Talk:Code completion

Prior art

• What about the Borland C++ Builder feature called CodeInsight ? Wasn't this the first use of such an autocomplete feature ? rjb

• Some people view the IntelliSense technology as an incremental innovation on ideas gathered from free software tools such as GNU Emacs and Vim. However, the crucial difference between IntelliSense™ and the previous autocompletion facilities is that the IntelliSense autocompletion options are based on the semantic (as a C++ class will show only that class' members regardless of how many other similar words exist in the file), rather than textual nature of the material, hence Intelligent Sense.

While I have no doubt that there is some prior art related to Intellisense, this paragraph is the usual "zOMFG M$ doesn't innovate even if they do" claptrap. -- klaus

Unfortunately the statement that the idea originated with Microsoft is not supported by a reference. What about this article from 1983? Thomas Reps, Tim Teitelbaum, Alan Demers. "Incremental Context-Dependent Analysis for Language-Based Editors." ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems. Vol. 5, No. 3, July 1983, 449-477. It seems to be evidence that the idea did not originate with Microsoft. Is there support for the claim in the article? Dpv 22:27, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I didn't add that specific claim to the article, but I agree that it requires a cite. Having said that, there's ideas and then there's implementations. I do know that intellisense was first implemented by Matthew Curland [1], an ex-Microsoft employee that used to work on the VB team. All other implementations I've seen essentially copy Microsoft's, but then there is prior art for everything out there. Certainly the "ideas that originated with free software" thing is a washout in any case. If we go with your reference whatever form of Emacs that existed in 1983 (Teco?) sure as heck didn't have this feature. Heck, Vim just got autocompletion in version 7. Perhaps the phrase could be re-worded to avoid the implication that the idea originated with Microsoft. -- klaus

Didn't Symbolics Lisp Machines do this? Rsynnott 15:34, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Raving

A bit too much of a pat on the back for such a simple implementation of the general idea of autocompletion. Did a Microsoftie write this? :-) C'mon, let's tone it down a bit.

Even if a Microsoftie did... what happens? Microsoft tries to increase speed in development. Is something bad?

I'm more interested in the the use of the Ctrl-Space shortcut to jump start this feature. --Uncle Ed 03:41, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I think this reads too much like an advert. "a convenient way to access descriptions of functions, particularly their parameter lists. It speeds up software development by reducing the amount of keyboard input required. It also"

-Wootery

I totally agree actually. I came to the talk page just to report that to me this looks like Microsoft advertisement. No other product with the feature (that is particularly common) is quoted. In particular the main alternative to Visual Studio is not reported.

Either this article quotes *all* the main products on the market Open Source/Commercial/Whatever or it should quote *no product* given that the feature is definitely not original to them (or "it" given the current article...).

Gabriele Dini Ciacci (talk) 17:28, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Origins of IntelliSense

IntelliSense is a pale cousin to DEC's Language Sensitive Editor (LSE) implementation. To this day you can't easily extend IntelliSense or any of its modern brethren IDEs. In 1992 or 1993 we had full language implementations of LSE.

Not sure what the correct action to take to include this information (it would be great to spur on some open source activity in this direction -- the editor was easily programmable and this was ENCOURAGED). There is a wikipedia page for LSE here Language-Sensitive_Editor

Gkluthe (talk) 09:12, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

I remember at the VB5 Devcon Paris, 1997 that one of the Microsoft speakers (possibly Matt Curland) said that IntelliSense was originally developed for VB4. But they couldn't get the code to a high enough quality to had to disable it for VB4. This is why the C++ teams managed to get what looked like a head start on the VB teams and ship a finished product before the VB team could. I don't have any other reference for this information other than remembering it being stated.

Rbirkby 08:40, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Too standard

It is worth a mention that lots of IDEs use this now. Dreamweaver, Netbeans... Worth mentioning in the article, or removing this article altogether. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.155.130.233 (talk) 18:06, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Article looks like advertising Microsoft. Imho, similar feature (although not called "IntelliSense", just "code completion" or smth like that) is present in Borland Delphi, Borland C++ Builder, Zend Development Environment and other tools. The fact that Microsoft were the first, is not a reason to devote article to them only (as for me -- article should be devoted to feature-in-general, however mentioning that MS were the first (if they were, of cource)). So, I agree with 86.155.130.233. Sasha1024 (talk) 19:24, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I say that, although Microsoft's may not be the first or only implementation of AutoComplete, it is among the best, and so deserves an article. 72.223.56.113 (talk) 14:27, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

"MS" is the best autocomplete? Please quote a reference so we can integrate in the article... There are around pretty good implementations and I do not see how you can make such a statement on it. It is particularly important to give disclosure when you state such things and coincidence you forgot to login.

This article is advertisement in current state and should really either improved or removed.

Gabriele Dini Ciacci (talk) 17:33, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Not unbiased (and possibly funded)

In order to make this _NOT_ an advert for Microsoft one would have to highlight the problems and bugs with the software.

I can certainly point the author to the lockups in Visual Studio 2005 as a good starting point.
Given the amount of third party additions funded by Microsoft I think it only fair the author makes it clear they are not among them to be credible.

Until the author is prepared to add this I vote it should be marked as advertising, and therefore not an unbiased article and be removed. Grahamatwp (talk) 08:19, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi, and welcome to Wikipedia! This article has had over a hundred authors since it started (as this version) in May 2004. If you'd like to add a criticism section, please do. All we ask is that you provide some reliable sources for the criticisms. If you want to tag it as an advert in the hope someone else will correct it, then you can do that instead, using {{advert}}. ➨ REDVEЯS is always ready to dynamically make tea 08:27, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a bug database. What you are suggesting does not belong in an Wikipedia article. While I agree the article is currently a mess (and would probably require a ground-up rewrite), your suggestion is not a solution.

"Given the amount of third party additions funded by Microsoft" - You have any proof? If you have then present it, if not then quit making such claims. There are people who put in a lot of hard work to make the articles as good as they can, only driven by the desire to be helpful to others and nothing else. If nothing they at least deserve a bit of respect.

"and therefore not an unbiased article and be removed" - I suggest you go through the policies here. Being unbiased isn't a valid reason for removal, it is a reason for fixing the article.

I am not one of the primary authors of this article. You can verify all the contribs made to this article from its history. Check all of them out to your heart's content. Just don't accuse them baselessly. Thats simply disrespectful and deters them from fixing the article (why should they work to bring the article up to standards when they know all they will receive is some wild accusation?) --soum ^talk 08:37, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

<cough> ➨ REDVEЯS is always ready to dynamically make tea 08:39, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

...and present our ass on a nice dinner plate with nice yummy French dressing only to get bitten? No thank you. I will take the first bite. :-P --soum ^talk 08:49, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Is this IntelliSense used in anything else besides VS? -- 188.27.164.207 (talk) 17:00, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

I doubt it. A merge may be appropriate. ―AoV² 08:11, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

After being rammed by soum I'll keep it short. No. I rest. Grahamatwp (talk) 17:02, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Article Neturality

IntelliSense doesn't just refer to Microsoft's implementation of "intelligent sense", it in fact encompasses a wide of array of code completion/querying/and syntax checking capabilities of a programming environment. The article is way to biased, it portrays that Microsoft invented these features originally, when in fact they did not and they were around long before Microsoft even thought of them. Please help clean up the neutrality of this article. 141.151.246.76 (talk) 09:54, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Gail E. Kaiser

http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/pers/hd/k/Kaiser:Gail_E=.html

She is the one responsible for developing mainy of the logical components found in modern intell-sense implementations while at Columbia Unviersity in the late 1980's. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TronLover (talk • contribs) 09:12, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Gnome Code Assistance

Should this page also mention Gnome Code Assistance (https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/CodeAssistance)? --Tobias1984 (talk) 16:52, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

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Title

Is 'Intelligent code completion' really a standard term agreed upon by many experts? A single citation is given as justification. "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_completion" redirects to "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autocomplete#In_source_code_editors", yet this "Intelligent_code_completion" page is the one that appears top-most in popular search engines. There is the danger that because of that, people might be lead to think that 'intelligent code completion' is the de-facto standard term, so I just wanted to make sure that this is really the case. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.225.72.221 (talk) 06:45, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Probably not. I can move the article. –Gluonz ^{talk contribs} 15:48, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

This article is very out of date now

No mention of modern artificial-intelligence features that can do advanced refactoring and even suggest entire lines of code based on context and the programmer's habits. I've just added a very brief mention of Visual Studio 2022. Equinox ◑ 12:56, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. This should probably be brought up-to-date and mention more present-day AI features (especially with the developments which have occurred since you posted this). –Gluonz ^{talk contribs} 15:47, 19 February 2024 (UTC)