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(Longtime emacs user but have now used sublime text for several years) Super interesting post, Mike! Not surprising that emacs/vim users tested better since us

by dtran 9y ago

(Longtime emacs user but have now used sublime text for several years) Super interesting post, Mike! Not surprising that emacs/vim users tested better since use of those is likely correlated with having programmed for longer or having programmed from earlier in life before some of the other editors even existed. Would love to see it normalized by years programming. Also, insert joke about how using emacs or vim probably led to natural selection weeding out all but the most committed programmers or how the bad vim programmers didn't start their Triplebye interview because they're still trying to figure out how to toggle back to command mode to exit. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: I was surprised to see such a big difference between PyCharms and Sublime. Would love to see a language breakdown for generic text editors like Sublime and Atom and compare python interviewees who used Sublime to python interviewees who used PyCharms. I also wonder if there's some confounding variable since AFAIK there's no free version of PyCharms whereas there are free versions of Sublime and Atom, so an interviewee who has a PyCharms license likely uses it in a school or professional setting.

compumike 9y ago
It's a reasonable hypothesis that there's probably a correlation with when someone started programming. Both editors and languages are "sticky" tool choices in that way. FYI, I think there's a free version of PyCharm (Community Edition).
- hashkb 9y ago
  I used TextMate and then Sublime for the first half of my 10 year career. It took seeing a coworker use vim to sell me on it, and within two weeks I was a better text editor than ever before. You all know the rest of the story, but I'm one counterexample to the "how long have you been coding?" angle. I was meant to discover these editors even though I'm relatively young. (31 heh)
- buxtehude 9y ago
  Curious if Triplebyte interviews for all of dev/ops/devops positions? Is there a higher/lower success rate in ops/devops vs pure development? For example vim is used extensively in ops/devops and emacs use there is quite rare. If there is a higher success rate in ops/devops and if vim is used more in ops/devops - could this influence the results shown? Fascinating data - thanks for sharing.
- Osmium 9y ago
  > FYI, I think there's a free version of PyCharm (Community Edition). I recently started using PyCharm CE over the last year and it really is a lovely IDE. I'm not surprised it works well in interviews, it makes it easy to get things done with minimum fuss.
  - rishabhparikh 9y ago
    Would also like to plug iPython Notebooks (Jupyter). Extremely useful for coding challenges/pair programming/ad-hoc testing!
- jtmarmon 9y ago
  And, indeed, eclipse is the editor most colleges use to teach undergrad students Java.
msla 9y ago
Using Emacs and/or Vim is also a test of how much you care, primarily because they're not the default anymore, so anyone who uses them cares enough about their programming environment to use a non-default editor, and one which has a rather higher barrier to entry than most at that. (Although, to be honest, using the GUI version of GNU Emacs as a Notepad replacement is possible: Just ignore the keyboard commands and interact solely via the menu up top. You even get access to at least some neat major modes this way. Still, Emacs isn't the default, so anyone using Emacs probably knows why, and won't be the kind of person to use it without getting more out of it.)
- jcelerier 9y ago
  > Using Emacs and/or Vim is also a test of how much you care, primarily because they're not the default anymore, so anyone who uses them cares enough about their programming environment to use a non-default editor, and one which has a rather higher barrier to entry than most at that. Depends, at the school I went to (less than five years ago), you start by learning emacs in the first month. A lot of people just stay with emacs for the remaining of the three years, because that's the first thing they learn.
  - pen2l 9y ago
    Oh wow, there are schools that introduce these tools? I know that every SE degree includes a course on practices in which they go over version control, some diff tools, etc. but I wasn't aware of a school teaching vim/emacs. May I ask which school it is that is doing this?
    - josteink 9y ago
      At uni, that was what we were taught. On FreeBSD desktop-machines no less. But that was 15 years ago. I have no idea what they teach now.
    - pswilson14 9y ago
      Not OP, but UC San Diego taught both Vim and Emacs when I was there 5 years ago
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
mywittyname 9y ago
Personally, I think it speaks to the ability to learn. Vim and Emacs are borderline torturous for beginners and it's easy to give up. The ability to push past insurmountable difficulties is likely highly correlated with programming performance (since most of us need to do that often).
- andrewstuart2 9y ago
  I think it also speaks to the ability to look beyond short-term pain to the long-term benefits, as you alluded to in your third sentence. Just because something is foreign and difficult should never be enough to discount the best, most efficient long-term solution. Powering through the barrier to entry with your mind on the long-term is necessary for success in engineering disciplines, and also happens to be required for proficiency in daily use of these editors.
- mettamage 9y ago
  I don't know about emacs (never tried it), but I really disagree with vim. I keep saying this on Hacker News over and over again but go to your terminal, type in vimtutor and 30 minutes later you can survive in vim and not flip out anymore. Mastering vim or becoming pretty good in vim, seems quite a bit more difficult. I've given up on vim 5 times, until someone on HN suggested me vimtutor. It really taught me the value in good educational content.
  - jackmott 9y ago
    you need to master it though before it stops being a productivity hindrance if you have already mastered an IDE with first class support for your language.
    - quickthrower2 9y ago
      That's why I gave up on Vim at work vs Visual Studio. But it's my go to for Haskell projects. What I like best about vim is the startup speed and fewer reaches for the mouse. I do like using the mouse to select a large block of text to indent tho!

by dtran 9y ago

compumike 9y ago

It's a reasonable hypothesis that there's probably a correlation with when someone started programming. Both editors and languages are "sticky" tool choices in that way. FYI, I think there's a free version of PyCharm (Community Edition).

hashkb 9y ago
I used TextMate and then Sublime for the first half of my 10 year career. It took seeing a coworker use vim to sell me on it, and within two weeks I was a better text editor than ever before. You all know the rest of the story, but I'm one counterexample to the "how long have you been coding?" angle. I was meant to discover these editors even though I'm relatively young. (31 heh)
buxtehude 9y ago
Curious if Triplebyte interviews for all of dev/ops/devops positions? Is there a higher/lower success rate in ops/devops vs pure development? For example vim is used extensively in ops/devops and emacs use there is quite rare. If there is a higher success rate in ops/devops and if vim is used more in ops/devops - could this influence the results shown? Fascinating data - thanks for sharing.
Osmium 9y ago
> FYI, I think there's a free version of PyCharm (Community Edition). I recently started using PyCharm CE over the last year and it really is a lovely IDE. I'm not surprised it works well in interviews, it makes it easy to get things done with minimum fuss.
- rishabhparikh 9y ago
  Would also like to plug iPython Notebooks (Jupyter). Extremely useful for coding challenges/pair programming/ad-hoc testing!
jtmarmon 9y ago
And, indeed, eclipse is the editor most colleges use to teach undergrad students Java.

msla 9y ago

Using Emacs and/or Vim is also a test of how much you care, primarily because they're not the default anymore, so anyone who uses them cares enough about their programming environment to use a non-default editor, and one which has a rather higher barrier to entry than most at that. (Although, to be honest, using the GUI version of GNU Emacs as a Notepad replacement is possible: Just ignore the keyboard commands and interact solely via the menu up top. You even get access to at least some neat major modes this way. Still, Emacs isn't the default, so anyone using Emacs probably knows why, and won't be the kind of person to use it without getting more out of it.)

jcelerier 9y ago
> Using Emacs and/or Vim is also a test of how much you care, primarily because they're not the default anymore, so anyone who uses them cares enough about their programming environment to use a non-default editor, and one which has a rather higher barrier to entry than most at that. Depends, at the school I went to (less than five years ago), you start by learning emacs in the first month. A lot of people just stay with emacs for the remaining of the three years, because that's the first thing they learn.
- pen2l 9y ago
  Oh wow, there are schools that introduce these tools? I know that every SE degree includes a course on practices in which they go over version control, some diff tools, etc. but I wasn't aware of a school teaching vim/emacs. May I ask which school it is that is doing this?
  - josteink 9y ago
    At uni, that was what we were taught. On FreeBSD desktop-machines no less. But that was 15 years ago. I have no idea what they teach now.
  - pswilson14 9y ago
    Not OP, but UC San Diego taught both Vim and Emacs when I was there 5 years ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

mywittyname 9y ago

Personally, I think it speaks to the ability to learn. Vim and Emacs are borderline torturous for beginners and it's easy to give up. The ability to push past insurmountable difficulties is likely highly correlated with programming performance (since most of us need to do that often).

andrewstuart2 9y ago
I think it also speaks to the ability to look beyond short-term pain to the long-term benefits, as you alluded to in your third sentence. Just because something is foreign and difficult should never be enough to discount the best, most efficient long-term solution. Powering through the barrier to entry with your mind on the long-term is necessary for success in engineering disciplines, and also happens to be required for proficiency in daily use of these editors.
mettamage 9y ago
I don't know about emacs (never tried it), but I really disagree with vim. I keep saying this on Hacker News over and over again but go to your terminal, type in vimtutor and 30 minutes later you can survive in vim and not flip out anymore. Mastering vim or becoming pretty good in vim, seems quite a bit more difficult. I've given up on vim 5 times, until someone on HN suggested me vimtutor. It really taught me the value in good educational content.
- jackmott 9y ago
  you need to master it though before it stops being a productivity hindrance if you have already mastered an IDE with first class support for your language.
  - quickthrower2 9y ago
    That's why I gave up on Vim at work vs Visual Studio. But it's my go to for Haskell projects. What I like best about vim is the startup speed and fewer reaches for the mouse. I do like using the mouse to select a large block of text to indent tho!