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> It's hard to beat an editor for opening a file or directory you've never seen before and making a quick edit. You can be done before a more powerful IDE has e

> It's hard to beat an editor for opening a file or directory you've never seen before and making a quick edit. You can be done before a more powerful IDE has even finished indexing the source code. I can't imagine this _ever_ being the case. Setup of an IDE is trivial compared to wrapping one's head around the first time look at a new project. I mean, you're talking about cracking open a new project you've never seen, making an edit and "being done" in a matter of a few minutes ! This is perhaps doable if you're talking about assembly-line-cookie-cutter projects, or maybe you're talking about super-geniuses? It takes me a minimum of hours to days before I'm ready to "make a quick edit" on a project I've never seen.

RussianCow 8y ago
Plus, per-project IDE configuration should be extremely minimal—maybe 15-20 minutes at most?—so I can't imagine that ever being a bottleneck for a new project.
- kakarot 8y ago
  If you're correctly automating and using templates, setting up the base for a new project shouldn't take more than 5-10 minutes.
jonhohle 8y ago
One of my first jobs was writing PHP when editors only had syntax highlighting support for the language. I learned to write, debug, and refactor in Vim and 15 years later I’ve continued to do the same for Java, C, C++, JS, etc. Projects with 10s of KLOC (one of them might be 100s). It’s a different state of mind from IDE users. Not better or worse, just different. I’d hate to be stuck in IntelliJ all day, but most of my colleagues love it. As long as we’re all productive, to each their own. That said, I’m a polyglot, so learning specific IDEs and plugins for all of the different languages and DSLs I use throughout the week sounds miserable to me).
- teekert 8y ago
  I learned to code in Jupyter notebooks. I can't wrap my head around an editor or IDE, I build programs by writing small snippets of code, with all my variables loaded. When it does what I want I move to the next cell. Eventually I'll paste it all into a text editor do some final debugging and that's it. It is very annoying though when I want to start on an old program. I think I should try Spyder or something soon.
skybrian 8y ago
A quick edit might be something shallow like changing a config setting, editing a template, or maybe fixing a bug where you have the stack trace and it's a one-line change. You can find the file to edit based on a search, make a quick patch, run tests, and send it for review by someone who understands the project better. Deep understanding is not required.

RussianCow 8y ago

Plus, per-project IDE configuration should be extremely minimal—maybe 15-20 minutes at most?—so I can't imagine that ever being a bottleneck for a new project.

kakarot 8y ago
If you're correctly automating and using templates, setting up the base for a new project shouldn't take more than 5-10 minutes.

jonhohle 8y ago

One of my first jobs was writing PHP when editors only had syntax highlighting support for the language. I learned to write, debug, and refactor in Vim and 15 years later I’ve continued to do the same for Java, C, C++, JS, etc. Projects with 10s of KLOC (one of them might be 100s). It’s a different state of mind from IDE users. Not better or worse, just different. I’d hate to be stuck in IntelliJ all day, but most of my colleagues love it. As long as we’re all productive, to each their own. That said, I’m a polyglot, so learning specific IDEs and plugins for all of the different languages and DSLs I use throughout the week sounds miserable to me).

teekert 8y ago
I learned to code in Jupyter notebooks. I can't wrap my head around an editor or IDE, I build programs by writing small snippets of code, with all my variables loaded. When it does what I want I move to the next cell. Eventually I'll paste it all into a text editor do some final debugging and that's it. It is very annoying though when I want to start on an old program. I think I should try Spyder or something soon.

skybrian 8y ago

A quick edit might be something shallow like changing a config setting, editing a template, or maybe fixing a bug where you have the stack trace and it's a one-line change. You can find the file to edit based on a search, make a quick patch, run tests, and send it for review by someone who understands the project better. Deep understanding is not required.