I have worked productively with quite a number of different toolchains. Among them were full-blown IDEs that worked great (VS+VisualAssistX and Eclipse for C++,

I have worked productively with quite a number of different toolchains. Among them were full-blown IDEs that worked great (VS+VisualAssistX and Eclipse for C++, XCode for Obj-C), there were IDEs that worked less than great (VisualDSP, Matlab) and several combinations of dynamic languages and Emacs or Vim. I feel that some languages/environments benefit more from IDE support than others. But in the end, whatever works well for you is a good tool. Bad tools however drain the life out of me and leave a hollow shell of a coding monkey. I hate working with inadequate software. In general though, the text editing capabilities of Emacs and Vim blow anything else out of the water and make a huge difference to my productivity and enjoyment. IDEs often lack that (but there are usually plugins like ViEmu or VsVim that can make up for it). Another great thing to have is good autocompletion, which Vim in particular is not that good at (again, plugins can help). Lastly, refactoring tools are a nice time-saver, even though a comparatively rarely used one. This is where IDEs usually have an edge. Taken as a whole though, my enjoyment usually peaks when I feel powerful. With Emacs or Vim, you sometimes feel like a code surgeon, slicing and dicing code as if by magic. THAT, is cool. It is an experience that IDEs have a hard time to make up for. Also, the customizability of Emacs an Vim allows you to discover new stuff whenever you want, which is a great thing that avoid becoming bored of your tools. So in the end I guess I concur with the author in that I prefer simple tools to those slick IDEs.