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Benefits of Not Using an IDE

alexander-hansen.dev

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Re: Benefits of Not Using an IDE

#71

Post by elondaits »

There are some things that I feel that IDEs do better than a terminal or editor:

- Running tests (test running requires juggling a hierarchy of tests, their results, their declarations, plus with an IDE you can run tests directly from the test declaration)

- Lint / Static analysis (you get the warnings automatically as you code)

- Debugging (it's easier to watch several things at once, easier to inspect a complex object, you can inspect through a tooltip when hovering over a variable on the code)

I really don't care about how anyone prefers to work, but I fear that anti-IDE people in many cases don't even debug (except by printing), lint or test... which I DO care about, if I have to work with them. These things are about being a responsible coder.

I could also add that the "Local history" feature of Jetbrains IDEs can save code from accidental deletion, which is another thing that goes beyond personal preferences.

Re: Benefits of Not Using an IDE

#73

Post by zucker42 »

Waterluvian wrote: post #52
wokwokwok wrote: post #34

Listen, long story short: just say no to nonsense like this. Given the choice of a) tooling, or b) no tooling, you’re not being smart, cool or clever by choosing b. Obviously, what tools you pick are important and heavy IDEs like IntelliJ are a trade off between speed and functionality, and yeah, more nimble tools do exist, and it’s definitely worth trying different development tools to see what makes you most produc…

“Power drills have batteries or cords and motors that wear down and they’re more expensive and complex and can break more easily and it’s just smarter to bring hand crank tools to the worksite.” - Nobody

People still use shovels even though excavators exist.

Re: Benefits of Not Using an IDE

#74

Post by rohansingh »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #60
bootlooped wrote: post #36

There is a common perception with electric bicycles that the rider will pedal less hard to go the same speed. But there is an alternative: they could pedal the same amount and go faster. I kind of view IDEs like that. You can use it as a crutch, or you can take the energy you would have used thinking about the things the IDE is now doing for you and focus it elsewhere.

veering off-topic, that's one of the problems I have with electric bikes - they stop being bicycles and become another kind of vehicle - a faster vehicle that needs longer stopping distances and now has a highe r fatality rate when colliding with a pedestrian. We see this in London cycle lanes. Some cycles are doing a commute, some are trying out for the olympics, some people are doing 25 on a electric scooter and th…

What blows my mind is that in New York, we've decided to deal with this by requiring speed governors on pedal-assist bicycles to limit them to around 20mph... while they're required to share the street with cars that are free to travel at almost any speed.

Re: Benefits of Not Using an IDE

#75

Post by IncRnd »

z5h wrote: post #70
IncRnd wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not being lazy. There is no need for me to use an Integrated Development Environment. Many of the most highly productive people use Separated Development Environments. The integration is most times not necessary. I have never had an IDE provide a feature that I needed and couldn't quickly create or obtain. People let you install your tools in your monolithic IDE package. Why are you so insistent on degrading peo…

In 20 years of working as an engineer and also interviewing, I’ve seen maybe 3 people that could be as productive without an IDE. They certainly exist, but I believe they are rare exceptions.

I understand. So, the differences must be the backgrounds or amount of time the people have spent as programmers.

I'm, of course, not talking about certain platforms that almost certainly expect or require the use of a specific IDE build tool.

Re: Benefits of Not Using an IDE

#76

Post by bluedino »

Waterluvian wrote: post #52
wokwokwok wrote: post #34

Listen, long story short: just say no to nonsense like this. Given the choice of a) tooling, or b) no tooling, you’re not being smart, cool or clever by choosing b. Obviously, what tools you pick are important and heavy IDEs like IntelliJ are a trade off between speed and functionality, and yeah, more nimble tools do exist, and it’s definitely worth trying different development tools to see what makes you most produc…

“Power drills have batteries or cords and motors that wear down and they’re more expensive and complex and can break more easily and it’s just smarter to bring hand crank tools to the worksite.” - Nobody

Portable electric power tools are such a game changer when working on cars. I could never go back to the days of doing it by hand, it would be ten times worse for construction.

Re: Benefits of Not Using an IDE

#77

Post by pskinner »

MagicWishMonkey wrote: post #44

I know it's a personal anecdote, but 100% of the devs I've worked with who refused to use an IDE ranged from below average to flat out bad at software development.

Funny because my anecdote is that any devs I've worked with who only use an IDE are average to flat out bad at software development.

Re: Benefits of Not Using an IDE

#78

Post by dntrkv »

city41 wrote: post #27

I consider not needing to remember library and api details a benefit. I'd rather dedicate my brain cycles to something else. As for syntax, I don't recall ever struggling to remember syntax of languages I frequently code in. Also the point about IDEs auto generating toHashCode, toString, etc. If your class needs these methods, whether they were auto generated or not seems besides the point. The point the IDE is "comp…

Yeah the idea that I have to remember everything in our codebase of millions of LoC made up of TS, JS, Ruby, Kotlin, and Java is ridiculous. IDEs allow me to drop into these codebases and be decently productive from the get go.

Re: Benefits of Not Using an IDE

#79

Post by citizenkeen »

zucker42 wrote: post #73
Waterluvian wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Power drills have batteries or cords and motors that wear down and they’re more expensive and complex and can break more easily and it’s just smarter to bring hand crank tools to the worksite.” - Nobody

People still use shovels even though excavators exist.

Those are not comparable. If there was a backpack mounted shovel that powered my digging I'd never use a shovel again.

Re: Benefits of Not Using an IDE

#80

Post by scoopdewoop »

nerdbaggy wrote: post #28
sxldier wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's referring to Visual Studio. https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/

I find Visual Studio auto complete 100x better then VS Code auto complete.

For what language? Because I use VSCode for C (microsoft's C/C++ plugin with intellisense) and Typescript (built-in) and it works pretty dang great.
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