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My retort. Install YouCompleteMe because if you don't have high quality auto-complete your editor will feel rubbish compared to an IDE and you will end up movin

My retort. Install YouCompleteMe because if you don't have high quality auto-complete your editor will feel rubbish compared to an IDE and you will end up moving.

RandomInteger4 10y ago
Is autocomplete really necessary though?
- joatmon-snoo 10y ago
  YES. Oh GOD yes. Some of the worst D'oh moments I've had came from before I added tab completion to my .vimrc, because it almost completely eliminated errors that my typos introduced.
- jasonkostempski 10y ago
  Do you have any suggestions about how it may not be, or are you just pondering the idea? I really want there to be something that has the benefits without the Intellisense-level overhead, I haven't seen it though.
  - Normal_gaussian 10y ago
    I find autocomplete annoying. I also suspect autocomplete to be the leading cause of a particular set of subtle bugs - ones where the words on the page seem right but the function chosen has a surprising and uncatered for side affect. When you reinforce to people that it is OK to code blindly ahead, grasping for the right calls at the last second you will end up with poorer quality code (although, it may be typed faster).
    - yomly 10y ago
      There are always tradeoffs but for me, I feel like lack of autocomplete encourages people to use shorter less descriptive names for identifiers. I am a believer in using as descriptive identifiers as possible to make the semantics of your code as clear as possible. If this gives rise to 5-word+ identifiers, so be it, providing it is done tastefully (and not for verbosity's sake). As typing 10+ characters per function call/variable call can get tiring, lack of autocomplete can leads incentivizes the use of shorter names which runs counter to this philosophy, and leads to code being harder to read. (IMHO)
- astrobe_ 10y ago
  It really depends on what you're working on. Huge code bases, weird APIs (for instance the raw Windows API), verbose languages may need an IDE to be manageable.
bunkerbewohner 10y ago
You can also use vim with an IDE, e.g. IntelliJ IDEA. So you get the best of both worlds. :-)
- bluesroo 10y ago
  As someone who uses IntelliJ at the moment, this is an interesting thought to me. What would your workflow look like? In-IDE terminal + Vim for code editing and the rest of the IDE for refactoring, running code, etc.? Or did you mean use Vim bindings in IntelliJ?
  - rajathagasthya 10y ago
    Using vi key bindings is the easiest way to use IntelliJ, IMO. That's how I use my PyCharm and it's amazing. You can even tell your IDE to use your .vimrc.
falcolas 10y ago
Vim comes with autocomplete (omnicomplete) built in. It's just bound to a rather nasty key combination, and works mostly with text on the page and values in the tags files. This isn't always enough for folks, who fall back to YCM or others.
- JupiterMoon 10y ago
  I am well aware that vim comes with a crude autocomplete built in. It is just not anywhere near the same class of usefulness as IDEs' autocompeltes - YCM is. Hence just bite the bullet and install YCM or you will end up moving to an IDE in the end anyway.

My retort. Install YouCompleteMe because if you don't have high quality auto-complete your editor will feel rubbish compared to an IDE and you will end up moving.

RandomInteger4 10y ago

Is autocomplete really necessary though?

joatmon-snoo 10y ago
YES. Oh GOD yes. Some of the worst D'oh moments I've had came from before I added tab completion to my .vimrc, because it almost completely eliminated errors that my typos introduced.
jasonkostempski 10y ago
Do you have any suggestions about how it may not be, or are you just pondering the idea? I really want there to be something that has the benefits without the Intellisense-level overhead, I haven't seen it though.
- Normal_gaussian 10y ago
  I find autocomplete annoying. I also suspect autocomplete to be the leading cause of a particular set of subtle bugs - ones where the words on the page seem right but the function chosen has a surprising and uncatered for side affect. When you reinforce to people that it is OK to code blindly ahead, grasping for the right calls at the last second you will end up with poorer quality code (although, it may be typed faster).
  - yomly 10y ago
    There are always tradeoffs but for me, I feel like lack of autocomplete encourages people to use shorter less descriptive names for identifiers. I am a believer in using as descriptive identifiers as possible to make the semantics of your code as clear as possible. If this gives rise to 5-word+ identifiers, so be it, providing it is done tastefully (and not for verbosity's sake). As typing 10+ characters per function call/variable call can get tiring, lack of autocomplete can leads incentivizes the use of shorter names which runs counter to this philosophy, and leads to code being harder to read. (IMHO)
astrobe_ 10y ago
It really depends on what you're working on. Huge code bases, weird APIs (for instance the raw Windows API), verbose languages may need an IDE to be manageable.

bunkerbewohner 10y ago

You can also use vim with an IDE, e.g. IntelliJ IDEA. So you get the best of both worlds. :-)

bluesroo 10y ago
As someone who uses IntelliJ at the moment, this is an interesting thought to me. What would your workflow look like? In-IDE terminal + Vim for code editing and the rest of the IDE for refactoring, running code, etc.? Or did you mean use Vim bindings in IntelliJ?
- rajathagasthya 10y ago
  Using vi key bindings is the easiest way to use IntelliJ, IMO. That's how I use my PyCharm and it's amazing. You can even tell your IDE to use your .vimrc.

falcolas 10y ago

Vim comes with autocomplete (omnicomplete) built in. It's just bound to a rather nasty key combination, and works mostly with text on the page and values in the tags files. This isn't always enough for folks, who fall back to YCM or others.

JupiterMoon 10y ago
I am well aware that vim comes with a crude autocomplete built in. It is just not anywhere near the same class of usefulness as IDEs' autocompeltes - YCM is. Hence just bite the bullet and install YCM or you will end up moving to an IDE in the end anyway.