The major drawback to AutoLISP was non-availability of integrated development environment within AutoCAD. AutoLISP programs were written in Notepad & executed in AutoCAD. This was very frustrating and added to that was the parenthesis problems. If by mistake you miss any parenthesis tracking was very tough job. It was also missing debugging tools, which is normally the core of any programming language.
VisualLISP now solves all these drawbacks. VisualLISP has provided the much needed IDE (Integrated Development Environment) to AutoLISP. You can now write program within AutoCAD, compile it, take trials immediately & see the results. Because of the colors used for indicating different components of the program, readability has improved.
You can also do ActiveX programming using VisualLISP & can also add reactors to perform the activities based on AutoCAD object modifications.
How do you create and edit your AutoLISP programming language software code? Are you using a text editor such as Notepad? If so, you're missing out on all the features that the Visual LISP Integrated Development Environment (VLIDE) can provide you. The VLIDE is not only a way to write your code; it is also a way to debug it. In this session you will see why you should use the VLIDE to develop your custom add-ins, and you will discover how easy it is to write, format, and debug your code.