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Oh God, I hate overblown IDEs. If I wanted less control over my development environment I wouldn't be making software, I would rely on whatever already existed.

• RyanZAG 14y ago
  Meta+Click on a function to take you to that function's implementation is easily one of the most production enhancing benefits of an IDE in larger code bases. Also, don't knock the ability of some IDEs to show function documentation on mouseover - this can save a huge amount of time in reading API docs.
  • holri 14y ago
    emacs can do this too and gives you complete control over everything. You can even go to the lisp source of the editor commands very easyly.
    • carbocation 14y ago
      Your point and the point of the comment to which you are replying seem to suggest a 3rd space. (1) There are IDEs, which include things such as build automation, debuggers, function lookups, etc. (2) There are text editors which maybe give you syntax highlighting. I don't think I'm saying anything novel by suggesting that there is also an in-between: something that provides syntax highlighting, function lookups, etc., but which doesn't try to build your project for you. You can use emacs like this, and you can use an IDE like this. So, many people voting for text editor and many voting for IDE may actually mean something more like this.
  • huhtenberg 14y ago
    ctags followed by Ctrl-T in vim does the exact same thing.
    • mercurial 14y ago
      Including functions from an external libraries?
      • chameco 14y ago
        Yes. You can create a tags file for any header file, no matter it's origin. I like to keep mine (for boost, GL, SDL, etc) in ~/.vim/tags and set that as my default tag directory, then use a plugin (Easytags) to auto-update tags for the current source file. That + Supertab + omnicomplete = win.
• jiggy2011 14y ago
  To be fair, most IDEs I have used have been customisable to almost an insane degree. Plus there's usually nothing stopping you from using a combination of the IDE as well as other external tools.
• ElliotH 14y ago
  What languages do you write in though? I'll agree with that in terms of lots of languages, but I've tried writing Java and C# in text editors and that's just miserable without a full IDE. Would you agree? If not how do you survive in a less than full blown IDE for those sorts of languages?
  • mcsmash 14y ago
    I think there's a pretty big misconception about what a text editor and IDE even are. IMHO a text editor is program that edits text, nothing more, nothing less. The primary function of all development environments is to edit text, so an IDE is just something that adds tools to make this easier. Pretty much all IDEs have some facility to navigate files, navigate to specific functions, check syntax, build, etc. etc. etc. So with this definition Vim (and Emacs too) are both IDEs; they're just stripped down so that the developer can choose what features they want to add, or extend it with their own. I'm using Vim for Python, Java, and in the recent past PHP. With the right plugins Vim easily rivals any IDE that I've ever used (to be fair I haven't used that many). It has the added benefits of being widely available, having a bare minimum of requirements, and since it's purely character based it's usable through nothing more than a terminal.