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A text editor will always be with you, no matter what you're working on. IDEs tend to be for a specific host platform, language, and sometimes target platform.

A text editor will always be with you, no matter what you're working on. IDEs tend to be for a specific host platform, language, and sometimes target platform. For example, Xcode only runs on a Mac, understands a limited set of languages, and is best used for building Mac and iOS apps. MS Visual Studio only runs on Windows, understands more but different languages, and is best used for building for Microsoft platforms. Android Studio is best used for Android things. IntelliJ and Eclipse are best used for Java. If anyone has heard of your programming language, there is probably an Emacs mode for it.

throwanem 10y ago
More to the point, Xcode, Visual Studio, Android Studio, IntelliJ, Eclipse, and so forth all have generally different UIs, which means that unless you spend all your development time in a single environment, you have to do a lot of really expensive mental context switching. An editor like Emacs or Vim provides a unified user interface for all the different languages and development environments with which you use it, which eliminates almost all of that mental overhead - and can also invoke your compiler, (usually) integrate with your debugger, et cetera. IDEs still win on tight integration, but for any language popular enough that someone's invested the time to build a well-integrated IDE for it, Emacs or Vim will generally cover at least the 90% cases quite well, too.
CJefferson 10y ago
Although often, is not very good. The Emacs support for C++11 was awful for years. May be better now, I left Emacs because it.
- kevbin 10y ago
  https://github.com/Sarcasm/irony-mode https://github.com/Sarcasm/irony-mode
  - CJefferson 10y ago
    If I ever try Emacs again, I'll have a look. In the past I've found clang-based plugins seem to have a half-life of about 6 months.. while Emacs might live forever if your plugins don't, then you are relearning a bunch of things anyway. PS at first i thought your URL was some kind of joke I didn't get, until I clicked it and found it linked to a genuine project.

throwanem 10y ago

More to the point, Xcode, Visual Studio, Android Studio, IntelliJ, Eclipse, and so forth all have generally different UIs, which means that unless you spend all your development time in a single environment, you have to do a lot of really expensive mental context switching. An editor like Emacs or Vim provides a unified user interface for all the different languages and development environments with which you use it, which eliminates almost all of that mental overhead - and can also invoke your compiler, (usually) integrate with your debugger, et cetera. IDEs still win on tight integration, but for any language popular enough that someone's invested the time to build a well-integrated IDE for it, Emacs or Vim will generally cover at least the 90% cases quite well, too.

CJefferson 10y ago

Although often, is not very good. The Emacs support for C++11 was awful for years. May be better now, I left Emacs because it.

kevbin 10y ago
https://github.com/Sarcasm/irony-mode https://github.com/Sarcasm/irony-mode
- CJefferson 10y ago
  If I ever try Emacs again, I'll have a look. In the past I've found clang-based plugins seem to have a half-life of about 6 months.. while Emacs might live forever if your plugins don't, then you are relearning a bunch of things anyway. PS at first i thought your URL was some kind of joke I didn't get, until I clicked it and found it linked to a genuine project.