1 Quick Start

1.2 The project window

In the project window you can see the project that you are working on. A project represents a Dylan library under development. We look at projects in more detail in Chapter 4, "Creating and Using Projects".

Figure 1.4 The Functional Developer project window.

Projects are a key concept in Functional Developer. Virtually all programming tasks you can carry out in Functional Developer take place in the context of a project. (An exception is editing text files: you can edit a text file without its being part of a project.)

Every time you open a project, or create a new one, Functional Developer displays it in a project window. If you have more than one project open at a time, each is displayed in a separate window.

You will use the project window frequently during development. Some of the things you can do in or begin from the project window are:

Building, running, and interacting with applications.
Editing source files.
Browsing warnings generated when a project was last built.
Browsing the classes, functions, variables, and so on that a project defines.
Browsing the libraries used by a project.
Browsing and setting breakpoints on source code.

In short, the project window is a focal point for work in Functional Developer.