Vim and C++ programming assistance

Question

Hello,
I would like to use vim for C++ programming. I know it is not an IDE, but I wonder what coding assistant vim could provide.
I have omnicompletion installed via pacman and as described here:
http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/VimTip1608
kind of works, but if I have this:
int main()
   std::
Completion is started, and i.E. vector is suggested. But I have no #include <vector> ...
Can vim be made aware of this?
Also, I am looking through the web for vim C++ code assistance. I find a lot. There is ctags, csope. There are things which seem to work for C, but not for C++ ... I just do not know how to filter all this info.
What are the state-of-the-art packages for:
- Finding the decleration of a symbol
- Finding the implementation of a function
- Displaying the function prototype (arguments) while typing the arguments
Thanks!
Nathan

Answer 1

darthaxul wrote:If your gonna be programming you must grab a better app such as medit, way easier config with mouse support also.
Well, I couldn't disagree more with this comment If you want to be productive, try to forget about the mouse and learn to use the keyboard and the powerful editing capabilities of vim efficiently. I tried some IDEs (eclipse, kdevelop, netbeans) which had some nice features, but the editors were always lacking and they are too mouse oriented for my taste. Therefore I always kept coming back to vim.
W.r.t. plugins, I do not really use many. Omnicompletion and ctags (and I have a background script running wich updates the tag file every minute) which I use regularly. With ctags you can find the declaration and implementation of symbols. And I think omnicomplete has some options for displaying the function prototype, like you want (I know I deactivated it, because for me it was too intrusive most of the time). I also have taglist installed, but I do not use it often.
From the standard editing capabilities, what you should definitely look at is:
- Define the indentation as you like it
- Toggle highlighting of search terms on demand (I have this mapped on \s)
- Use the "." command
- Compile and jump to errors from within vim
- Visual rectangle mode
There are probably more, but these are the first that come to mind. If you really learn to use the extensive editing capabilities of vim, you probably will be equally efficient (or more) than with en IDE. After all, most of the time you are only editing.
And to go to the "lacking aspects": what I really miss are refactoring tools, e.g. for changing the name of a class or a method of a class. This would be quite a useful addition and something where (some of) the IDEs have a clear advantage.
Last edited by davvil (2009-06-05 09:38:52)