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Ask HN: Programmers who don't use autocomplete/LSP, how do you do it?

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Re: Ask HN: Programmers who don't use autocomplete/LSP, how do you do it?

#401

Post by croes »

jodrellblank wrote: post #302
svilen_dobrev wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

some colleague some time ago argued that one can write code without much/any spaces, because, "you can see, it's colored differently".. sounding like, "i am breathing". All these IDE+- things may be nice-to-have but most soon become crutches, and then you cannot live without them, and only walk their walk, not yours. Just turning off syntax coloring freaks recent developers.. even quite good ones.. i observed it. The…

> " All these IDE+- things may be nice-to-have but most soon become crutches, and then you cannot live without them, and only walk their walk, not yours. " ... and? Cars have automatic chokes, power assisted steering, hydraulic brakes, airbags, seatbelts, auto-dimming mirrors, self-running wipers, and it's fine. People argue that driving a stick-shift is more authentic but even they use syncromesh and clutches, they…

It hard to cook without knowing the temperature, it’s not that hard to code without syntax highlighting.

In your examples white on smoke white text would be the better analogy

Re: Ask HN: Programmers who don't use autocomplete/LSP, how do you do it?

#402

Post by bdcravens »

papichulo2023 wrote: post #148
bdcravens wrote: post #9

Earlier in my career, I would often turn those features off. It was the late 1990s, and computers were much slower, and as a result, I didn't like the lag that some of those features would cause. As such, I learned to work without them. These days of course computers have no issues. However, I've moved to a completely Docker Compose driven workflow, but for various reasons, I've run into issues getting LSPs etc worki…

Just FYI: in some languages (like Go iirc) you need to add the subfolder of your monorepo to the workplace in order to LSP to work properly, at least on VSCode.

Thanks, I'll take a look and see if that helps.

Re: Ask HN: Programmers who don't use autocomplete/LSP, how do you do it?

#403

Post by dijksterhuis »

PittleyDunkin wrote: post #397
dijksterhuis wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i never said i stared at code in a stupefied awe. that’s your stuff, not me. the point i was trying to convey with the phrases was my ideal attitude when writing code. this code matters. lets think about it, get it done right and not throw it over the fence for the poor schmuck who comes along in two years time after we’ve all left. i’ve been that schmuck. it was horrible. i don’t want to put other people through tha…

What does this have to do with a language server? It is not a tool that blinds you, nor one that puts a gun to your head and forces you to ship prematurely. I'm just very confused how the conversation took a turn away from pragmatism and towards the aesthetic.

> > every line of code is a liability. every line of code needs to be thought about. every line of code is precious.

> I personally think this is ridiculous. It's code. It's just formal instructions. You process them and move on. It's not describing the face of god. If you need to think so much write less clever code.

you called my attitudes to writing code ridiculous. i thought i’d provide you some information on why i hold that attitude. maybe it might help you understand. maybe you may consider your own attitudes as a result.

it seems to me that you are not ready yet.

Re: Ask HN: Programmers who don't use autocomplete/LSP, how do you do it?

#404

Post by bigstrat2003 »

iamsaitam wrote: post #299

I think purism is a slippery slope for experienced people, I too suffer from this to a certaint extent. It's natural to fight change as you get older and it's part of the struggle to change your behavior and adapt to the changing times. Short comment regarding syntax highlighting, unless you have some impairement, I think everyone benefits from this. It's something that helps you recognize patterns much faster and yo…

I don't benefit from syntax highlighting and don't see how anyone does. It's pretty, but doesn't convey useful information that isn't already right there in the syntax itself.

Re: Ask HN: Programmers who don't use autocomplete/LSP, how do you do it?

#405

Post by trevor-e »

This thread is certainly eye opening. It reminds me of a post I saw somewhere, maybe on Reddit, where someone was describing their experience working as an intern at an old-school tech shop. All of the developers there were hardcore Vim/Emacs users with 20+ years of experience.

The intern was tasked with a large-scale refactoring of some modules which the senior devs estimated would take months of work to complete. After shadowing a senior dev to get an idea of the work involved, they realized the dev was literally string replacing a lot of the code, hence why the estimate was ridiculously long. The intern instead loaded the project into IntelliJ and used the built-in refactoring tools to get the task done in a couple days. This caused a bit of an internal shit-storm with the product owners because the intern made the devs "look bad".

Re: Ask HN: Programmers who don't use autocomplete/LSP, how do you do it?

#406

Post by raydev »

daltonpinto wrote: post #223
brabel wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not only do I avoid using LSP features, but I’m also opposed to their use. While they can help with navigation, they may prevent developers from experiencing and addressing the underlying structural issues in their code. LSP by itself will not prevent anything. LSP (using the terminology from OP, but any IDE really) is just a tool like any other which allows you to do things faster. It doesn't matter how organized…

Of course that are good things and maybe I wrote in a too much harsh way. Linting features and autocompletes are nice, also autocomplete features are nice to have. The issue that I pointed mostly resonates with the idea that depending on LSP is the big issue. I personally use Neovim with minimal stuff, I run lint and tests manually and not automatically, because it feels to me like push notifications taking my attent…

> I reviewed many code written by junior people, and very often I see people adding code in random places that later may let the application to be hard to follow and everything "seems fine" to them.

As someone who got their start in edit/Notepad, it wasn't "productivity boosts" that made me bad at code architecture when I was inexperienced.

Re: Ask HN: Programmers who don't use autocomplete/LSP, how do you do it?

#407

Post by habosa »

I think lumping in LSPs to Copilot is wrong.

The LSP is a (mostly) deterministic system that surfaces information provided by the language or by other programmers (types, comments, etc) which are meant to save you time and reduce the cost of context switching.

The other is a completely non deterministic system which generates code from thin air.

That would be like comparing GPS to a self driving car. Both are certainly helpful aids but using one is not like using the other.

Re: Ask HN: Programmers who don't use autocomplete/LSP, how do you do it?

#408

Post by scarface_74 »

userbinator wrote: post #224
brabel wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not only do I avoid using LSP features, but I’m also opposed to their use. While they can help with navigation, they may prevent developers from experiencing and addressing the underlying structural issues in their code. LSP by itself will not prevent anything. LSP (using the terminology from OP, but any IDE really) is just a tool like any other which allows you to do things faster. It doesn't matter how organized…

When you have to manually search for files and then Ctrl+F to find functions, lookup docs in a web browser (which I hear is how people who don't use IDEs still do that), or manually run a linter/compiler to see warnings in your code, you're just being really inefficient. It's inefficient the first time but you quickly build a working memory and a deeper mental model of the code, which becomes even more useful in the…

We are not paid to “code” we are paid to use our knowledge of the technology ecosystem to add business value - either save the company money or to make the company money.

Back in the 2000s for me part of that job was to lead the buildout of a data center with a SAN that took up a whole room to hold 4TBs. Now I do that with 5 lines of yaml in a CloudFormation template.

My job was not “automated out of existence” by not having to provision a data center as part of it.

Re: Ask HN: Programmers who don't use autocomplete/LSP, how do you do it?

#409

Post by forgetfreeman »

Eh, it comes down to a combination of putting time and effort into mastering the tools of your craft and having docs open on a 2nd monitor as needed. Put in enough reps and you just organically memorize huge chunks of language/framework details. As for finding function declarations on the fly, have grep will travel.

Re: Ask HN: Programmers who don't use autocomplete/LSP, how do you do it?

#410

Post by Izkata »

worksonmine wrote: post #319
jessekv wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you use a keyboard to browse the internet? On unfamiliar codebases a mouse with back and forward buttons can be quite a fast and convenient way to get the "lie of the land". I often do this inside GitHub's browser-based editor.

> Do you use a keyboard to browse the internet? Yes, using the vimium extension. My only problem is text inputs like this one, my muscle memory expects vim keys to work and I type a lot of jibberish that I have to clean up. I know there are extensions for that too but I can live with it.

Tridactyl has a native extension that lets you run external programs, such as popping up a gvim window for text inputs.
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