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Good and bad programmrs use IDEs. Good and bad programmers use text editors. Bad programmers use IDEs as a crutch, supporting their otherwise poor programming s
by dazzawazza 18y ago
Good and bad programmrs use IDEs. Good and bad programmers use text editors. Bad programmers use IDEs as a crutch, supporting their otherwise poor programming skills.
It's simplistic to say that IDEs make us dumber. Auto-completion can lead to a vagueness about code structure but refactoring tools can greatly aid programmers to complete repetitive error prone tasks.
- sofal 18y agoAn IDE does a great job at helping you generate and manage repetitive code. The problem is that it doesn't help you read and understand repetitive code. The fact that a repetitive and error prone task needs to be done at all is sometimes (not always, I acknowledge) a sign that your code is redundant and, well, crappy. I think it's a good idea to step back and decide whether the redundancy is legitimate. An IDE doesn't encourage that kind of thinking. Remember, someone after you has to go and read that code, and the IDE is not going to hide the redundancy from him or her. At the end of the day someone is scratching their head and staring at a whole lot of text.