[CCC DEV] New IDE?

[Steve Pretty]

Dear Matt,

If you are going to change the IDE, perhaps you should think about a 
requirements gathering exercise and then evaluate candidate platforms 
against the requirements.

You could start by clearly identifying the issues with the current 
environment - what requirements is it not meeting?

You have clearly mentioned a requirement for easier build, 
maintain/extend and ship from the developer perspective. What are the 
requirements from the user perspective?  (Personally, I found the JEdit 
environment easy to install and use - and subsequently found JEdit 
useful for many other tasks).

Think about who the main users are / will be and what they require in an 
IDE. If the main users are likely to be students learning to become 
professional programmers, they might be best served using a high end 
tool (e.g. an Eclipse based environment) - although there seem to be 
just as many developers to prefer simple EMACs / command line type 
environments.

Are you thinking of a more hobbyist user base, "competing" with the 
Arduino development environment? In that case, perhaps a fork of the 
Arduino environment could be considered.

Regards
Steve