4 ms·

I'm not saying that yours is necessarily the case, of course I don't know, but I feel like lots of people that hold opinions like yours greatly underestimate th

by adlpz 5y ago

I'm not saying that yours is necessarily the case, of course I don't know, but I feel like lots of people that hold opinions like yours greatly underestimate the amount of functionality that comes with something like a Jetbrains IDE. It's not even about the editor itself, nor the graphical or UX stuff. It's the crazy level of introspection and of understanding your code those IDEs bring. My daily experience is just insanely better than with anything else I've tried. In something pretty weakly typed like PHP you can happily rename methods and classes, refactor and extract code, move around namespaces, and the IDE keeps track of everything for you. You also get very smart autocomplete, snippets, integrated debugger with REPL, the whole thing. I've played around with all sorts of vim and emacs distributions and settings and nothing ever came close. Maybe it's just I don't have the time to set it up propert ly. But if that's the case, it's still a point in my favor here.

devin 5y ago
For a long time I would have agreed, but LSP has democratized the space quite a bit. If an editor has a good LSP story, it’ll be able to do all of the renaming, extracting, finding references, etc.
- dfinninger 5y ago
  Eventually, maybe. But Java, Python, and Go are just so good in the IntelliJ suite. Switching between VSCode at home and IntelliJ at work make it readily apparent that there’s still a gap.
ilovecaching 5y ago
I have used Jetbrains IDEA and Clion extensively to understand the other side. An IDEs heavy introspection isn’t necessary, and perhaps actively harmful towards writing and reading code. It’s rigid policy over tools like git is certainly actively harmful. If it takes an IDE to write your code, then it will likely take an IDE to read your code. They are tools that allow you to take shortcuts were you shouldn’t, and rob you of valuable knowledge. Programming is about thinking and continual learning and IDEs sell you the complete opposite. They help you build unsustainable projects where only a computer can understand the binary AND the source code. The other point here is that the gap between IDE and text editor has only gotten smaller over the years and was closed considerably by LSPs. It may not be a perfect match in features, but small niceties are not an excuse for using closed source spyware for your text editor. They also do not make the difference between the success or failure of one’s work.
- charcircuit 5y ago
  >If it takes an IDE to write your code, then it will likely take an IDE to read your code There is nothing wrong with this. We shouldn't let old text editors hold back the productivity of programmers.
  - diffeomorphism 5y ago
    There is lots wrong with this and with this mind set. This is not about "productivity" at all but about being auditable and working in a team.
    - charcircuit 5y ago
      Expecting your teammates to use an IDE does not get it the way of working in a team. In my experience as a team we have a default IDE for everyone to use and a configuration file for it so everyone's is using the same settings. Usually you could use a different IDE if you could configure it to act similar, but making sure everyone uses the same tools doesn't prevent you from working as a team.
  - b3morales 5y ago
    It's not "old text editors". There are current tools for viewing source (pull requests/diffs a prime example) that are extremely good at what they do but are language agnostic. As is so often said, code is read more than it's written. If I can't understand the source without pulling it into my IDE, that adds a lot of friction to these reading tasks.
    - charcircuit 5y ago
      Those other tools you work with can become more advanced to in order to keep up with the improvements your IDE offers. You want to inline a diagram to your code? That image should show up both in your editor and in the diff.
- criddell 5y ago
  You can write shitty code in Emacs as well. I'm certainly guilty of that. Steve Jobs once said that a computer is like a bicycle for your mind. It's an amplifier of sorts and an IDE fits into that metaphor. It will amplify the good and the bad. It's up to you, as a professional, to develop the skills necessary to use the tools in ways that make sense for whatever it is you are working on.
jonnycomputer 5y ago
I'm frequently very impressed with Pycharm's autocomplete suggestions. It is very context sensitive, and frequently seems to guess what I'm trying to do next.

by adlpz 5y ago

devin 5y ago

For a long time I would have agreed, but LSP has democratized the space quite a bit. If an editor has a good LSP story, it’ll be able to do all of the renaming, extracting, finding references, etc.

dfinninger 5y ago
Eventually, maybe. But Java, Python, and Go are just so good in the IntelliJ suite. Switching between VSCode at home and IntelliJ at work make it readily apparent that there’s still a gap.

ilovecaching 5y ago

I have used Jetbrains IDEA and Clion extensively to understand the other side. An IDEs heavy introspection isn’t necessary, and perhaps actively harmful towards writing and reading code. It’s rigid policy over tools like git is certainly actively harmful. If it takes an IDE to write your code, then it will likely take an IDE to read your code. They are tools that allow you to take shortcuts were you shouldn’t, and rob you of valuable knowledge. Programming is about thinking and continual learning and IDEs sell you the complete opposite. They help you build unsustainable projects where only a computer can understand the binary AND the source code. The other point here is that the gap between IDE and text editor has only gotten smaller over the years and was closed considerably by LSPs. It may not be a perfect match in features, but small niceties are not an excuse for using closed source spyware for your text editor. They also do not make the difference between the success or failure of one’s work.

charcircuit 5y ago
>If it takes an IDE to write your code, then it will likely take an IDE to read your code There is nothing wrong with this. We shouldn't let old text editors hold back the productivity of programmers.
- diffeomorphism 5y ago
  There is lots wrong with this and with this mind set. This is not about "productivity" at all but about being auditable and working in a team.
  - charcircuit 5y ago
    Expecting your teammates to use an IDE does not get it the way of working in a team. In my experience as a team we have a default IDE for everyone to use and a configuration file for it so everyone's is using the same settings. Usually you could use a different IDE if you could configure it to act similar, but making sure everyone uses the same tools doesn't prevent you from working as a team.
- b3morales 5y ago
  It's not "old text editors". There are current tools for viewing source (pull requests/diffs a prime example) that are extremely good at what they do but are language agnostic. As is so often said, code is read more than it's written. If I can't understand the source without pulling it into my IDE, that adds a lot of friction to these reading tasks.
  - charcircuit 5y ago
    Those other tools you work with can become more advanced to in order to keep up with the improvements your IDE offers. You want to inline a diagram to your code? That image should show up both in your editor and in the diff.
criddell 5y ago
You can write shitty code in Emacs as well. I'm certainly guilty of that. Steve Jobs once said that a computer is like a bicycle for your mind. It's an amplifier of sorts and an IDE fits into that metaphor. It will amplify the good and the bad. It's up to you, as a professional, to develop the skills necessary to use the tools in ways that make sense for whatever it is you are working on.

jonnycomputer 5y ago

I'm frequently very impressed with Pycharm's autocomplete suggestions. It is very context sensitive, and frequently seems to guess what I'm trying to do next.