6 ms·

One Man’s HTML5 Developer Workflow

63 points by ukdm 15y ago

djtriptych 15y ago
Author on vim: "MacVim: it’s Vim, need I say more? Actually, I do need to say more: I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate Vim – did I mention that I hate it? I just don’t get how anyone could like the antiquated Unix-originating Vim with it’s stupid modes, over any of the other options that are out there. Emacs was waaay better than Vim back in the day; nano is better than Vim now; and they both pale in comparison to Sublime, and the other feature rich editors listed here; and yet, excellent coders, such as Thomas Fuchs use this editor — like I said, I don’t get it" Spoken like a man who has spent less than 10 minutes with it. vim rewards the patient practitioner with an unbeatable mind-editor connection over time, and self-reinforces universally good skills to have like touch-typing. Still thankful for my mentor as a Google intern who told me on day 1: "learn python, learn vim." Anyway, point is ACTA sucks.
- hippee-lee 15y ago
  It's emacs for me but I agree with your thought on the patient practitioner and the mind editor connection. I also think a decent keyboard is part of that connection. I did like the article; the graphic was a good image to see where I may have some holes and gave me some ideas for how to fill them.
- antinitro 15y ago
  I agree. Once you settle into vim, your productivity increases threefold. I can copy the contents of a string and paste it somewhere else in about 6 keystrokes. I've not yet found anything that can compare.
  - kylebrown 15y ago
    In notepad it takes 4 keystrokes (ctrl+c, ctrl+v). The "mouse hampers productivity" viewpoint seems like a form of neckbeard neo-luddism to me. I mean, I hate visual IDEs (/cough Xcode) and WYSIWYGs as much as anybody. But the mouse was invented because keyboards suck at navigating. I love my mouse. I like Yehuda Katz for trying to stick with TextMate, when he could have jumped on the emacs/vim bandwagon much sooner than he did. Maybe for a rockstar-ninja like Katz, it does result in a productivity increase. But for myself (and most of the rest of us, I argue), the bottleneck in my productivity is most definitely not the speed at which I can copy/paste or any other mechanism involved in editing text and refactoring. Even without vim, I can already manipulate text FAR faster than I can think, architect, specify, and code. The cynical atheist part of me says that emacs/vim is a hipster credential for regular people who just want to feel like rockstar-ninjas.
- CJefferson 15y ago
  I have spent weeks with Vim. I hate it more the more I used it, and now I use sublime. I don't mind other people choosing to use it, but I got more productive in 30 minutes of Sublime than 3 weeks of vim.
  - pilgrim689 15y ago
    I think 3 weeks is not enough. It took me ~4 months before noticing significant efficiency gains.
    - superdude 15y ago
      I don't know about you, but I think 4 months is just way too long to expect someone to stick with it. I'm not going to invest months of time into a tool with no measurable benefit.
      - jimrhoskins 15y ago
        I used to think like that, then I realized, I am going to be editing text for at least the next 20-30 years (if not longer). I get the feeling vi(m) (and emacs) will be around then, so it's an investment worth making. It only took a few weeks to reach the efficiency I had with TextMate, and every week since I've become more and more efficient. I haven't hit the point of diminishing returns in learning about my editor, and judging by other vim users I've seen, I probably won't for a long, long time.
        CJefferson 15y ago
        If I was 100% sure vim was 'the answer', it would be worth spending 4 months on it. But maybe emacs is the answer. Or eclipse. Or sublime text. Or Visual Studio. Now, to give all these editors a fair shot, I'm planning on being considerably less efficient for well over a year (if none of these editors really suited me).
      - sunchild 15y ago
        One measurable benefit to learning vim is being able to work just about any remote server.
- chetan51 15y ago
  I can't imagine anyone who's spent 3+ months in Vim and hates it. It's become an extension of my fingers now, and I'm unbearably slow editing text without it. I can't wait for Sublime Text 2 to have a fully developed Vintage mode so I can switch to the superior UI. But in terms of key bindings + modes, Vim is irreplaceable.
  - a_a_r_o_n 15y ago
    Musicians talk about freeing yourself from your instrument, after which your instrument allows you to express yourself, rather than being a thing that you consciously manipulate. That's what you get from Vim (or Emacs), and it probably takes about as much time and work.
  - CJefferson 15y ago
    The problem is that I can't move everything I do over to vim. I can only seem to hard-wire one set of key shortcuts into my fingers, so when I've used vim for a while I keep mis-pressing when using Apple Mail, and when I've been eclipsing for a while (because I was working on a project which is already fully eclipsed up), I go back to vim and my fingers keep pressing cmd+z,x,c,v. My suspicions as to why some people love vim, while I don't is: 1) They work in an environment where they can go 100% vim. 2) They find it easy to switch between two different sets of keys, without half an hour or so of mis-pressings.
    - X-Istence 15y ago
      I switch between different apps without any major pains, one thing I have noticed though is that I tend to use Cmd + x, c, v within MacVim anyway. Yes, I know it is bad, but it lets me get work done quickly and efficiently and thus I really don't care what the purists say. Maybe that is the key to success, don't let the purists say that you shouldn't do it, just do what feels natural and eventually it will help you get faster anyway.
  - vertr 15y ago
    Are they planning on making Vintage mode better? I just tried it, and there's a lot of unexpected behavior. It jumps into insert mode for commands that shouldn't and so on.
- alwillis 15y ago
  I thought he was unnecessarily harsh re: Vim, which is my default text editor these days. That being said, Sublime Text 2 looks impressive in its own way.
iusable 15y ago
Thanks for sharing this. Interesting thing to note - you prototype/create_mockups in Keynote :)
Johnyma22 15y ago
I wonder how he tests for IE related issues
EwanG 15y ago
Does anyone have an equivalent workflow example for Windows? I get (git) the use of PhoneGap and GitHub, but the pieces before that which are local I keep playing with and haven't found anything I'm really happy with yet. Figure I'm not the only person still on Windows... Additionally, I would be REAL interested to see if anyone has come up with a workable toolkit for doing this on an iPad or Android tablet? Not SSHing into a remote server but actually working locally.
- ineedtosleep 15y ago
  Locally, the only solutions I found revolved around WAMP/XAMPP. It does well until you need to customize how your web server and modules work. Aside from that, I've been experimenting with a VM of Archlinux running on Windows and connecting to the Arch web server. So far it's decent and better than WAMP/XAMPP, but it does require a bit more work.
- alwillis 15y ago
  I use Vagrant (http://vagrantup.com/ http://vagrantup.com/) for working locally. I create a project folder and use whatever Linux distro, web server, framework, etc. the project calls for. And it's got all kinds of devops goodness by integrating with Chef and Puppet so you can create complex configurations easily.
MatthewPhillips 15y ago
Unfortunately this isn't really an article about workflow; it's an article about the author's favorite tools. I agree with the premise that more needs to be written about web development workflow, I just don't find this to be engaging in that.
- chetan51 15y ago
  I would love to see a follow-up article that goes into more depth about actual workflow, especially regarding how the author co-develops the sites for mobile.
- Deinumite 15y ago
  Agreed, I saw the windows bashing and became kind of wary of the whole article, as soon as I saw the vim / emacs debate brought up I just closed the tab.
- platz 15y ago
  Agree, the element of time seems to be missing here - and this seems a central characteristic of workflows.
gexla 15y ago
I just don't see anything beating out Vim. A good Emacs user might be able to get close, and get's a lot of other benefits, but I think Vim has editing nailed for the keyboard. We will need a completely different interface for something to unseat Vim. Vintage mode in Sublime does add some Vim key bindings, but that doesn't get you Vim. It probably get's enough to satisfy someone who isn't very deep into Vim, but it will never get so far as the users who think in Vim. Also, I'm not sure that you can do everything in Sublime using only the keyboard, once you have to start messing with the mouse then you aren't doing things the Vim way anymore. Vim mode in Emacs (using Evil) is far better for me than Vim mode in Sublime. I have never understood the "looks" argument against Vim. It's text, it doesn't need to be pretty. You will see a lot of people say they are impressed with Sublime. I usually see that in response to people asking about editors other than Vim or Emacs. Others who ask aren't the people who are willing to put in the time to learn Emacs and Vim. I would agree with this, take away Vim and Emacs and Sublime is probably what I would be using. Emacs and Vim are open source, Sublime is not. Need I say more?

63 points by ukdm 15y ago

Author on vim: "MacVim: it’s Vim, need I say more? Actually, I do need to say more: I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate Vim – did I mention that I hate it? I just don’t get how anyone could like the antiquated Unix-originating Vim with it’s stupid modes, over any of the other options that are out there. Emacs was waaay better than Vim back in the day; nano is better than Vim now; and they both pale in comparison to Sublime, and the other feature rich editors listed here; and yet, excellent coders, such as Thomas Fuchs use this editor — like I said, I don’t get it" Spoken like a man who has spent less than 10 minutes with it. vim rewards the patient practitioner with an unbeatable mind-editor connection over time, and self-reinforces universally good skills to have like touch-typing. Still thankful for my mentor as a Google intern who told me on day 1: "learn python, learn vim." Anyway, point is ACTA sucks.

hippee-lee 15y ago
It's emacs for me but I agree with your thought on the patient practitioner and the mind editor connection. I also think a decent keyboard is part of that connection. I did like the article; the graphic was a good image to see where I may have some holes and gave me some ideas for how to fill them.
antinitro 15y ago
I agree. Once you settle into vim, your productivity increases threefold. I can copy the contents of a string and paste it somewhere else in about 6 keystrokes. I've not yet found anything that can compare.
- kylebrown 15y ago
  In notepad it takes 4 keystrokes (ctrl+c, ctrl+v). The "mouse hampers productivity" viewpoint seems like a form of neckbeard neo-luddism to me. I mean, I hate visual IDEs (/cough Xcode) and WYSIWYGs as much as anybody. But the mouse was invented because keyboards suck at navigating. I love my mouse. I like Yehuda Katz for trying to stick with TextMate, when he could have jumped on the emacs/vim bandwagon much sooner than he did. Maybe for a rockstar-ninja like Katz, it does result in a productivity increase. But for myself (and most of the rest of us, I argue), the bottleneck in my productivity is most definitely not the speed at which I can copy/paste or any other mechanism involved in editing text and refactoring. Even without vim, I can already manipulate text FAR faster than I can think, architect, specify, and code. The cynical atheist part of me says that emacs/vim is a hipster credential for regular people who just want to feel like rockstar-ninjas.
CJefferson 15y ago
I have spent weeks with Vim. I hate it more the more I used it, and now I use sublime. I don't mind other people choosing to use it, but I got more productive in 30 minutes of Sublime than 3 weeks of vim.
- pilgrim689 15y ago
  I think 3 weeks is not enough. It took me ~4 months before noticing significant efficiency gains.
  - superdude 15y ago
    I don't know about you, but I think 4 months is just way too long to expect someone to stick with it. I'm not going to invest months of time into a tool with no measurable benefit.
    - jimrhoskins 15y ago
      I used to think like that, then I realized, I am going to be editing text for at least the next 20-30 years (if not longer). I get the feeling vi(m) (and emacs) will be around then, so it's an investment worth making. It only took a few weeks to reach the efficiency I had with TextMate, and every week since I've become more and more efficient. I haven't hit the point of diminishing returns in learning about my editor, and judging by other vim users I've seen, I probably won't for a long, long time.
      - CJefferson 15y ago
        If I was 100% sure vim was 'the answer', it would be worth spending 4 months on it. But maybe emacs is the answer. Or eclipse. Or sublime text. Or Visual Studio. Now, to give all these editors a fair shot, I'm planning on being considerably less efficient for well over a year (if none of these editors really suited me).
    - sunchild 15y ago
      One measurable benefit to learning vim is being able to work just about any remote server.
chetan51 15y ago
I can't imagine anyone who's spent 3+ months in Vim and hates it. It's become an extension of my fingers now, and I'm unbearably slow editing text without it. I can't wait for Sublime Text 2 to have a fully developed Vintage mode so I can switch to the superior UI. But in terms of key bindings + modes, Vim is irreplaceable.
- a_a_r_o_n 15y ago
  Musicians talk about freeing yourself from your instrument, after which your instrument allows you to express yourself, rather than being a thing that you consciously manipulate. That's what you get from Vim (or Emacs), and it probably takes about as much time and work.
- CJefferson 15y ago
  The problem is that I can't move everything I do over to vim. I can only seem to hard-wire one set of key shortcuts into my fingers, so when I've used vim for a while I keep mis-pressing when using Apple Mail, and when I've been eclipsing for a while (because I was working on a project which is already fully eclipsed up), I go back to vim and my fingers keep pressing cmd+z,x,c,v. My suspicions as to why some people love vim, while I don't is: 1) They work in an environment where they can go 100% vim. 2) They find it easy to switch between two different sets of keys, without half an hour or so of mis-pressings.
  - X-Istence 15y ago
    I switch between different apps without any major pains, one thing I have noticed though is that I tend to use Cmd + x, c, v within MacVim anyway. Yes, I know it is bad, but it lets me get work done quickly and efficiently and thus I really don't care what the purists say. Maybe that is the key to success, don't let the purists say that you shouldn't do it, just do what feels natural and eventually it will help you get faster anyway.
- vertr 15y ago
  Are they planning on making Vintage mode better? I just tried it, and there's a lot of unexpected behavior. It jumps into insert mode for commands that shouldn't and so on.
alwillis 15y ago
I thought he was unnecessarily harsh re: Vim, which is my default text editor these days. That being said, Sublime Text 2 looks impressive in its own way.

iusable 15y ago

Thanks for sharing this. Interesting thing to note - you prototype/create_mockups in Keynote :)

Johnyma22 15y ago

I wonder how he tests for IE related issues

EwanG 15y ago

Does anyone have an equivalent workflow example for Windows? I get (git) the use of PhoneGap and GitHub, but the pieces before that which are local I keep playing with and haven't found anything I'm really happy with yet. Figure I'm not the only person still on Windows... Additionally, I would be REAL interested to see if anyone has come up with a workable toolkit for doing this on an iPad or Android tablet? Not SSHing into a remote server but actually working locally.

ineedtosleep 15y ago
Locally, the only solutions I found revolved around WAMP/XAMPP. It does well until you need to customize how your web server and modules work. Aside from that, I've been experimenting with a VM of Archlinux running on Windows and connecting to the Arch web server. So far it's decent and better than WAMP/XAMPP, but it does require a bit more work.
alwillis 15y ago
I use Vagrant (http://vagrantup.com/ http://vagrantup.com/) for working locally. I create a project folder and use whatever Linux distro, web server, framework, etc. the project calls for. And it's got all kinds of devops goodness by integrating with Chef and Puppet so you can create complex configurations easily.

MatthewPhillips 15y ago

Unfortunately this isn't really an article about workflow; it's an article about the author's favorite tools. I agree with the premise that more needs to be written about web development workflow, I just don't find this to be engaging in that.

chetan51 15y ago
I would love to see a follow-up article that goes into more depth about actual workflow, especially regarding how the author co-develops the sites for mobile.
Deinumite 15y ago
Agreed, I saw the windows bashing and became kind of wary of the whole article, as soon as I saw the vim / emacs debate brought up I just closed the tab.
platz 15y ago
Agree, the element of time seems to be missing here - and this seems a central characteristic of workflows.

gexla 15y ago

I just don't see anything beating out Vim. A good Emacs user might be able to get close, and get's a lot of other benefits, but I think Vim has editing nailed for the keyboard. We will need a completely different interface for something to unseat Vim. Vintage mode in Sublime does add some Vim key bindings, but that doesn't get you Vim. It probably get's enough to satisfy someone who isn't very deep into Vim, but it will never get so far as the users who think in Vim. Also, I'm not sure that you can do everything in Sublime using only the keyboard, once you have to start messing with the mouse then you aren't doing things the Vim way anymore. Vim mode in Emacs (using Evil) is far better for me than Vim mode in Sublime. I have never understood the "looks" argument against Vim. It's text, it doesn't need to be pretty. You will see a lot of people say they are impressed with Sublime. I usually see that in response to people asking about editors other than Vim or Emacs. Others who ask aren't the people who are willing to put in the time to learn Emacs and Vim. I would agree with this, take away Vim and Emacs and Sublime is probably what I would be using. Emacs and Vim are open source, Sublime is not. Need I say more?