I've been trying to find a tool that would allow me to develop without having to run a server to test the mission for every fart that I want to change.
There have been efforts to recreate the BNF that is the basis for the SQS/SQF languages, but these all seem limited, and don't take into account the bugs and idiosyncrasies that the engine has.
Since BI already has the compiler built into the game, the basis for tools like a debugger and a code validator are already present in the Arma code base.
It would really help me, and I suspect many others, if BI would release some tools to help out-of-band code development.
I was wondering if you could release some tools to aid script development.
Unfortunately, Squint and Poseidon are not my cup of tea. In the end of the day, they're just editors with syntax highlighting, not IDE's.
I'd like to develop my missions in an IDE that I can connect to things like task management systems, versioning systems and all those other tools that IDE's have these days.
If tools the tools are set up to be used with IDE's, for example by making the output parse-able for them through some front-end for specific IDE's, the tools would enable a much higher quality dev cycle for mission developers.
Much of this hinges on the idea that, as these tools become more integrated with the IDE, the feedback loop for developers becomes shorter. This would make things a lot easier. Most people learn to program by figuring out: 'what that error the compiler is throwing up means'; followed by figuring out 'what that error the debugger is throwing up means' ultimately followed by figuring out 'what that error that my unit test is throwing up means'
Added benefits would be:
- Editing times will go down. (I think by quite a big margin even)
- 3rd party code quality could be improved.
- The barrier for entry to create more complex content/missions will most likely go down.