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I don't understand why programmers are so precious about their choice of text editor. They obviously managed to learn and adapt to their current choice. Why can

I don't understand why programmers are so precious about their choice of text editor. They obviously managed to learn and adapt to their current choice. Why can't they adapt to a new one?

chrisseaton 6y ago
Well I guess you’re trying to mock me but I also agree with this.
- egypturnash 6y ago
  I was attempting to reframe your question to apply to a rough guess of who you are, and what tools you spend most of your life using, based on the fact that you are (a) commenting on HN, and (b) display no sympathy with the plight of a user who's had the UI they stopped having to think about ages ago suddenly change out from under them. Probably with deadlines looming that have no room for "everything takes twice as long for a while while we get used to the new setup and the fact that one key we regularly hit as part of the process now deletes half our work". Is that mocking you?
smabie 6y ago
I mean, a lot of programmers have spent their entire lives either using Emacs or vi keybindings. It's pretty unreasonable to ask them to change. Mentally switching to an entire different set of editing commands is incredibly difficult and time consuming. I've been using Emacs for over 15 years and I don't know any other keybindings. If I had to switch to vim, it might take me years to get comfortable.
- pseudalopex 6y ago
  That's the point.
hyperman1 6y ago
Funny. I'm trying to adapt my Java workflow from eclipse to idea. Again. And I know that almost everyone agrees idea is better than eclipse. And some of eclipse's major features are broken enough to actually hamper me professionally - looking at you, maven integration. And both tools seem at least equally capable, just everything is named different and placed somewhere else. But eclipse is now about 20 years ingrained in me. So every 1-2 years I try to live with idea for a month or so. Sometimes even compromising by switching to the eclipse keybindings. And I know my productivity will drop while adapting. So I sweat on that bloody superior idea interface for 2 weeks, then some super hot emergency drops in, and I do 'only this one' in eclipse. Then switch back to idea. After 2 of 3 emergency's, I give up and go back to eclipse. See you next year, idea. I know this is stupid. I'm happy using emacs, vscode, notepad++, even vi, for almost every other programming language, except Java. This can't be healthy. And yet...
- saagarjha 6y ago
  For me InyelliJ just can’t get it quite like how I have Eclipse set up, and it’s somehow uglier than Eclipse…

I don't understand why programmers are so precious about their choice of text editor. They obviously managed to learn and adapt to their current choice. Why can't they adapt to a new one?

chrisseaton 6y ago

Well I guess you’re trying to mock me but I also agree with this.

egypturnash 6y ago
I was attempting to reframe your question to apply to a rough guess of who you are, and what tools you spend most of your life using, based on the fact that you are (a) commenting on HN, and (b) display no sympathy with the plight of a user who's had the UI they stopped having to think about ages ago suddenly change out from under them. Probably with deadlines looming that have no room for "everything takes twice as long for a while while we get used to the new setup and the fact that one key we regularly hit as part of the process now deletes half our work". Is that mocking you?

smabie 6y ago

I mean, a lot of programmers have spent their entire lives either using Emacs or vi keybindings. It's pretty unreasonable to ask them to change. Mentally switching to an entire different set of editing commands is incredibly difficult and time consuming. I've been using Emacs for over 15 years and I don't know any other keybindings. If I had to switch to vim, it might take me years to get comfortable.

pseudalopex 6y ago
That's the point.

hyperman1 6y ago

Funny. I'm trying to adapt my Java workflow from eclipse to idea. Again. And I know that almost everyone agrees idea is better than eclipse. And some of eclipse's major features are broken enough to actually hamper me professionally - looking at you, maven integration. And both tools seem at least equally capable, just everything is named different and placed somewhere else. But eclipse is now about 20 years ingrained in me. So every 1-2 years I try to live with idea for a month or so. Sometimes even compromising by switching to the eclipse keybindings. And I know my productivity will drop while adapting. So I sweat on that bloody superior idea interface for 2 weeks, then some super hot emergency drops in, and I do 'only this one' in eclipse. Then switch back to idea. After 2 of 3 emergency's, I give up and go back to eclipse. See you next year, idea. I know this is stupid. I'm happy using emacs, vscode, notepad++, even vi, for almost every other programming language, except Java. This can't be healthy. And yet...

saagarjha 6y ago
For me InyelliJ just can’t get it quite like how I have Eclipse set up, and it’s somehow uglier than Eclipse…