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Interesting notion. I am inherently skeptical, because, like many I imagine (and as the article actually discusses), I am squarely in one of the text editor cam

Interesting notion. I am inherently skeptical, because, like many I imagine (and as the article actually discusses), I am squarely in one of the text editor camps (which shall remain nameless to avoid anyone thinking I'm intending on a flamewar). I am certainly open to the notion of alternative forms of interaction with code, but too often I see this take on the form of an IDE with “designer-like” capacities (this is not to say that IDEs are bad, just not what I am personally interested in) or the more simple interfaces used to teach kids to code (again, not a bad thing, just not what I want to use as my daily driver). As others have said, it would have been great if they had open-sourced the code or offered a public instance so it could be vetted (even from an early perspective). And while I will do my best to keep an open mind, the macros available in other text editors seem like they may very well be capable of handling some of the functionality demonstrated in the article without much issue.

kctess5 11y ago
Out of curiosity, how do you deal with not having some of the things that IDEs support? I too am firmly in a text editor camp, but I've recently been basically forced to use Eclipse while writing Java (ick) at work. The fact that it knows a lot about the code is invaluable sometimes - auto-importing package names as you type, fixing build rules in other files automatically, code completion, type-definitions that appear with inline usage notes, etc. Granted, enterprise Java in a build environment is the ideal use case for an IDE, but many of those features are useful all the time. Now when I write other code, it feels somewhat archaic that my text editor of choice isn't giving me function docs/typedefs and managing dependencies as I write. As much as I despise the text editor in Eclipse, living without those things is basically impossible. I have "solved" this problem by constantly switching contexts between my editor of choice and Eclipse, whenever I need to do something crafty. What do other people do about this?
- halosghost 11y ago
  Actually, many of the advanced text editors offer plugins that replicate a variety of the functionality you mention. To better answer your question, I am forced to reveal the text editor I prefer (please do not take this comment as a slant to any other text editor): vim. For vim, there are several plugins that provide completion functionality (for various languages)[1]. There are things to deal with Java imports specifically[2]. (I don't know what you mean by fixing build rules.) Hey, there are even plugins meant to facilitate whole IDE functionality for some languages[3]. Personally, I avoid things like Java so I have less of a use-case for IDEs anyway. Specifically, I code in C and Haskell (and a touch of by-hand llvm-ir for fun). In C, automatic imports and the like, I do not even wish for (since it is so necessary for me to completely understand the function calls I make, I need to read the docs quite commonly which mention the header for #inclusion). And, for Haskell, I'm constantly prototyping in ghci, so I learn what I need anyway. In neithr of these languages do I feel it is helpful enough for me to desire such things. Having said that, I understand that many people disagree; not too long ago, there was a small uproar that Haskell did not have a proper IDE yet. And I am exposed to IDEs at $DAYJOB, but if anything, that has further soured me towards them. To all their own, text editors and IDEs alike; I think I'm likely to stick to my text editor :) [1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5169638/autocompletion-in-vim https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5169638/autocompletion-i... [2] http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=325 http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=325 [3] http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=213 http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=213

kctess5 11y ago

Out of curiosity, how do you deal with not having some of the things that IDEs support? I too am firmly in a text editor camp, but I've recently been basically forced to use Eclipse while writing Java (ick) at work. The fact that it knows a lot about the code is invaluable sometimes - auto-importing package names as you type, fixing build rules in other files automatically, code completion, type-definitions that appear with inline usage notes, etc. Granted, enterprise Java in a build environment is the ideal use case for an IDE, but many of those features are useful all the time. Now when I write other code, it feels somewhat archaic that my text editor of choice isn't giving me function docs/typedefs and managing dependencies as I write. As much as I despise the text editor in Eclipse, living without those things is basically impossible. I have "solved" this problem by constantly switching contexts between my editor of choice and Eclipse, whenever I need to do something crafty. What do other people do about this?

halosghost 11y ago
Actually, many of the advanced text editors offer plugins that replicate a variety of the functionality you mention. To better answer your question, I am forced to reveal the text editor I prefer (please do not take this comment as a slant to any other text editor): vim. For vim, there are several plugins that provide completion functionality (for various languages)[1]. There are things to deal with Java imports specifically[2]. (I don't know what you mean by fixing build rules.) Hey, there are even plugins meant to facilitate whole IDE functionality for some languages[3]. Personally, I avoid things like Java so I have less of a use-case for IDEs anyway. Specifically, I code in C and Haskell (and a touch of by-hand llvm-ir for fun). In C, automatic imports and the like, I do not even wish for (since it is so necessary for me to completely understand the function calls I make, I need to read the docs quite commonly which mention the header for #inclusion). And, for Haskell, I'm constantly prototyping in ghci, so I learn what I need anyway. In neithr of these languages do I feel it is helpful enough for me to desire such things. Having said that, I understand that many people disagree; not too long ago, there was a small uproar that Haskell did not have a proper IDE yet. And I am exposed to IDEs at $DAYJOB, but if anything, that has further soured me towards them. To all their own, text editors and IDEs alike; I think I'm likely to stick to my text editor :) [1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5169638/autocompletion-in-vim https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5169638/autocompletion-i... [2] http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=325 http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=325 [3] http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=213 http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=213