@Paco:

Generally, I find in as far as refactoring that RefactorPro! and Resahrper are largely equivalent in overall capabilities (e.g., in number of refactorings, etc.)

There are perhaps a few things that Resharper gives me that I don’t get from RefactorPro…

1) integrated test-runner (but I don’t care b/c I use testdriven.net as my test-runner)

2) code-smell-hints with suggested fixes (but I rarely care b/c I usually meant to do what I’m doing and the resharper ‘suggestions’ I find to be more annoying than helpful)

RefactorPro gives me a few things that Resharper doesn’t…

1) much better integration with the IDE (e.g, no annoying dialogs in your face, just graphics directly *in* my code editor that means I don’t have to leave the editor surface to make a refactoring). For an idea about what I mean, contrast the resharper experiennce of renaming a class (where i get a pop-up dialog) and the refactorpro approach where i just type the new name into the editor window where i need it. This is all about personal preference, but is my preference to have a higher level of integration

2)pound-for-pound, RefactorPro has significantly better support for the other parts of my app that aren’t strictly C# or VB.NET (e.g., RefactorPro supports refactoring of javascript, ASPX page tags, XML elements, and the ‘rest’ of the file types that make up a typical .NET app nowadays that Resharper doesn’t offer support for). For example, I ‘extract-method’ from a js method body with RefactorPro and I cannot do so with resharper

Then we get into the whole aspects of what CodeRush provides (and I feel obliged to include CR in any comparative eval with Resharper b/c the cost of Resharper = the cost of RefactorPro *AND* CodeRush so that seems fair re: what do you get for your money).

CodeRush provides me several things that Resharper doens’t really have an allegory for like…

1) code metrics analysis like lines-of-code, cyclomatic complexity, coupling, maintainance complexity analysis and more

2) fwd + back navigation markers that replace the horrible implementation of bookmarks that are native to VS

3) the QuickFind/QuickNav window that allows me to jump quickly between files, classes, methods, whatever based on semantic name rather than text-string-matching

4) The find-all-references that significantly outperforms the equivalent command in native VS

And this doesn’t even touch on the code templating capabilities of CR that resharper’s own templates just cannot match (IMHO) or the extensibility model that CR offers that makes it dirt-simple to build your own CR or DXCore plug-in that leverages the same UI cues, etc. that the commercial release offers.

All-in-all, IMHO I think comparing Resharper to *just* RefactorPro (without CR) is perhaps a reasonably equivalent like-for-like personal preference choice, but since Resharper = $250 for what is basically only a refactoring tool and RefactorPro = $100 for the same thing, I think RefactorPro would have to be my choice in re: cost/benefit analysis. When you consider that the whole CR+R package = the same $250 that JetBrains wants for just Resharper, I think the CR+R package wins IMHO re: the cost/benefit thing.

Then of course there is the release cycle and vendor focus. Jetbrains is first and foremost a Java tool vendor and only secondarily a windows dev tool vendor (nothing wrong with that, but that’s where there focus is). DevExpress is first a windows dev vendor (and perhaps also secondarily a legacy-delphi tools vendor). This means that their focus aligns with mine (windows and .NET) perfectly.

The benefit to me of this is that DevExpress had betas of their product that worked with the betas of VS2008 and they had their RTM version ready the SAME DAY that VS2008 RTMed last november. This meant that I could update myself to use VS2008 immediately upon its release and not have to give up my productivity tools. The forums were full of resharper users who had to wait almost 6 full months until jetbrains got around to releasing their VS2008-compatible RTM version of resharper. There product has now been out for barely 6 months and MS is already banging the drum on VS2010 so I think if we are to get a new VS every 2 years then 6 months of delay before your tooling of choice is available for you to adopt the new IDE is pretty big deal (at least to me).

Again, the selection of any dev platform tool is driven largely by opinion and personal preference in most cases and I think that resharper is an excellent product (I used it myself a few years back) but for me for all the proir reasons, I select CR+R in place of it for my own use.

Now to the meat of your supposition: how would Resharper have saved my saying ‘oops’ in my screencasts again….? 🙂

@mynkow:

Honestly, I have no idea what efforts are needed to make the two products ‘play nicely’ together as I have the full commercial version(s) of CodeRush + RefactorPro and these have all of the capablilities of these freeware products and then some.

I am assuming that the CodeRush Xpress and Refactor for ASP.NET work together as they are both versioned alike and in fact each products description page provides links to the other, seemingly encouraging people who download one to download the other.

My statement that ‘if you install both of these’ you can get the best of both CodeRush and RefactorPro for free is really based on my review of the feature-set that each product offers rather than actual experience installing them (as I say, since I have the full commercial versions of these, I don’t need to download or install either of the freeware versions of these tools).

My recommendation would be to look on the DevExpress support forums and/or Google whatever issues you are having to see if others are experiencing the same conflicts as yourself. Sorry I cannot be of more assistance, but I just don’t have any practical experiernce trying to install/configure the exact mix of products you mention.

Best of luck~!

@Adolfo:

Start with some of the links in this post here:

http://unhandled-exceptions.com/blog/index.php/2008/07/16/confessions-of-a-developer-tool-hound/