I think both your and parent's analogy are somewhat off. IDE is like a big machine that can make a variety of parts to the exact spec very fast with minimal wa

I think both your and parent's analogy are somewhat off. IDE is like a big machine that can make a variety of parts to the exact spec very fast with minimal waste. This machine can help even inexperienced operator become productive in short time. vi/ed is like manual power tools that can accomplish the same task but it takes a lot longer, wastes a lot more material and only experienced operators can be somewhat productive but nowhere near what they could achieve with the big machine. When users become experts with these tools, they can produce all sorts of custom parts that big machine is not configured for but like they always say - use the right tool for the job: if you are making 5 custom parts then use the hand tools, when you are making hundreds of the same part, use the big machine.