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> A few developers I've known have made the case that they just don't see text editing speed as the bottleneck in their day-to-day work. Right, it's only a bot

> A few developers I've known have made the case that they just don't see text editing speed as the bottleneck in their day-to-day work. Right, it's only a bottleneck if you use the wrong tool for the job. As much as I love vi for text editing, it is the wrong tool for HTML editing and for a growing number of other file types for which more specialized editors exist (e.g. Eclipse for Java). I know that vi experts think they are very fast with vi but they are wrong: if you are using vi for anything but simple text files, you are not being as productive as you could be and you should really consider being more mentally flexible and use the right tool for the job instead of vi for every job.

mcantor 14y ago
Most command-line junkie types actually use vim, not vi. vim is quite practical for editing an enormous variety of file types at breakneck speed, and this is coming from someone who used to exclusively use environments such as Eclipse.
VeejayRampay 14y ago
The best programmers use either Emacs or vim. vim goes way beyond "simple text editing" you don't seem to know what you're talking about.
- mcantor 14y ago
  No! No, no, no, no, no. The best programmers use whatever they use. You are making the same mistake as the guy you're replying to. There is no one best way. We need to get over this mentality as a community. I don't mean to pick on you, as this was clearly just an off-the-cuff comment, but this kind of dialogue is simply worthless. I agree that the grandparent poster seems pretty clueless about vim and its ilk, but an equal and opposite reaction that's just as subjective and baseless will get us nowhere.
- Stratoscope 14y ago
  > The best programmers use either Emacs or vim. Do you really think that? I can assure you that you're wrong: many world-class programmers use editors other than Emacs or vim. There are great programmers who use Microsoft Visual Studio, Komodo IDE, Sublime Text 2, and many dozens of different editors.
- swah 14y ago
  The most beautiful women use skirts.
- eta_carinae 14y ago
  > The best programmers use either Emacs or vim. No, only the programmers that you know. One thing that makes a programmer great is that they will always pick the best tool for the job, not the tool that they are used to. The point here is not that Eclipse or XCode is better than vim, it's that no matter how productive you are writing Java or Objective C with vim, you will be more productive using Eclipse or XCode.
jrockway 14y ago
Eclipse seems to be a program that consumes all available memory to turn its windows grey when you type into it. I'm not sure how you think it's suitable for Java programming. (More seriously: Eclipse is not suited for text editing, but it is suited for dragging and dropping getters and setters. If that's what Java programming is to you, you can save a lot of time with Eclipse.)
- jsankey 14y ago
  Eclipse is bloated, granted, but if you think its strong point is "dragging and dropping getters and setters" then you haven't seriously tried it. I used to think IDEs didn't matter much for basic code editing, but had to change my opinion after using Eclipse and IntelliJ (my preference) for a while. Higher-level (as in -- with knowledge of the programming language) editing and refactoring can make a big difference to your editing experience. Tasks that were tedious become trivial and part of the normal flow. You actually find yourself writing code in a different way once you understand how easily you can manipulate blocks of code (rather than just blocks of text).
  - snprbob86 14y ago
    I've been stuck doing Java lately (grumble grumble). I love Vim, but occasionally, I just want an IDE to dull the Java boilerplate pain. I've been copy pasting sample snippets in to IntelliJ, auto-adding all the import statements, and then going back to do my main coding in Vim. I have to close IntelliJ quickly, however, lest the Swing fonts BURN OUT MY RETNAS on my Linux box. How can anybody get any work done with font rendering that bad?!
    - Flow 14y ago
      Jetbrains are changing their platform to use native font rendering. From their blog: "default look and feel on Linux changed from GTK+ to Alloy IDEA – it uses system fonts and has a much better overall quality (worth to try for current users too)"
      - 14y ago

mcantor 14y ago

Most command-line junkie types actually use vim, not vi. vim is quite practical for editing an enormous variety of file types at breakneck speed, and this is coming from someone who used to exclusively use environments such as Eclipse.

VeejayRampay 14y ago

The best programmers use either Emacs or vim. vim goes way beyond "simple text editing" you don't seem to know what you're talking about.

mcantor 14y ago
No! No, no, no, no, no. The best programmers use whatever they use. You are making the same mistake as the guy you're replying to. There is no one best way. We need to get over this mentality as a community. I don't mean to pick on you, as this was clearly just an off-the-cuff comment, but this kind of dialogue is simply worthless. I agree that the grandparent poster seems pretty clueless about vim and its ilk, but an equal and opposite reaction that's just as subjective and baseless will get us nowhere.
Stratoscope 14y ago
> The best programmers use either Emacs or vim. Do you really think that? I can assure you that you're wrong: many world-class programmers use editors other than Emacs or vim. There are great programmers who use Microsoft Visual Studio, Komodo IDE, Sublime Text 2, and many dozens of different editors.
swah 14y ago
The most beautiful women use skirts.
eta_carinae 14y ago
> The best programmers use either Emacs or vim. No, only the programmers that you know. One thing that makes a programmer great is that they will always pick the best tool for the job, not the tool that they are used to. The point here is not that Eclipse or XCode is better than vim, it's that no matter how productive you are writing Java or Objective C with vim, you will be more productive using Eclipse or XCode.

jrockway 14y ago

Eclipse seems to be a program that consumes all available memory to turn its windows grey when you type into it. I'm not sure how you think it's suitable for Java programming. (More seriously: Eclipse is not suited for text editing, but it is suited for dragging and dropping getters and setters. If that's what Java programming is to you, you can save a lot of time with Eclipse.)

jsankey 14y ago
Eclipse is bloated, granted, but if you think its strong point is "dragging and dropping getters and setters" then you haven't seriously tried it. I used to think IDEs didn't matter much for basic code editing, but had to change my opinion after using Eclipse and IntelliJ (my preference) for a while. Higher-level (as in -- with knowledge of the programming language) editing and refactoring can make a big difference to your editing experience. Tasks that were tedious become trivial and part of the normal flow. You actually find yourself writing code in a different way once you understand how easily you can manipulate blocks of code (rather than just blocks of text).
- snprbob86 14y ago
  I've been stuck doing Java lately (grumble grumble). I love Vim, but occasionally, I just want an IDE to dull the Java boilerplate pain. I've been copy pasting sample snippets in to IntelliJ, auto-adding all the import statements, and then going back to do my main coding in Vim. I have to close IntelliJ quickly, however, lest the Swing fonts BURN OUT MY RETNAS on my Linux box. How can anybody get any work done with font rendering that bad?!
  - Flow 14y ago
    Jetbrains are changing their platform to use native font rendering. From their blog: "default look and feel on Linux changed from GTK+ to Alloy IDEA – it uses system fonts and has a much better overall quality (worth to try for current users too)"
    - 14y ago