3 ms·

I think we, as developers, go out of our way to perpetuate that myth. How many times have you heard an experienced developer sneer at a newbie because they're u

I think we, as developers, go out of our way to perpetuate that myth. How many times have you heard an experienced developer sneer at a newbie because they're using Notepad or gEdit? I think that there is definitely a tendency amongst developers to venerate tools and forget that tools are great only insofar as they allow you to be more productive. When I'm using software, I care that it's correct, that its user interface is understandable, that it's secure, extensible and performant. Approximately none of those things have a correlation with the editor or IDE used to write the tool.

judk 12y ago
It is not possible to be productive in Notepad or gEdit, beyond the occasional tiny file tweak.
- quanticle 12y ago
  Why not? I'm only slightly trolling. This is exactly the attitude I'm talking about. We tell newbies that it's not possible to be productive in Notepad or gEdit, and then hand them a text editor that doesn't even write letters onto the screen when you type.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    The key word here is actually editor. Of course notepad and similar work perfectly fine if all you are doing is monotonically outputting a stream of text. When you want to navigate it and make changes, however, they break down (in comparison with alternatives). For most of us, we spend more time editing than writing - even in greenfield development.
    - quanticle 12y ago
      Right. That is what we should be telling newbies. Not, "It's not possible to be productive in Notepad."
      - dllthomas 12y ago
        For whatever it's worth, that is what I tell newbies when I demand they switch to "some kind of real editor". As it happens, I'm fairly nondenominational when it comes to which they use; though I certainly have my personal preferences my advice is usually to switch to the editor for which mentoring is most easily available to them.

3 ms·

I think we, as developers, go out of our way to perpetuate that myth. How many times have you heard an experienced developer sneer at a newbie because they're u

by quanticle 12y ago

judk 12y ago
It is not possible to be productive in Notepad or gEdit, beyond the occasional tiny file tweak.
- quanticle 12y ago
  Why not? I'm only slightly trolling. This is exactly the attitude I'm talking about. We tell newbies that it's not possible to be productive in Notepad or gEdit, and then hand them a text editor that doesn't even write letters onto the screen when you type.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    The key word here is actually editor. Of course notepad and similar work perfectly fine if all you are doing is monotonically outputting a stream of text. When you want to navigate it and make changes, however, they break down (in comparison with alternatives). For most of us, we spend more time editing than writing - even in greenfield development.
    - quanticle 12y ago
      Right. That is what we should be telling newbies. Not, "It's not possible to be productive in Notepad."
      - dllthomas 12y ago
        For whatever it's worth, that is what I tell newbies when I demand they switch to "some kind of real editor". As it happens, I'm fairly nondenominational when it comes to which they use; though I certainly have my personal preferences my advice is usually to switch to the editor for which mentoring is most easily available to them.