13 ms·

What I don't get is why a developer would ever use proprietary software in the first place. I code—it's what I do. I want to tools to be excellent, certainly,

by zeveb 11y ago

What I don't get is why a developer would ever use proprietary software in the first place. I code—it's what I do. I want to tools to be excellent, certainly, and I don't want to have to spend a lot of time fixing them where they aren't, but I want to be able to improve them for my use cases. Who else in the world is as capable at knowing what I need as…me? If you use proprietary software, you're at the mercy of the vendor for features and, as this shows, for pricing and pricing model changes.

progmal1 11y ago
You are right about being at the mercy, but I have not used free software as good as the Microsoft Visual Studio IDE for development.
- dfox 11y ago
  I've heard many people say exactly that (or even that VS is simply the best IDE). I somehow fail to see why would anyone say that. The whole solution/project model seems to be optimized for something that does not make much sense to me. The UI is mostly unusable on small screens. Integrated editor feels somewhat weird to me (I'm probably too addicted to emacs' electric-indent, but even then). Thus I may see some reason to use VS for .NET projects (VS being the "native" IDE), but I completely fail to see why one would use VS for C/C++ (which is even exaggerated by various quirks of MS's compiler, like not supporting C99 and different versions of stdlib that sometimes can be used at same time and sometimes can't).
  - progmal1 11y ago
    For me, the small screen is not an issue, because I typically develop on as much screen as I can muster. As far as the editor, there are some good attempts at code completion from other systems, but I have not found one nearly as good as Intellisense. That is coupled with the jump to definition and declaration. Also, the integrated debugging and some of the edit and continue functionality is amazing.
  - andylei 11y ago
    > I somehow fail to see why would anyone say that. can you really not even comprehend how there's one person out there that would make a choice different than you?
andylei 11y ago
sometimes the proprietary software is better at what it does, which outweighs other drawbacks
manigandham 11y ago
Please... some of us need to get work done and are perfectly happy to pay someone else to give us good quality products. Just because you can do something doesn't mean it's worth doing yourself.
- jordigh 11y ago
  Why not pay them to do it for you and also keep the ability to do it yourself, should you ever need it?
  - rebootthesystem 11y ago
    Because I have exactly zero interest in deviating from what I should be focusing on (my business, my product, my clients, my revenue stream) to go dork around with a text/code editor. Doing so, in the context of a real working business with clients, projects, timelines, deadlines and deliverables would be irresponsible if you can simply pay a company for which that product IS their product and business to deliver what you need and support it. I can see messing around with FOSS as a hobby but unless you are a huge company that can afford to lose clock cycles to your devs playing with FOSS or a medium size company for whom FOSS is a a business it just doesn't make sense. The vast majority of software developers across all disciplines (there's a huge world outside of Silicon Valley, Web Dev and Mobile) have exactly zero need or interest in deviating from their mission to go fix their tools. This is the same reason the vast majority of software developers (again, think outside web folk) have exactly zero interest in vim. It is an utter waste of time compared to point-click-go-go-go.
    - zeveb 11y ago
      > Because I have exactly zero interest in deviating from what I should be focusing on (my business, my product, my clients, my revenue stream) to go dork around with a text/code editor. You can improve your productivity (i.e., increase your revenue) by improving your tools. A blacksmith makes his tools; a developer should be want to extend his environment. > unless you are a huge company that can afford to lose clock cycles to your devs playing with FOSS It's not a loss: it's an investment which pays dividends. > The vast majority of software developers across all disciplines (there's a huge world outside of Silicon Valley, Web Dev and Mobile) have exactly zero need or interest in deviating from their mission to go fix their tools. I have exactly zero interest in hiring or working with someone who is uninterested in improving his productivity. > This is the same reason the vast majority of software developers (again, think outside web folk) have exactly zero interest in vim. It is an utter waste of time compared to point-click-go-go-go. Both vim and emacs are far better and faster at moving structures of code around than the vast majority of GUI editors. Better and faster means…more revenue for less effort. And it's fun!
Latty 11y ago
IntelliJ and PyCharm both have open source cores, and are leaps and bounds ahead of every other IDE out there. (I use eclipse a lot for work, and there is a reason I use IntelliJ at home).
acomjean 11y ago
I use php storm because it works really well out of the box. > I want to tools to be excellent, certainly, and I don't want to have to spend a lot of time fixing Thats what drew me to the JetBrains product line. The default functionality and polish feels good compared with eclipse which is what I usually use when I'm in java. I still jump into emacs for some file editing because it feels right. But eclipse still seem strangely odd to use (that could just be the whole java toolchain thing). I spend a certain amount of time on learning the tools and learning how to configure. The curve on emacs/eclipse configuration is steep. oddly I donated for me emacs / eclipse since I use them enough. > If you use proprietary software, you're at the mercy of the vendor for features.. Something I kinda knew, even as a paying customer, but this change really brings it home. Especially since we now have to keep paying to keep using.
jroseattle 11y ago
In our business, we're building software -- not software tools. I give my engineers full reign to determine what tools they use. For our build vs. buy evaluation, we don't have a need to modify or extend tooling beyond their existing capabilities (I find the JetBrains plug-in model fairly decent.) We use a lot of JetBrains tools in our operation. It all comes down to build/buy assessment, because build still costs money. JetBrains has a price point that puts a tight margin on that build decision.
jasonkester 11y ago
The reason is that we're capable of multiplication and comparison. $240 per year / $200/hour = 1.2 hours that this thing needs to save me each year to be worth paying for. I don't think that I could rewrite ReSharper from scratch in that amount of time. I know from long use that it will save me that much time each year. It's the simplest money I'll spend all year. It would be if my bill rate were a tenth of what it is.

by zeveb 11y ago

progmal1 11y ago

You are right about being at the mercy, but I have not used free software as good as the Microsoft Visual Studio IDE for development.

dfox 11y ago
I've heard many people say exactly that (or even that VS is simply the best IDE). I somehow fail to see why would anyone say that. The whole solution/project model seems to be optimized for something that does not make much sense to me. The UI is mostly unusable on small screens. Integrated editor feels somewhat weird to me (I'm probably too addicted to emacs' electric-indent, but even then). Thus I may see some reason to use VS for .NET projects (VS being the "native" IDE), but I completely fail to see why one would use VS for C/C++ (which is even exaggerated by various quirks of MS's compiler, like not supporting C99 and different versions of stdlib that sometimes can be used at same time and sometimes can't).
- progmal1 11y ago
  For me, the small screen is not an issue, because I typically develop on as much screen as I can muster. As far as the editor, there are some good attempts at code completion from other systems, but I have not found one nearly as good as Intellisense. That is coupled with the jump to definition and declaration. Also, the integrated debugging and some of the edit and continue functionality is amazing.
- andylei 11y ago
  > I somehow fail to see why would anyone say that. can you really not even comprehend how there's one person out there that would make a choice different than you?

andylei 11y ago

sometimes the proprietary software is better at what it does, which outweighs other drawbacks

manigandham 11y ago

Please... some of us need to get work done and are perfectly happy to pay someone else to give us good quality products. Just because you can do something doesn't mean it's worth doing yourself.

jordigh 11y ago
Why not pay them to do it for you and also keep the ability to do it yourself, should you ever need it?
- rebootthesystem 11y ago
  Because I have exactly zero interest in deviating from what I should be focusing on (my business, my product, my clients, my revenue stream) to go dork around with a text/code editor. Doing so, in the context of a real working business with clients, projects, timelines, deadlines and deliverables would be irresponsible if you can simply pay a company for which that product IS their product and business to deliver what you need and support it. I can see messing around with FOSS as a hobby but unless you are a huge company that can afford to lose clock cycles to your devs playing with FOSS or a medium size company for whom FOSS is a a business it just doesn't make sense. The vast majority of software developers across all disciplines (there's a huge world outside of Silicon Valley, Web Dev and Mobile) have exactly zero need or interest in deviating from their mission to go fix their tools. This is the same reason the vast majority of software developers (again, think outside web folk) have exactly zero interest in vim. It is an utter waste of time compared to point-click-go-go-go.
  - zeveb 11y ago
    > Because I have exactly zero interest in deviating from what I should be focusing on (my business, my product, my clients, my revenue stream) to go dork around with a text/code editor. You can improve your productivity (i.e., increase your revenue) by improving your tools. A blacksmith makes his tools; a developer should be want to extend his environment. > unless you are a huge company that can afford to lose clock cycles to your devs playing with FOSS It's not a loss: it's an investment which pays dividends. > The vast majority of software developers across all disciplines (there's a huge world outside of Silicon Valley, Web Dev and Mobile) have exactly zero need or interest in deviating from their mission to go fix their tools. I have exactly zero interest in hiring or working with someone who is uninterested in improving his productivity. > This is the same reason the vast majority of software developers (again, think outside web folk) have exactly zero interest in vim. It is an utter waste of time compared to point-click-go-go-go. Both vim and emacs are far better and faster at moving structures of code around than the vast majority of GUI editors. Better and faster means…more revenue for less effort. And it's fun!

Latty 11y ago

IntelliJ and PyCharm both have open source cores, and are leaps and bounds ahead of every other IDE out there. (I use eclipse a lot for work, and there is a reason I use IntelliJ at home).

acomjean 11y ago

I use php storm because it works really well out of the box. > I want to tools to be excellent, certainly, and I don't want to have to spend a lot of time fixing Thats what drew me to the JetBrains product line. The default functionality and polish feels good compared with eclipse which is what I usually use when I'm in java. I still jump into emacs for some file editing because it feels right. But eclipse still seem strangely odd to use (that could just be the whole java toolchain thing). I spend a certain amount of time on learning the tools and learning how to configure. The curve on emacs/eclipse configuration is steep. oddly I donated for me emacs / eclipse since I use them enough. > If you use proprietary software, you're at the mercy of the vendor for features.. Something I kinda knew, even as a paying customer, but this change really brings it home. Especially since we now have to keep paying to keep using.

jroseattle 11y ago

In our business, we're building software -- not software tools. I give my engineers full reign to determine what tools they use. For our build vs. buy evaluation, we don't have a need to modify or extend tooling beyond their existing capabilities (I find the JetBrains plug-in model fairly decent.) We use a lot of JetBrains tools in our operation. It all comes down to build/buy assessment, because build still costs money. JetBrains has a price point that puts a tight margin on that build decision.

jasonkester 11y ago

The reason is that we're capable of multiplication and comparison. $240 per year / $200/hour = 1.2 hours that this thing needs to save me each year to be worth paying for. I don't think that I could rewrite ReSharper from scratch in that amount of time. I know from long use that it will save me that much time each year. It's the simplest money I'll spend all year. It would be if my bill rate were a tenth of what it is.