Post #173,749
9/12/04 8:46:31 AM
9/12/04 9:02:40 AM
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Do you use an IDE?
At Infoworld they don't, see [link|http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/08/27/35OPconnection_1.html|The great IDE debate]
"our developers have opted for the humble text editor. Our developers use a wide variety of text editors within the team (UltraEdit-32, vi, and Emacs), but each developer basically sticks to the simple text file environment. Our team is highly productive and probably the best at hitting deadlines that I have ever managed, but when it comes to writing code, IDEs (integrated development environments) just leave them cold.
...
I asked the developers on my team why they had chosen not to use IDEs to do their work. The answer was pretty predictable: They thought the level of abstraction that visual IDEs brag about was more a detriment than a benefit. One of our developers compared building code in an IDE to using a WYSIWG editor to build Web pages \ufffd doing HTML by hand results in cleaner pages, and you know exactly how they work when you\ufffdre done."
This is pure hogwash. A good IDE helps you write code. The best IDE's that I used were Smalltalk but Intellij is also quite good. In fact in Java, an IDE makes life so much easier because of the static typing and parameter lists (as oppsoed to Smalltalk with named parameters), for example, Intellij auto-imports from you (e.g. use an ArrayList java.util.ArrayList will be imported), it shows you the parameter list with the variable names for method calls, auto-completion, refactoring, on the fly syntax checking etc. For writing Java code, the IDE simply helps you enormously. For example silly things like the following used to drive me crazy and are very hard to spot by eye
public void set(String somaString) {
this.someString = someString;
}
Here, because I made a typo the assignment is never done. Someone looking at this code will probably not spot the error, the code will compile, and you will spend hours trying to figure out why the assignment isn\ufffdt happening. These kinds of things happen all the time. An IDE would immediately highlight somaString as an unused variable, and therefore right away the programmer realizes that something is wrong and fixes the problem.
I believe that the anti-IDE attitude is a macho thing. Real programmers don\ufffdt need an IDE, only wimps do. I for one am not embarrassed to use an IDE it makes me a lot more productive then the macho men.
Edited by bluke
Sept. 12, 2004, 09:02:40 AM EDT
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Post #173,750
9/12/04 9:43:15 AM
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I use emacs
It's not a macho thing. Emacs is better for me. Anyone who has watched me use it has no doubt of that. But then again, emacs is an IDE as well, just not a visual one. As far as your example goes: \nprivate String mSomeString;\n\npublic void setSomeString(somaString)\n{\n mSomeString = someString;\n}\nCompiler error. This is defensive programming. The technique you used is one I do not recommend. Using a visual identifier to flag members avoids problems of exactly this kind. Code that doesn't do so drives me nuts. Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #173,751
9/12/04 10:10:02 AM
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That was just 1 example
For me the prefix drives me nuts. In any case you still have errors like if (a = b) and many others. Do you have autocompletion, intellisense, teh ability to jump to declarations etc. in Emacs?
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Post #173,762
9/12/04 11:56:29 AM
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Re: That was just 1 example
The prefix may drive you nuts, but it's a demonstrably better way to code.
Autocompletion: yes. I don't use it; I know what I'm typing, and having an editor suggest what it thinks I'm doing annoys me to no end.
Intellisense: same as autocompletion, isn't it?
Jump to declarations: yes. I don't use it, because I know where I'm going and it's easier to just do it.
There's a Java interpreter as well (BeanShell).
I've used a lot of IDEs. They all just get in the way compared to Emacs.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #173,765
9/12/04 12:07:39 PM
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What I meant was ...
that it suggests gives you a tooltip of the parameters. I for one never remember the order of parameters in System.arraycopy and many other Java API's, the IDE in a tooltip lets me know the order of parameters.
I didn't mean jump to declarations, but jump to a method in another class that you are using because you want to see something, or find all the usages of this method, or all the implementers of this Interface, etc.
I also find that the syntax checker is very useful, it marks in red all teh lines taht won't compile so that I don't need to run my Ant build and find all my silly little typos.
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Post #173,766
9/12/04 12:10:39 PM
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Re: What I meant was ...
As I said, I hit Javadocs 3 to 4 times a day.
Jump to another class: it's in there. I don't use it because I find the dired mode more useful.
I've used several IDEs with syntax checkers. The utility compared to simple highlighting is not a large delta, compared to everything I'd lose if I stopped using emacs. I believe someone's written an incremental compile mode for emacs, too.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #173,770
9/12/04 12:17:03 PM
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I never really used Emacs ...
so I can't compare. From everything I have heard Emacs is tremendously productive. Note, the developers at Infoworld are using Ultraedit and VI (as well as Emacs). There is no way that VI or Ultraedit is as productive.
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Post #173,772
9/12/04 12:19:08 PM
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No argument there.
Simple text editors are a bad joke.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #173,789
9/12/04 2:28:09 PM
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But if they're using VIM and calling it VI
then I would have to disagree. VIM has syntax checking (nice pretty colors to show you your errors).
The only thing that an IDE has that VIM doesn't (for me), is a nice way to profile the code so that I could tell what sections of code were taking the longest.
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Post #173,767
9/12/04 12:11:09 PM
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I find the prefix to be distracting
It distracts me from reading the variable name and understanding what the variable does. Instance variables are important and should be as clear as possible. I prefer the Smalltalk paradigm where parameters are usually prefixed by "a" for example:
public void setName(String aName) {
name = aName;
}
It serves the same purpose.
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Post #173,769
9/12/04 12:14:43 PM
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That would work as well.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #173,930
9/13/04 12:50:53 PM
8/21/07 6:29:38 AM
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Use leading underscores for ivars - less distracting
I agree that mThing is ugly. Mostly because for most people, reading involves pumping text through a sound generator and then into your auditory processor (hence that little voice in your head when you read). This is why deaf people have a harder time learning to read than the hearing.
OTOH, _thing is good for ivars. I'm never tempted to pronounce the underscore.
That was lovely cheese.
--Wallace, The Wrong Trousers
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Post #173,752
9/12/04 10:22:58 AM
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Little features won me over
Take a random example, System.arraycopy what are the parameters and their orders? I have no clue off the top of my head and Java as opposed to Smalltalk provides absolutely no help. There are a lot of methods like this that take multiple parameters in who knows what order. In my Xemacs days I had to go look at the Javadoc to see, now when I type in System. I get the autocompletion and when I select arraycopy I get the parameter list with the variable names.
Another feature is auto-imports, ctrl-enter automatically imports the class. Of course there is real time syntax checking, we use Ant for building so this way I don't have to run a build to find out that I have a type or missed a semi-colon.
These all seem like little things but in the course of a day add up. What is it about Emacs that makes it so productive for you? Intellij in fact offers an Emcas keymapping.
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Post #173,764
9/12/04 12:06:34 PM
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Re: Little features won me over
I still look in the JavaDocs. On a typical day I may hit the JavaDocs 3 or 4 times. Big deal. If I could be arsed to look it up, there's a keystroke that would take me to the function definition in the browser.
Autoimports: meh. There are any number of tools that can rationalize imports. In the end, its not enough to get me to switch.
Syntax checking: highlighting is sufficient for my needs.
All emacs keymappings suck. Why? Because without exception they only extend to editor itself. Emacs is productive because *everything* in the editor uses the keymapping. The shell, the directory browser, the compiler output... everything. Emacs is much more integrated than any so-called IDE, because everything is a buffer and they all act the same way. I can run a macro that iterates a list of files in a directory (or subdirectories for that matter), performing a series of operations on each one, without every leaving emacs. In the end the sum of this approach is much more valuable than any collection of little features (most of which I have anyway, and just don't use).
Example: what do you need to do in IntelliJ to edit files that can only be accessed by FTP? Or how about viewing or editing files in a .jar contained in a .war contained in a .ear? How about running a macro across, say, all of the .tld files in a nested jar? Emacs does all of this transparently.
And lets go one step further. Emacs has the same sort of features available for Perl, SQL, C, shell script, you name it. All of which I use on a daily basis. Switching to the SQL IDE or the C++ IDE or whatever is a productivity killer when emacs treats them all the same.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #173,768
9/12/04 12:14:28 PM
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I am only doing Java now
If I had to do other languages as well I might think differently. For Java I find that Intellij provides a very good set of features that are all easily accessible both by keystrokes and the mouse. I have not run into any of the situations that you mentioned. I am doing hard core Java development, Here Intellij shines.
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Post #173,771
9/12/04 12:17:32 PM
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Re: I am only doing Java now
You've never needed to browse a .jar? Odd, I do that all the time.
But yes, a specialized tool will usually outshine a general-purpose tool. Except for that bit about consistency that I mentioned. And since emacs has most of the "features" that the visual IDEs have...
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #173,773
9/12/04 12:27:28 PM
9/12/04 12:28:50 PM
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I do browse jars ...
Intellij allows you to browse any jar in your classpath and will decompile the class file and show you all the methods. Netbeans has a similar feature, I would guess that Eclipse probably has it as well. In truth, I find Intellij much better then both Eclipse and Netbeans.
Edited by bluke
Sept. 12, 2004, 12:28:50 PM EDT
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Post #173,774
9/12/04 12:29:37 PM
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How about embedded ones?
Sounds like they might be finally starting to catch up, then. ;-)
Emacs does .arj, .tar, .tgz, and .gz as well... ;-)
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #173,778
9/12/04 12:50:20 PM
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ICLRPD (new thread)
Created as new thread #173777 titled [link|/forums/render/content/show?contentid=173777|ICLRPD]
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Post #173,755
9/12/04 11:16:06 AM
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I'm bouncing back and forth on this.
Same time I'm bouncing language choices.
Since I'm dealing with C# and Visual Studio, I simply hate the code editor. Years of vi and then gvim have imprinted on me. Things that take 2 keystrokes while in vi take many times that, often with control or alt combinations, often with me searching them out. So given a piss-poor editor (even if configurable, modal vs non-modal editor do not easily cross-emulate each other (and yes, I am aware of vile)), nothing, no amount of syntax help, no amount of pretty window property boxes is enough to compensate.
But: Screen drawing is a different thing. The MS and Borland screen painters are a huge savings in some compared to laying it out by hand or letting a flow control magically place it ALMOST where you want it, and then you nudge things with code.
Oh, and WxGlade is yucky.
Gvim (and I assume emacs) has very good styntax highlighting, so you know when you miss a closing quite, brace, slash, etc. It knows keywords and can jump to definitions.
On the other hand, VS .method expansion, menus, etc with arguments is nice. It allows people who don't know what they want to be productive.
WHICH IS PROBABLY BAD!
Immediate productivity in a complex environments leads to focussing on quick turnaround and deliverables, at the expense of really understanding what you need to support and how to do it. I threw some crap together in VB, and was able to release in 2 days, and immediately regretted it. I knew it would be very difficult to expands and support it, so I looked for alternatives.
Enabling semi-competent people to be productive is the goal of any of these environments, which is the worst reason for using it. Like driving VS walking. Sure, driving will get you there faster, but if you didn't learn the rules of the road, it will probably end up killing you.
AFTER you know the language and the rules, then you would be competent to make the decision on whether or not the envionment is good for you.
I'm still stuck in using it, and now it is too late. I've already demoed the VB crap, and people love it. So I redid it in C#. I still need a lot of education in C# before I'd consider myself competent, but it is the lesser of the 2 evil right now so I am sticking with it. I have no intention of EVER using this crap for back-end logic, that will be perl, so I do not have to really "commit" here. I just have to come up with enough pretty user interface to generate the control files and interact with the back-end for status updates.
Note: I found out our company has just connected with a C# consultant. I threw a bunch of questions his way and got very nice answers, detail knowledgable explainations, etc. I was looking to see what the user interface of the NEXT project would be, which is far more complex thatn the one I'm currently doing, and I was NOT going to be the person to do it. This meant we would be hiring / consulting off the street for it. It will probably end up being this person if he maintians his level of expertise in my mind (subject to dramatic dropp-off on the 1st stupid mistake).
He knew right off the bat about the casting, gave a very good explanation of why using "is" rather than casing on the .string was much better, epxlained temp object were references, not true copies, explained the performance implications of certain pieces of my code, etc.
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Post #173,759
9/12/04 11:41:07 AM
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There is no question ...
that the way to learn a language like Java is to use a text editor and the JDK. Once you have some mastery of the language the IDE helps a lot. Java and C# have so many API's that there is no way that anyone can remember them all (see my example about System.arraycopy) and therefore when you are doing real development these things are really helpful.
What I like about Intellij as opposed to other Java IDE's is that there are no wizards no dumbing down, it simply helps you write code more efficiently by doing code completion, imports, syntax checking, etc.
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Post #173,760
9/12/04 11:50:05 AM
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OK
> What I like about Intellij as opposed to other
> Java IDE's is that there are no wizards no dumbing down,
> it simply helps you write code more efficiently by
> doing code completion, imports, syntax checking, etc.
Give me that with gvim keystrokes.
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Post #173,763
9/12/04 12:02:54 PM
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Not that I am selling Intellij ...
or get anything from them, but I really like the IDE. It doesn't support gvim out of the box, but it allows you to create your own custom keymap, you could recreate the gvim one.
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Post #173,775
9/12/04 12:39:55 PM
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Doubt it
vi is a modal editor. Emacs / most of the rest of the world is not.
So keymappings can often be used in non-modals to emulate the others, but not a modal.
When people code, the majory of the typing is NOT actually entering text. It is movement, checking a words here and there, reformatting, cutting and pasting, reversing the order of 2 lines next to each other, joining 2 lines together,
bouncing parenthesis, etc.
I can do all those thing in usually 2 keystrokes, no control or alt required.
I HATE editors that assume when I type something it is supposed to place somthing on the screen. If I wanted to insert something, I'd be in insert mode!
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Post #173,793
9/12/04 4:47:28 PM
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Most of my typing is inserting text.
And I hate editors that assume when I'm typing in text that they're supposed to hopelessly mangle my file by interpreting 'System.out.println' as commands.
vi is a modal editor not because that's the best way to code, but because that's the best way to conserve a 300baud communication line on a slow terminal.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #173,795
9/12/04 4:57:21 PM
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ed is the standard text editor.
Peter
[link|http://www.debian.org|Shill For Hire]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Blog]
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Post #173,797
9/12/04 5:14:41 PM
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?
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #173,798
9/12/04 5:23:42 PM
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Modes are evil.
Or hadn't you heard? ;)
[link|http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=4790|http://www.artima.co...t.jsp?thread=4790]
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Post #173,799
9/12/04 5:24:28 PM
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?
Peter
[link|http://www.debian.org|Shill For Hire]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Blog]
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Post #173,800
9/12/04 5:25:41 PM
|
? RTFA
..then the book.
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Post #173,801
9/12/04 5:29:00 PM
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?
Peter
[link|http://www.debian.org|Shill For Hire]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Blog]
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Post #173,803
9/12/04 5:36:17 PM
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Love ya man
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Post #173,805
9/12/04 5:38:50 PM
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Type faster, Barry! :D
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Post #173,807
9/12/04 5:45:30 PM
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Huh?
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Post #173,806
9/12/04 5:44:09 PM
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I did RTFA
And I'm not going to RTFB.
The example of customization for different programmers' keyboards was a good one. Taken to the stupid extreme. So the problem here is all the programmers have the most productive environment for them individually, which then is a detriment to the occasional other programmer on their keyboard.
SO WHAT?
So would you prefer to drop the productivity of ALL of them just so any of them could walk over to any of the other's desk and be able to code at full speed, where full speed is the compromise which means none of them are every fully productive?
Like I explained in my IDE VS Editor rant, it is a matter of tradeoffs. Vi was not my 1st editor, Wordstar was. So my baby chick imprint is non-modal. My 1st full time programmer environment was using vi, but I quickly moved to Brief. Brief was MUCH better. Over the years I moved between various non-modal editors. Visual Slick was also very nice. But when I moved back to vi, by way of gvim, I was much happier.
Gvim has the nice syntax highlighting, GUI touches while staying the hell out of my way.
Modal is evil for some people. Non modal is evil for me. Ctl / Alt / Meta key usage is far more evil. Who has bad wrists, Bill Joy or Richard Stallman? Comes from reaching while a finger is pressing the Ctl key.
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Post #173,808
9/12/04 5:51:15 PM
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?
I bet you have one of those evil PC keyboards that put CTRL down in the bottom left corner, where Satan wants it.
Peter
[link|http://www.debian.org|Shill For Hire]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Blog]
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Post #173,809
9/12/04 5:55:38 PM
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?
CTRL should only be on the upper keyboard, so you can just lift a knuckle to "hold it up".
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Post #173,848
9/13/04 3:07:28 AM
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Footpedal
Like a pipe organ.
--
Chris Altmann
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Post #173,810
9/12/04 6:04:15 PM
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Yup
Along with the function keys across the top. I HATE them!
But no, I have not remapped the Control and CapsLock to reverse themselves like some coders I know have done.
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Post #173,802
9/12/04 5:29:04 PM
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?
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #173,816
9/12/04 7:58:46 PM
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???
-YendorMike
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin, 1759 Historical Review of Pennsylvania
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Post #173,817
9/12/04 8:23:46 PM
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????
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Post #173,818
9/12/04 8:36:16 PM
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!!!
-YendorMike
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin, 1759 Historical Review of Pennsylvania
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Post #173,822
9/12/04 8:52:24 PM
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Modals wobble but they don't fall down.
[link|http://jeffcovey.net/linux/humor.html|Might as well face it ...]: Addicted To Vi
(with apologies to Robert Palmer)
You press the keys with no effect,
Your mode is not correct.
The screen blurs, your fingers shake;
You forgot to press escape.
Can't insert, can't delete,
Cursor keys won't repeat.
You try to quit, but can't leave,
An extra "bang" is all you need.
You think it's neat to type an "a" or an "i"--
Oh yeah?
You won't look at emacs, no you'd just rather die
You know you're gonna have to face it;
You're addicted to vi!
You edit files one at a time;
That doesn't seem too out of line?
You don't think of keys to bind--
A meta key would blow your mind.
H, J, K, L? You're not annoyed?
Expressions must be a Joy!
Just press "f", or is it "t"?
Maybe "n", or just "g"?
Oh--You think it's neat to type an "a" or an "i"--
Oh yeah?
You won't look at emacs, no you'd just rather die
You know you're gonna have to face it;
You're addicted to vi!
Might as well face it,
You're addicted to vi!
You press the keys without effect,
Your life is now a wreck.
What a waste! Such a shame!
And all you have is vi to blame.
Oh--You think it's neat to type an "a" or an "i"--
Oh yeah?
You won't look at emacs, no you'd just rather die
You know you're gonna have to face it;
You're addicted to vi!
Might as well face it,
You're addicted to vi! Cheers, Scott. (Who has had the pleasure of avoiding vi since about 1987.)
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Post #173,998
9/13/04 5:52:22 PM
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ROfsckingFL!
My first editor was the RT-11 editor, which some sadist at my first job ported to the Perkin-elmer machines I worked on. Then TECO, which the same sadist also ported (but it beat snot out of RT-11 editor).
Then vi.
Then something, anything else other than vi. vi makes TECO look good!. 'bout that time, PCs started happening, and along with them came word processors and real visual editors. vi became the anachronism it is today....
jb4
shrub\ufffdbish (Am., from shrub + rubbish, after the derisive name for America's 43 president; 2003) n. 1. a form of nonsensical political doubletalk wherein the speaker attempts to defend the indefensible by lying, obfuscation, or otherwise misstating the facts; GIBBERISH. 2. any of a collection of utterances from America's putative 43rd president. cf. BULLSHIT
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Post #174,026
9/13/04 9:33:03 PM
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Yep, teco was great.
Type 'exit', replace your entire file with 't'.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #174,028
9/13/04 9:49:46 PM
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In that case
may you be force to use only EVE/TPU.
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Post #174,078
9/14/04 12:33:58 AM
9/14/04 12:34:17 AM
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Wuss
EVE and TPU are fine editors, although real VMS people use EDT.
Peter
[link|http://www.debian.org|Shill For Hire]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Blog]
Edited by pwhysall
Sept. 14, 2004, 12:34:17 AM EDT
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Post #174,085
9/14/04 1:00:40 AM
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Oh dear -- you woke Peter up. :-D
Is it enough to love
Is it enough to breathe
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed
| |
Is it enough to die
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be Anything but Ordinary
Please
| -- "Anything but Ordinary" by Avril Lavigne. |
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Post #174,086
9/14/04 1:02:20 AM
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Stalker!
Peter
[link|http://www.debian.org|Shill For Hire]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Blog]
|
Post #174,263
9/14/04 4:25:49 PM
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Used both...
...and both beat snot out of vi (and twice on Sundays).
jb4
shrub\ufffdbish (Am., from shrub + rubbish, after the derisive name for America's 43 president; 2003) n. 1. a form of nonsensical political doubletalk wherein the speaker attempts to defend the indefensible by lying, obfuscation, or otherwise misstating the facts; GIBBERISH. 2. any of a collection of utterances from America's putative 43rd president. cf. BULLSHIT
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Post #173,819
9/12/04 8:38:39 PM
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VI keys.
I intensively used vim for editing code for a few years. Like you, I found it to be so much better at putting my coding onto the screen than anything previous. I recall the old MS Visual C programming environment - they would be impossible to use if you didn't have a) a mouse and b) function keys.
When Infoworld visited this issue some months ago, Maggie Biggs got quotes from a lot of us here - surely you remember that. I recall, not without some pride and perhaps selectivity, she held up Scott as The Emacs programmer and I got quoted as The Vi(m) programmer. :-) This latest article dances around but doesn't quite say that people stick with text editors like Emacs and Vim because they are so powerful at editing text. Far too many "IDEs" are just not.
Wade.
Is it enough to love
Is it enough to breathe
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed
| |
Is it enough to die
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be Anything but Ordinary
Please
| -- "Anything but Ordinary" by Avril Lavigne. |
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Post #173,847
9/13/04 2:51:52 AM
9/13/04 2:53:08 AM
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I have heard this many times but never understood it
What do you do with the text that Vim is so good at? I find that while I write a lot of code the editor that I use doesn't interest me that much. I write a line of code go to the next line and write another line. I don't really use a lot of editing features. What kind of editing features do you use? What I find most useful about the IDE is the refactoring support, where I can take pieces of code from an existing method and create new methods, move things around etc. and the fact that with autocompletion I can see the parameters.
Edited by bluke
Sept. 13, 2004, 02:53:08 AM EDT
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Post #173,849
9/13/04 3:42:10 AM
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Refocus down just a little bit.
Think about *how* your IDE makes it easy to refactor: what is involved in copying a fragment of code and then modifying it slightly for it's new location?
In an IDE such as Microsoft's Visual Studio (note that the last version I used was for MSVC++ v2), this involves lots of action on the editing keys (cursor keys, delete and insert) to highlight relevant text and modify as appropriate, accompanied with a quantity of mouse-work also for selecting or moving text and for actvitating toolbar buttons.
Vi has many tools for changing text in efficient ways that be combined in hundreds of variations. The fact that they activated by the typewriter keys helps because your hands can stay there instead of moving off to hit a cursor key (this is the same for Emacs, BTW). For example, non-vi-ers think that having 5 basic ways to switch into a text-entry mode is superfluous. It's not. They all setup your insertion differently. The extra efficiency is slight in typing o to enter a new line below the current one over pressing End then Enter, but it adds up over time.
The difference in approach is one of a complete, but predominantly not-overlapping, set of basic tools for modifying text (typified in part by more keystrokes) versus a much larger toolset that has lots of overlapping functionality (typified in part by less keystrokes). It's difficult to explain.
Wade.
Is it enough to love
Is it enough to breathe
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed
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Is it enough to die
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be Anything but Ordinary
Please
| -- "Anything but Ordinary" by Avril Lavigne. |
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Post #174,200
9/14/04 12:14:46 PM
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For me?
The reasons I like VI
- I can do everything on the keyboard, without taking my hands off of it to touch a mouse.
- I can do a :set list and see every character, whether it's a tab or a space or a something else
- I can then do a :set nolist :-)
- I can indent 10 lines (by tabs, my preferred programming style) by 10>
- I can delete 10 lines by simply typing 10d
- I can see all line numbers by doing :set numbers
- I can delete lines 100, 1000 by typeing :100,1000d
- I can delete all lines that contain /foo/
- etc...
and that's just a sample, without even touching macros.
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Post #173,932
9/13/04 12:55:24 PM
8/21/07 6:29:40 AM
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IDEA for Java
Its such a cargo cult language that the automatic handling of imports and such is really nice.
Otherwise I'm likely to use vi.
That was lovely cheese.
--Wallace, The Wrong Trousers
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Post #173,786
9/12/04 1:37:13 PM
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The refactor tools are good
but the rest is just marginal help in the overall scheme of writing applications. There is no substitute for the brain in understanding how an application works and how it can be made to be better. There's also no substitute for tests in determining whether the stuff works like you think it's supposed to work.
The first problem with IDE's is they are usually language and/or target specific. What good is IntelliJ if my language is T-SQL|PL/SQL, Python|Perl|Ruby, JavaScript|DHTML|DOM (just to list a few)? Ok, so there are IDE's that might work for any one of these. But that means everytime I switch languages, I have to go to an entirely new IDE, and learn the quirks of each.
The second problem is that each of the components of an IDE are not necessarily best of breed. Case in point, text editors. None approaches the flexibility of dedicated text processors. And since the target of Java and many other programming languages is text files, this is more than just a minor annoyance.
Finally, don't confuse convenience mechanisms with true productivity gains. One can become spoiled by the little paper clip man in the background, but it's no guarantee of code correctness. Perhaps it helps to overcome the problems like misspelling and parameter choices, but that is but just a small percentage of the types of things that can go wrong in writing code - and it's usually the easiest to find - with or without the aide of an ide.
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Post #173,827
9/12/04 10:37:12 PM
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Call it a terminology mismatch, then
Them: They thought the level of abstraction that visual IDEs brag about was more a detriment than a benefit. You: This is pure hogwash. A good IDE helps you write code. Sounds to me like you have a different definition of "IDE" than they do. I have a feeling by "IDE" they mean a WYSIWYG GUI builder; what they feel is "detrimental abstraction" is the auto-generation of ugly, opaque code. "Despite the seemingly endless necessity for doing
so, it's actually not possible to reverse-engineer intended invariants
from staring at thousands of lines of code (not in C, and not in
Python code either)." Tim Peters on python-dev
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Post #173,828
9/12/04 10:51:12 PM
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But that is what I use it for!
A WYSIWYG screen builder.
The rest is mostly an annoyance.
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Post #173,834
9/13/04 12:08:18 AM
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How about this
GUI IDEs are greta for building GUI interfaces. I think we can mostly agree on that.
Now, how about for building the second and third tier business logic?
Note:
There's a macro for vim that offers function parameter pop-ups, just like IDE auto-completion. That one I don't use.
There's a macro for function folding. That one I use.
The syntax hilighting is more fine-grained than in any IDE I've used, and we've got Zend studio, by the people who make PHP.
The one thing I've seen in the IDE that I haven't found (yet) for vim is that it will follow the include path to find functions/variables defined outside the current file.
===
Implicitly condoning stupidity since 2001.
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Post #173,836
9/13/04 12:33:42 AM
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Mostly.
I have yet to find a reasonable webapp GUI builder.
The Sig: "Despite the seemingly endless necessity for doing
so, it's actually not possible to reverse-engineer intended invariants
from staring at thousands of lines of code (not in C, and not in
Python code either)." Tim Peters on python-dev
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Post #173,845
9/13/04 2:43:31 AM
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Maybe
I am writing server side Java framework code, I still find that the IDE helps me a lot especially the refactoring support.
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Post #173,927
9/13/04 12:22:57 PM
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I don't either
I use gvim. There are enough pieces in my coding environment that no "integrated" tool actually integrates them all.
I'd consider Emacs, but my fingers are trained well enough.
Shall we have [link|http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=48495|the debugger debate]? (Note: The Linux mailing list summaries are now on [link|http://www.kerneltraffic.org/|http://www.kerneltraffic.org/], so those links will need editing to be found.)
Cheers,
Ben
To deny the indirect purchaser, who in this case is the ultimate purchaser, the right to seek relief from unlawful conduct, would essentially remove the word consumer from the Consumer Protection Act
- [link|http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?NewsID=1246&Page=1&pagePos=20|Nebraska Supreme Court]
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Post #174,053
9/13/04 10:48:19 PM
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I think I put my finger on it
With an IDE, I see nearly all the benefit immediately. With vim I discover a new thing about every other week. The more I use it the more productive I get with it.
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Implicitly condoning stupidity since 2001.
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