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Advice to a novice programmer

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Re: Advice to a novice programmer

#101

Post by walleeee »

nomel wrote: post #91
sbrother wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> vim over ssh is just awkward What's wrong with vim over ssh/mosh? I was taught emacs by a grad student back in college and the ability to be fully productive on any server where I can install emacs has been a huge benefit to my career. I can't imagine vim is much different in that scenario.

Most people don't use vanilla vim, from what I've seen. It's not so great, out of the box. Definitely not comparable to any remote editor these days, that also supports vim navigation, like VSCode.

What does vim lack that one might need to complete a basic programming assignment?

Re: Advice to a novice programmer

#102

Post by slyall »

sbrother wrote: post #69
duck2 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found VSCode's remote plugins to be a really good option when the code lives on a shared remote machine over a slow connection. vim+scp is an extra step on each change, vim over ssh is just awkward, and sshfs isn't the most reliable piece of software.

> vim over ssh is just awkward What's wrong with vim over ssh/mosh? I was taught emacs by a grad student back in college and the ability to be fully productive on any server where I can install emacs has been a huge benefit to my career. I can't imagine vim is much different in that scenario.

These days you don't edit things on servers. The most you might do is edit a file and change a single option. You can do that in vi, vim or nano. Certainly you don't get to install you favorite editor (and version) and the .config folder an every server.

Most of the time you'll be editing config locally on your laptop and it'll get pushed to the servers via config management or whatever.

Your laptop is the place for your tricked-out IDE with 27 plugins

Re: Advice to a novice programmer

#103

Post by pictureofabear »

user3939382 wrote: post #87
icyberbullyu wrote: post #25

I really have to disagree with the disparagement of vim/scp at the beginning. It's a bit slower to start if you begin with command-line tools, but the dividends payed out by learning the standard command-line utilities are huge. Learning the command-line utilities means you have the tool-set to build your own tool-set; since it's a lot easier to using CLI tools as building blocks for larger tools. At both of the last…

Theory vs career training in college is not a simple issue. In reality many students are going to college because they want a job, that’s the goal, that’s why they’re there, that’s why they’re paying. Employers want graduates with practical skills. This is a huge divergence from the University landscape in the 20s for example, where the purpose really commonly was “we’re here to think thoughts, for their own sake.” I…

And trade school enrollments are up. https://thehustle.co/04242023-trade-school-enrollment/

Universities will need to get used to smaller enrollments.

https://www.bestcolleges.com/research/college-enrollment-sta....

Re: Advice to a novice programmer

#104

Post by [deleted] »

tylerhou wrote: post #56
icyberbullyu wrote: post #25

I really have to disagree with the disparagement of vim/scp at the beginning. It's a bit slower to start if you begin with command-line tools, but the dividends payed out by learning the standard command-line utilities are huge. Learning the command-line utilities means you have the tool-set to build your own tool-set; since it's a lot easier to using CLI tools as building blocks for larger tools. At both of the last…

If the short term goal is to finish a project by a deadline, just use vscode. Teach yourself vim and scp later.

[deleted]

Re: Advice to a novice programmer

#105

Post by nomel »

walleeee wrote: post #101
nomel wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people don't use vanilla vim, from what I've seen. It's not so great, out of the box. Definitely not comparable to any remote editor these days, that also supports vim navigation, like VSCode.

What does vim lack that one might need to complete a basic programming assignment?

Integrated linters save a lot of time with their immediate feedback. Depending on the language you're working with, remote debugging can be an incredible time saver. Modern editors are aware of the structure of the code, so can do things that are impossible for default VIM to do, like find the usage of a variable, rather than text occurrences, automatically show documentation, etc. All time savings.

Re: Advice to a novice programmer

#106

Post by vunderba »

ghostpepper wrote: post #31
IshKebab wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't really understand what Vim users see in it. They always seem to claim that you can edit faster... and sure you can if you're comparing with Notepad++. But modern editors have multiple cursors and tons of useful editing tools that let you be easily as fast with much less pain.

can you go a full 8 hour work day without touching the mouse? edit: can you easily pipe the entire file through grep or awk, or insert the contents of the output of curl or jq?

I'm confused by this. Do you... not own a mouse? In my line of work, the actual editing of code is at most 10% of my time, and the remaining 90% is spent deliberately thinking through the actual algorithms and backend work.

Piping to CLI tools is easily done through Jetbrains macros.

Re: Advice to a novice programmer

#107

Post by bsder »

icyberbullyu wrote: post #25

I really have to disagree with the disparagement of vim/scp at the beginning. It's a bit slower to start if you begin with command-line tools, but the dividends payed out by learning the standard command-line utilities are huge. Learning the command-line utilities means you have the tool-set to build your own tool-set; since it's a lot easier to using CLI tools as building blocks for larger tools. At both of the last…

> I really have to disagree with the disparagement of vim/scp at the beginning. It's a bit slower to start if you begin with command-line tools, but the dividends payed out by learning the standard command-line utilities are huge.

No, it simply doesn't. And certainly not in the timeframe of a single semester course.

The best things to get someone through a CS program today are VSCode and Python.

VSCode works. VSCode has lots of tutorials. VSCode has other users near you you can ask for help. VSCode works great on Windows. VSCode is useful in practically every course.

Python works. Python has lots of tutorials. Python has other users near you you can ask for help. Python works great on Windows. Python is useful in practically every course.

Notice a trend?

A fledgling programmer will get WAY further leaning into VSCode as their IDE and using Python as a replacement for command line tools everywhere. And they'll be able to use them all on Windows, macOS and Linux.

Finally, I'm sorry but the unix command line tools suck. The command line shells suck worse. There are litanies of things you have to remember to not blow both feet off with your shells. And the command line arguments between utilities have zero consistency merely for starters.

Yes, me being able to knock out that 4 terminal line pipeline is clever and super-fast, but a newbie needs things to be stable, observable and debuggable. And command line shells and utilities are notoriously none of those.

Re: Advice to a novice programmer

#108

Post by fsckboy »

user3939382 wrote: post #87
icyberbullyu wrote: post #25

I really have to disagree with the disparagement of vim/scp at the beginning. It's a bit slower to start if you begin with command-line tools, but the dividends payed out by learning the standard command-line utilities are huge. Learning the command-line utilities means you have the tool-set to build your own tool-set; since it's a lot easier to using CLI tools as building blocks for larger tools. At both of the last…

Theory vs career training in college is not a simple issue. In reality many students are going to college because they want a job, that’s the goal, that’s why they’re there, that’s why they’re paying. Employers want graduates with practical skills. This is a huge divergence from the University landscape in the 20s for example, where the purpose really commonly was “we’re here to think thoughts, for their own sake.” I…

> This is a huge divergence from the University landscape in the 20s

we're still in the 20s

Re: Advice to a novice programmer

#109

Post by smabie »

ghostpepper wrote: post #31
IshKebab wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't really understand what Vim users see in it. They always seem to claim that you can edit faster... and sure you can if you're comparing with Notepad++. But modern editors have multiple cursors and tons of useful editing tools that let you be easily as fast with much less pain.

can you go a full 8 hour work day without touching the mouse? edit: can you easily pipe the entire file through grep or awk, or insert the contents of the output of curl or jq?

I feel like using your mouse is actually pretty efficient in many cases though.
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