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IDEs - A proper work-grade IDE like Visual Studio will have some tools built into it that will save you tons of time. Features like "Edit & Continue" have saved

IDEs - A proper work-grade IDE like Visual Studio will have some tools built into it that will save you tons of time. Features like "Edit & Continue" have saved my bacon many times by making intractably difficult bugs in algorithms much easier to understand because you can experiment with your code on the fly. There's also some more common features in most IDEs like being able to jump between symbols that saves a lot of time day-to-day. If I'm interviewing you and you say you don't like using an IDE or a debugger, that speaks to your work experience, your productivity, your self awareness about your productivity, and really puts an upper limit on the difficulty of the problems you've had to solve.

skummetmaelk 7y ago
I find that it is usually the opposite. Devs who don't use big IDEs like visual studio are much more likely to know why things fail in a build pipeline etc. If you can only build a project by bumbling through menus and pressing a big green button at the end, that is worrying. If you can only debug by immediately jumping into the debugger and single stepping that is also worrying. Devs who reach for the tools appropriate to a given situation inspire much more confidence in their abilities. Knowing the time saving features of your editor is a huge boost. However, the old editors have much more of these ;)
- snazz 7y ago
  IDEs aren’t useless, you just don’t want them to be a crutch. For this reason, I usually recommend new developers use Nano or a notepad-esque editor until they understand why they might want vi keybindings, then use Vim until they understand why they might want an IDE or something like Emacs. Starting with the IDE hides layers and layers of both junk and useful tools, while experienced developers know which layer of the stack to work on at which time.
clarry 7y ago
> If I'm interviewing you and you say you don't like using an IDE or a debugger, that speaks to your work experience, your productivity, your self awareness about your productivity, and really puts an upper limit on the difficulty of the problems you've had to solve. Or you have surpassed the limit on the difficulty of the problems your debugger & IDE can help with.

skummetmaelk 7y ago

I find that it is usually the opposite. Devs who don't use big IDEs like visual studio are much more likely to know why things fail in a build pipeline etc. If you can only build a project by bumbling through menus and pressing a big green button at the end, that is worrying. If you can only debug by immediately jumping into the debugger and single stepping that is also worrying. Devs who reach for the tools appropriate to a given situation inspire much more confidence in their abilities. Knowing the time saving features of your editor is a huge boost. However, the old editors have much more of these ;)

snazz 7y ago
IDEs aren’t useless, you just don’t want them to be a crutch. For this reason, I usually recommend new developers use Nano or a notepad-esque editor until they understand why they might want vi keybindings, then use Vim until they understand why they might want an IDE or something like Emacs. Starting with the IDE hides layers and layers of both junk and useful tools, while experienced developers know which layer of the stack to work on at which time.

clarry 7y ago

> If I'm interviewing you and you say you don't like using an IDE or a debugger, that speaks to your work experience, your productivity, your self awareness about your productivity, and really puts an upper limit on the difficulty of the problems you've had to solve. Or you have surpassed the limit on the difficulty of the problems your debugger & IDE can help with.