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What do you mean for "writing tools as powerful as those used by coders"? In my experience good coders doesn't need very powerful tool. Super-complex IDE are us

by LukaAl 12y ago

What do you mean for "writing tools as powerful as those used by coders"? In my experience good coders doesn't need very powerful tool. Super-complex IDE are usually a disturbance to good coders rather then an help and even the uber-geeks that use Emacs don't really use in their jobs all the macros. A lot of good software engineer I know prefer lightweight editor like the good old Vim or SublimeText over IDE like Visual Studio, Xcode or Eclipse. That's because when you write complex code your brain is slower than your finger and the syntax and structure of the language you are using is something under your skin, you don't need to think at it. So, no, great coder doesn't use powerful editors, if they can chose they use very simple one with the minimum level of features they need to help them think faster (syntax highlighting, autocompletion, indention) and stop. All other features of complex IDE are a disturbance rather than an help. I don't know what a good journalist need but my guess is that they have the same problem, their brain is slower than their finger and the grammar of the language they are using should be well known. I don't know which tool they use, but in my opinion a simple text editor with a minimal spellchecking system (but not correction) well integrated with the publishing process is more than enough. From an Innovation point of view I'm usually suspect when someone claim to have an innovative tool for an established industry. If the industry is established the actors have already optimized their tools and if there could be an improvement is very small. What usually happens is that something changes in the industry and make the actual tool obsolete (e.g: a new process or a new technology became available). But if you want to create something really innovative, you have to find this change. Simply bringing something existing in a field in a different field rarely works. And if it works is because you have a really good understanding of both fields.

chc 12y ago
Git and GDB (or your preferred equivalents) are pretty powerful tools relative to what most journalists routinely work with, and pretty much every good coder uses those.
- derekp7 12y ago
  That actually brings up a side topic that I've been trying to follow -- writing text so that it works better with version control. You put each thought or phrase on its own line, and let the markup system compile it into its final form.
debaserab2 12y ago
While it's definitely true in some cases, what you've stated is a generalization: there are some great coders who use SublimeText or some other lightweight editor. Unfortunately, this does not mean using SublimeText makes you a good coder (or even is a sign of one). There is a lot of buy-in to the concept that using a more lightweight IDE makes you a better coder. I see a lot of entry level developers taking on this mentality. Sometime I cringe when I watch a developer using a lightweight IDE, missing so many obvious syntax errors that they're not going to realize until they go to compile or run their code. So many wasted workflow cycles. I work on large codebases and I know that I don't have the mental capacity to hold the entire structure (object interfaces, app structures, third party library usage) in my head. It's great that I can offload this task to my IDE and concentrate on the problem I'm solving instead of getting disrupted by having to think about code mechanics. On a side note, I think it's funny that people like to consider vim a lightweight IDE. All the good vim coders I know of make heavy use of plugins to get the exact same features a full fledged IDE has.
kenrikm 12y ago
I think there may be a case for using something like GitHub to allow editors to edit etc.. and writers to pull the edits though I'm pretty sure most media outlets have systems that do almost the same thing.
efuquen 12y ago
> All other features of complex IDE are a disturbance rather than an help. The things about IDEs that suck productivity wise is that instead of just giving you all the things you do want (syntax, highlighting, autocompletion, indentation) they provide bloat that doesn't make a task faster to do but easier to. What I mean by easier is putting GUIs on top of command line tools and APIs. A great coder looks at all that GUI cruft and thinks, many what hell is the underlying API or CLI tool I can use instead and get rid of all this middleware crap that is probably full of bugs. Someone who is not comfortable with that instead leans on those GUI tools because they don't really want to understand what is going on under the hood, they need the wizards and the text boxes, drop downs, and such to make it easier on themselves. With that said, there is a value in having an editor that can actually understand your target language all the down way to the AST level. That's how you can get nice things like reliable refactoring without having to use grep, sed, and friends. Or with detecting syntax errors and such, and even though the VIM plugin system is doing great there can definitely be more innovation in that space (and there clearly has been lately). But let's just leave out all the Spring XML file builders and Tomcat/Jetty container managers and focus on the code.
zo1 12y ago
>"So, no, great coder doesn't use powerful editors, if they can chose they use very simple one with the minimum level of features they need to help them think faster (syntax highlighting, autocompletion, indention) and stop. All other features of complex IDE are a disturbance rather than an help." Says you, and your anecdotal evidence/experience. Sounds to me that you have more prejudice against "complex" IDEs than you do actual facts. Would countering your points by telling you of the countless bad "coders" I've worked with that use text-editors instead of IDEs convince you to change your mind? (I'm going to stop using your term 'coders' here) Or the absolutely great programmers that I've seen that use powerful IDEs to supplement and augment their abilities? Do you write in a compiled language that can provide rich intellisense, or something more like Ruby/Python/bash that is a tad lacking in that department?
- deleted 12y ago
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- mkehrt 12y ago
  Unrelated to the actual point, but I'm curious. You seem to be loathe to use the word "coder". Why is that? How is it different from programmer? Is there some sort of cultural shibboleth I'm unaware of here?
  - zo1 12y ago
    I don't think it's a broader cultural thing, or anything. And personally, I'm fine with the term. It's just there was something about the way the OP was using the word "coder" that didn't quite sit well with me. Reading back at his post, I can't quite put a finger on what it was that actually bothered me about it.
- LukaAl 12y ago
  I use coder because that's the term used in the question. I prefer software engineer usually. I'm not a coder, or software engineer, for what it matters but I'm doing it now and I understand how it works and I use all sort of language, from C to Python. I have no prejudice against complex editor. In my opinion everyone should be able to choose without problems the editor/IDE that prefers and that's not always true. My anecdotal evidence is that, when free to choose, the better you are at a language the more you prefer an editor. Nevertheless, I could accept your point of view, but you should explain me something, if there are different point of view you should accept that the advantage of this so called "powerful tool" is less than clear.
freshhawk 12y ago
As someone also in the "editor > IDE" camp, I agree that a single monolithic tool is maybe the wrong path to take. But good coders still need powerful tools, just lots of tools, rather than one complex one. Simple and powerful are orthogonal. I disagree that established industries have already optimized their tools. That's just blatantly untrue in real life, and for good reason. The tool makers always have the best tools. A journalist can't make a better tool for journalism without learning an entire new career (and tool making requires more experience than average as well, beginners don't make good tools).
- LukaAl 12y ago
  Agree on the need of powerful tool. And sometimes you ends up spending time writing the right tool for that specific tasks when it is missing (done more than one time). On your rebuttal on the tools for established industries, I just said that it's a suspicious claim, not that is false. The point is this: if an industry is a niche, usually who works in that niche has to build their own tools. In larger industries, like journalism, you think that a professional is not asked by toolmakers which feature they need to make their works faster or they don't approach themselves the toolmakers to ask for better tools? But let's see the problem from a different perspective. Could you list me an innovation that is just the application of a consolidated concept in an area to another consolidated area without a change on the underlying industry or of the technology. There's a lot of literature on this point. If you are interested, you could search for the Utterback S or the concept of paradigm shift in innovation.

by LukaAl 12y ago

chc 12y ago

Git and GDB (or your preferred equivalents) are pretty powerful tools relative to what most journalists routinely work with, and pretty much every good coder uses those.

derekp7 12y ago
That actually brings up a side topic that I've been trying to follow -- writing text so that it works better with version control. You put each thought or phrase on its own line, and let the markup system compile it into its final form.

debaserab2 12y ago

While it's definitely true in some cases, what you've stated is a generalization: there are some great coders who use SublimeText or some other lightweight editor. Unfortunately, this does not mean using SublimeText makes you a good coder (or even is a sign of one). There is a lot of buy-in to the concept that using a more lightweight IDE makes you a better coder. I see a lot of entry level developers taking on this mentality. Sometime I cringe when I watch a developer using a lightweight IDE, missing so many obvious syntax errors that they're not going to realize until they go to compile or run their code. So many wasted workflow cycles. I work on large codebases and I know that I don't have the mental capacity to hold the entire structure (object interfaces, app structures, third party library usage) in my head. It's great that I can offload this task to my IDE and concentrate on the problem I'm solving instead of getting disrupted by having to think about code mechanics. On a side note, I think it's funny that people like to consider vim a lightweight IDE. All the good vim coders I know of make heavy use of plugins to get the exact same features a full fledged IDE has.

kenrikm 12y ago

I think there may be a case for using something like GitHub to allow editors to edit etc.. and writers to pull the edits though I'm pretty sure most media outlets have systems that do almost the same thing.

efuquen 12y ago

> All other features of complex IDE are a disturbance rather than an help. The things about IDEs that suck productivity wise is that instead of just giving you all the things you do want (syntax, highlighting, autocompletion, indentation) they provide bloat that doesn't make a task faster to do but easier to. What I mean by easier is putting GUIs on top of command line tools and APIs. A great coder looks at all that GUI cruft and thinks, many what hell is the underlying API or CLI tool I can use instead and get rid of all this middleware crap that is probably full of bugs. Someone who is not comfortable with that instead leans on those GUI tools because they don't really want to understand what is going on under the hood, they need the wizards and the text boxes, drop downs, and such to make it easier on themselves. With that said, there is a value in having an editor that can actually understand your target language all the down way to the AST level. That's how you can get nice things like reliable refactoring without having to use grep, sed, and friends. Or with detecting syntax errors and such, and even though the VIM plugin system is doing great there can definitely be more innovation in that space (and there clearly has been lately). But let's just leave out all the Spring XML file builders and Tomcat/Jetty container managers and focus on the code.

zo1 12y ago

>"So, no, great coder doesn't use powerful editors, if they can chose they use very simple one with the minimum level of features they need to help them think faster (syntax highlighting, autocompletion, indention) and stop. All other features of complex IDE are a disturbance rather than an help." Says you, and your anecdotal evidence/experience. Sounds to me that you have more prejudice against "complex" IDEs than you do actual facts. Would countering your points by telling you of the countless bad "coders" I've worked with that use text-editors instead of IDEs convince you to change your mind? (I'm going to stop using your term 'coders' here) Or the absolutely great programmers that I've seen that use powerful IDEs to supplement and augment their abilities? Do you write in a compiled language that can provide rich intellisense, or something more like Ruby/Python/bash that is a tad lacking in that department?

deleted 12y ago
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deleted 12y ago
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mkehrt 12y ago
Unrelated to the actual point, but I'm curious. You seem to be loathe to use the word "coder". Why is that? How is it different from programmer? Is there some sort of cultural shibboleth I'm unaware of here?
- zo1 12y ago
  I don't think it's a broader cultural thing, or anything. And personally, I'm fine with the term. It's just there was something about the way the OP was using the word "coder" that didn't quite sit well with me. Reading back at his post, I can't quite put a finger on what it was that actually bothered me about it.
LukaAl 12y ago
I use coder because that's the term used in the question. I prefer software engineer usually. I'm not a coder, or software engineer, for what it matters but I'm doing it now and I understand how it works and I use all sort of language, from C to Python. I have no prejudice against complex editor. In my opinion everyone should be able to choose without problems the editor/IDE that prefers and that's not always true. My anecdotal evidence is that, when free to choose, the better you are at a language the more you prefer an editor. Nevertheless, I could accept your point of view, but you should explain me something, if there are different point of view you should accept that the advantage of this so called "powerful tool" is less than clear.

freshhawk 12y ago

As someone also in the "editor > IDE" camp, I agree that a single monolithic tool is maybe the wrong path to take. But good coders still need powerful tools, just lots of tools, rather than one complex one. Simple and powerful are orthogonal. I disagree that established industries have already optimized their tools. That's just blatantly untrue in real life, and for good reason. The tool makers always have the best tools. A journalist can't make a better tool for journalism without learning an entire new career (and tool making requires more experience than average as well, beginners don't make good tools).

LukaAl 12y ago
Agree on the need of powerful tool. And sometimes you ends up spending time writing the right tool for that specific tasks when it is missing (done more than one time). On your rebuttal on the tools for established industries, I just said that it's a suspicious claim, not that is false. The point is this: if an industry is a niche, usually who works in that niche has to build their own tools. In larger industries, like journalism, you think that a professional is not asked by toolmakers which feature they need to make their works faster or they don't approach themselves the toolmakers to ask for better tools? But let's see the problem from a different perspective. Could you list me an innovation that is just the application of a consolidated concept in an area to another consolidated area without a change on the underlying industry or of the technology. There's a lot of literature on this point. If you are interested, you could search for the Utterback S or the concept of paradigm shift in innovation.