would say that's a common tool that doesn't fit any of the mentioned categories. The first two are obviously not the right category and the last one implies the tool itself checks for correctness which in this example might but part of a test that the tool runs but not a feature of the tool itself. Moikvin (talk) 22:54, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Dubios
The introductory definition defines a (software development) tool as something executable. A file database is pure data, nothing executable. It could therefore, by the definition given, not be a tool. --Abdull (talk) 23:03, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) A programming tool or software development tool is a program or application that software developers use to create, debug, maintain, or otherwise support other programs and applications.
 * 2) Developers use simple databases (such as a file containing a list of important values) all the time as tools.

The second quote about simple databases is part of a paragraph that talks about an unclear distinction between tools and applications so I'm not sure if that makes it dubious, the claim that "Developers" use it "all the time" however, does sound dubious to me. It's likely true but seems like an unnecessary claim that could be worded more like an example. Moikvin (talk) 22:47, 31 August 2021 (UTC)