Visual LISP IDE will be removed from ACAD

[guitarguy1685]

So if your not already aware, AutoDesk released an AutoLISP extension for Microsoft VS Code.  In ACAD 2021 help directory under "What's New or Changed with AutoLISP" they drop this little tidbit

 

Quote

Obsolete

Visual LISP IDE (Windows Only) - The Visual LISP (VL) IDE has been retired and will be removed in a future release. It is recommended to use the AutoCAD AutoLISP Extension for Visual Studio (VS) Code creating new and updating existing AutoLISP programs. LISPSYS must be set to 0 before the VL IDE can be used to edit and debug AutoLISP files.

 

Link to statment

 

hold up, wut?  That was pretty much all I used to write LISPs.  Do you guys use anything other than VLIDE to write lisps? I know they haven't made any upgrades to VLIDE in forever and I assumed they just shelved it, but I didn't expect them to completely remove it.  I'm not sure how I feel about this. 

 

Well to try to get ahead of this I tried out VS Code.  I like the feel, but right away I noticed some issues.

1. I don't seem to be able to inspect vla objects to browse their methods. That has always been incredibly helpful for me.  What am I supposed to do now?
2. during debugging when I cancel in the middle of a command that esc gets passed to my error handler and the program exits. in VS Code i get some exception error and I have to kill the debugging process.
3. Minor thing, the colors are all wack. I posted earlier about themes and someone was kind enough to post a link to a VLIDE theme. I havn't tried it out yet.  Link Here

 

Hopefully AutoDesk works out these issues before they remove it. VLIDE is so helpful.

Edited April 15, 2020 by guitarguy1685

[BIGAL]

I write about 95% of my code using notepad and notepad++ rarely use vlide only when I can not work out what is going on. I tend to write, copy and paste to command line and test as I go rather than write 100 lines and test. I can see every one jumping up and down that's not the way to do it. I put break points into my code (alert "got to here") 

 

Lee-mac and others how do you do it ?

[abra-CAD-abra]

Very interesting. Thank you for sharing 

[ronjonp]

4 hours ago, BIGAL said:

I write about 95% of my code using notepad and notepad++ rarely use vlide only when I can not work out what is going on. I tend to write, copy and paste to command line and test as I go rather than write 100 lines and test. I can see every one jumping up and down that's not the way to do it. I put break points into my code (alert "got to here") 

 

Lee-mac and others how do you do it ? ?

I use the vlide ... Ultra Edit is used by MP .. he, in my opinion, is one of the most skilled lisp coders out there so look into it? @Lee Mac .. I'm curious as well, what is your editor of choice?

Edited April 16, 2020 by ronjonp

[Lee Mac]

8 hours ago, ronjonp said:

@Lee Mac .. I'm curious as well, what is your editor of choice?

 

For AutoLISP I use the VLIDE, for C#/VB .NET I use Visual Studio, for everything else I use Notepad++.

[Jonathan Handojo]

On 4/16/2020 at 9:24 AM, BIGAL said:

I write about 95% of my code using notepad and notepad++ rarely use vlide only when I can not work out what is going on. I tend to write, copy and paste to command line and test as I go rather than write 100 lines and test. I can see every one jumping up and down that's not the way to do it. I put break points into my code (alert "got to here") 

 

Lee-mac and others how do you do it ?

 

Like Lee and ronjonp, I use VLIDE too. It's the only reason the codes I've been posting on this forum includes many functions that I would otherwise won't be able to debug purely by eyes. 

 

That's good to know that LISP will be removed. I'll have to start learning VBA .

[Tharwat]

3 hours ago, Jonathan Handojo said:

That's good to know that LISP will be removed. I'll have to start learning VBA .

 

If you are suffering and struggling with Lisp then you''d better to look for another way than programming. Besides that, VB & VBA are living the agony for quite long time now and their pass away might not be announced publicly for the sick of their old programmers.   

[Jonathan Handojo]

3 hours ago, Tharwat said:

 

If you are suffering and struggling with Lisp then you''d better to look for another way than programming. Besides that, VB & VBA are living the agony for quite long time now and their pass away might not be announced publicly for the sick of their old programmers.   

 

Not that I'm actually suffering and struggling. Debugging is just something that always sticks with programming. And what other way is there than programming?

 

Even though I said I might learn VBA, it's not entirely new to me since I've used those for Excel as well. So I have some ideas how that runs. Even if the old programmers pass away, new ones will appear anyway to take over their "sick" place.

[guitarguy1685]

On 4/18/2020 at 5:51 AM, Jonathan Handojo said:

That's good to know that LISP will be removed. I'll have to start learning VBA .

 

LISP is not being removed, VLIDE is being removed. You can use VS Code with the AutoLISP extension to debug.  Right off the bat I don't think VS Code offers everything VLIDE did though.

 

Also not saying you shouldn't learn VBA, just saying LISP is not going away. 

[BIGAL]

Autodesk have said many times VBA is gone but the next release still comes out with a VBA extension. How many billions of lisp code lines is out there, it would be corporate suicide to stop support and they know it, its one of the biggest asset they have, the only way around is to make "save a macro" have the ability to export .net code. 

 

Other clones write there macros in higher level code pretty sure I looked at Zwcad macros which wrote VBA much like excel.

[satishrajdev]

Completely agree with Bigal. Even if they are going discontinue VLIDE from standard installation of AutoCAD but I think it will be available to install separately like visual basic editor for AutoCAD.

[Siem]

Since GstarCAD never ever started to have a Visual Lisp IDE, I've used the free TotalEdit Pro (screenshot below) with pleasure since we made the switch to GstarCAD in 2007. Good to see Visual Studio Code also supports Autolisp! No worries about Autolisp or Visual Lisp. That will never be dropped from AutoCAD. It's only the IDE Autodesk discontinues.

[blammo]

I've been using VI/VIM all these years, which has worked fine for me, but I figured I may as well try it out, never too late, right? I guess I'm wrong, back to VIM.  I was actually looking to see if I could integrate an external Editor (VIM) into VLISP, haven't found anything related to this though, and it seems a moot point anyway.

 

Funny thing about this, is I've taught a few folks how to program in AutoLISP and they all ended up using VLISP . . .

 

bobb

[Mugna101]

Not half as good as u guys in scripting probably. but I hate the VLIDE thingy. 

Half the time im spending using it is figuring out again and again how to test and debug..

 

im writing and editing only in the notepad and grind teeth when i have a bug.

 

Anyways since Autodesk forcing to have an annual membership at best I stopped using their softwares.

is it just me or Autodesk gone greedy and lazy?

[mhupp]

8 hours ago, Mugna101 said:

is it just me or Autodesk gone greedy and lazy?

 

No Its not just you. don't get me wrong when you grow to the size of Autodesk I'm sure their is a lot of "red tape" and testing when trying to fix bugs/updates. But the straw in my case was after posting on their forums about a bug the response I got was just wait til the new version comes out "it should be fixed by then". Thats when i switched over to BricsCAD. About 95% of the lisp worked with out editing anything. the rest either had minimum changes to get them working. and only one or two that the command wasn't available and had to do a rewrite.

[BIGAL]

I approached Bricscad support for a couple of questions and they came back like within 48 hours with a solution to my problem. You see major employees at "Bricscad forum" answering questions yes some are next version will be fixed. Unless you have a good Autocad dealer you are stuck sometimes with problems.

 

Over at Forums/autodesk many of us have asked when the forum will be brought up to date there answer is to many posts. There is a frustrating edit time of 30 minutes so your code can end up getting posted many times as you update can not go back and say update 1 version of the code. Even for that last ")" that you accidently left off.

 

For me I use the Cut&paste version of VLIDE testing as I go. 

Edited December 29, 2021 by BIGAL