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Am I the Only One Who Uses a Text Editor to Edit Files?

blog.peepcode.com

91–100 of 165 posts

Re: Am I the Only One Who Uses a Text Editor to Edit Files?

#91

Did anyone ever think that maybe the problem is the FILES? Let me ask that one more time. Would people be ranting like this if there were NO FILES? I still believe the "future of programming" is where your code objects are not arbitrarily mapped onto files in the file system, you just manipulate them directly! A few Smalltalks and Lisps out there do this using image-based development. This is where it's at. If you ca…

Not exactly no files, but I think the bubble concept could solve this too.

http://www.cs.brown.edu/people/acb/codebubbles_site.htm http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1181742

Re: Am I the Only One Who Uses a Text Editor to Edit Files?

#92

Did anyone ever think that maybe the problem is the FILES? Let me ask that one more time. Would people be ranting like this if there were NO FILES? I still believe the "future of programming" is where your code objects are not arbitrarily mapped onto files in the file system, you just manipulate them directly! A few Smalltalks and Lisps out there do this using image-based development. This is where it's at. If you ca…

" If you can't use a image-based Smalltalk or Lisp to get your work done, then use a JetBrains/Eclipse IDE. They're generally modeled off of the Smalltalk IDE and are the next best thing if you're forced to use a broken file-based language."

I've worked in smalltalk, and yes it is an interesting way to work but images had almost as many problems as hey solved. primarily version controlling and syncing code were terrible (yes there were some tools, and yes they all broke on weird edge cases).

If forced to choose these days, I'd rather use files + git + (+ emacs + grep + ... ) than images, Images are nice as an additional dev time artifact, but I believe files are more natural than images for source code.

"If you just take "files" for granted and think that the UNIX design philosophy is the best thing ever, then accept your fate and stop bitching."

This is provocative nonsense. smalltalk, while hugely influential and innovative is hardly the ultimate superior dev env that some old geezers make it out to be. I think it is mostly "the lost cause" style romanticism.

Re: Am I the Only One Who Uses a Text Editor to Edit Files?

#93

I'm so close to getting vim to be my ideal editor...7.0 for tab support, and ctags opens tags in a new tab, not a new buffer. But I can't figure out how to search currently open tabs instead of opening a new tab no matter what; I end up with duplicate tabs very easily. So his 3rd major "what I want" point really rings true.

Your problem is trying to use the tabbar as a replacement for :ls/:files/:buffers. Stop, and learn what tabpages really are--work spaces, or view ports.

Re: Am I the Only One Who Uses a Text Editor to Edit Files?

#94
post #93

I'm so close to getting vim to be my ideal editor...7.0 for tab support, and ctags opens tags in a new tab, not a new buffer. But I can't figure out how to search currently open tabs instead of opening a new tab no matter what; I end up with duplicate tabs very easily. So his 3rd major "what I want" point really rings true.

Your problem is trying to use the tabbar as a replacement for :ls/:files/:buffers. Stop, and learn what tabpages really are--work spaces, or view ports.

I agree. Now that I know how to use buffers, splits and the jumplist, I don't often open buffers in new tabs.

Re: Am I the Only One Who Uses a Text Editor to Edit Files?

#96
post #21

Am I the only one who almost didn't scroll down, thinking that the keyboard graphic was the thing to see?

I didn't actually try to read anything because the orange/white/black layout makes my eye cry, so instead I just skimmed over to get an overview based on the design/layout/article organization alone.

At first, I didn't know if the keyboard thing was a banner with the blog name, the article title, or an interactive flash component. Then I saw random screenshots scattered without any text under and things made even less sense.

I started scrolling, but was greeted with four paragraphs of text laid on two columns, then a list of icons. Was this the end of the article and the icons are "share" buttons? No, wait, there's more paragraphs down there.

But are continuing from which column? I mean, the list of icons could be an ad and I'm supposed to read both left columns first, and then the right ones. But it could an article divisor and I should read the top rows first.

Then under it there's this three scenarios so crammed together that it takes some more fractions of second to realize they are different columns.

See? I'm completely lost and didn't even start reading the article.

Re: Am I the Only One Who Uses a Text Editor to Edit Files?

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. The "user's don't scroll" meme has been confirmed as a myth.

"confirmed" by who? every blog post I see titled "the fold is a myths" follows the same path where there author lays out a bunch of opinion of why they think it is "honestly people scroll fine, honest" every empirical study (like the one linked) seems to confirm that there is an obvious bias towards content above the fold. Dont think its particularly important here, I was pretty impressed by his design and not everyo…

Anecdotal evidence, but evidence nonetheless: We did some testing of how people interact with icanhascheezburger.com and found that most people basically just scroll and then click the "next page" link at the bottom.

Re: Am I the Only One Who Uses a Text Editor to Edit Files?

#98

Did anyone ever think that maybe the problem is the FILES? Let me ask that one more time. Would people be ranting like this if there were NO FILES? I still believe the "future of programming" is where your code objects are not arbitrarily mapped onto files in the file system, you just manipulate them directly! A few Smalltalks and Lisps out there do this using image-based development. This is where it's at. If you ca…

Related: Using Visual Studio + ReSharper, I can just press CTRL + N and start typing the name of the type I want to go to.

CTRL + ALT + SHIFT + N (seriously) and I can start typing the name of the method, variable, whatever.

With both of these, you can use wildcards or PascalCase caps, it's really, really fast.

I hardly ever use the solution explorer anymore. The fact that the types I'm working in exist in files is something I barely pay attention to.

Re: Am I the Only One Who Uses a Text Editor to Edit Files?

#99

Did anyone ever think that maybe the problem is the FILES? Let me ask that one more time. Would people be ranting like this if there were NO FILES? I still believe the "future of programming" is where your code objects are not arbitrarily mapped onto files in the file system, you just manipulate them directly! A few Smalltalks and Lisps out there do this using image-based development. This is where it's at. If you ca…

Related: Using Visual Studio + ReSharper, I can just press CTRL + N and start typing the name of the type I want to go to. CTRL + ALT + SHIFT + N (seriously) and I can start typing the name of the method, variable, whatever. With both of these, you can use wildcards or PascalCase caps, it's really, really fast. I hardly ever use the solution explorer anymore. The fact that the types I'm working in exist in files is s…

This is similar to the "browse implementor" or "find senders" in smalltalk, or "Find Usages" and "Browse Implementation" in IntelliJ (I use RubyMine). You navigate the code, not the files. I've found I can concentrate on the design of the software a lot better when I'm not also worrying which subdirs certain files are in.

Re: Am I the Only One Who Uses a Text Editor to Edit Files?

#100
post #19
post #9

Typical designer. "Oh no, my text editor displays its status to me using text." Yeah. Some people get their eye-candy feed from lolcat videos, and then use their tools for work. (My desktop doesn't even have wobbly windows! Just a 1-px red border! How can I get any work done that way!) Also, I'm fairly certain that eproject gets rid of the "wall of text" that disqualifies Emacs. In a perl project, for example, I can…

I think your attitude is overly dismissive. At least, I'd have a hard time writing someone off as a "typical designer" (a bit of a tired stereotype) if they're experienced in both vim and emacs, let alone work for Peepcode. The author offered a sustained, reasoned argument for better navigation within projects. I agree that as a programmer, I care about functionality and tools that get out of my way so that I can get…

If you've had trouble setting up fuzzy_finder textmate, check out my post: http://codeulate.com/2010/02/installing-fuzzyfinder_textmate...

I walk you through it step by step.

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