Same as driving in the city without Waze. Replying to an email in German without Google Translate. There are a bunch of reasons, one of them is because I like it.
Ask HN: Programmers who don't use autocomplete/LSP, how do you do it?
11–20 of 652 posts
Re: Ask HN: Programmers who don't use autocomplete/LSP, how do you do it?
#12You should try turning off those features yourself for at least a month and see what happens ;) You’ll learn the answers yourself, much better than us trying to explain them.
You’ll learn where all the reference docs live for your language, libraries, and frameworks, and along the way you’ll learn more by actually reading the docs.
You’ll learn the value of good project organization and file naming, and explicit import statements.
And you’ll learn that the speed of typing, even long method names, is not the limiting factor of your productivity.
Re: Ask HN: Programmers who don't use autocomplete/LSP, how do you do it?
#13I tried copilot for a few months, found it annoying, and uninstalled it. These tools make IDEs/LSP unnecessary for my workflow:
1) regex be it grep, or equivalents built into the editor. 2) Multi-cursor editing. 3) dumb autocomplete. 4) knowing how to type fast.
About 70% of the code I write at work is C. Another 20% is Rust (which does have a nice LSP implementation that I use, though I wouldn't call it essential), and the remaining 10% is the usual bash/Python/Ruby/cmake/make mumbo jumbo.
Re: Ask HN: Programmers who don't use autocomplete/LSP, how do you do it?
#14My bottleneck is how efficiently or completely I can keep the problem I'm working on in my head, not how quickly I can look up a function name or variable or type out the actual code. Really, only the latter is helped along by autocomplete. I find myself with that feeling of my mind slowing down more and more as I get older. When I actually get around to writing the code itself, the problem is mostly solved from my perspective, I'm just dumping out of my head into the editor, that part is easy. Until an autocomplete is wired up with an LLM and LSP which knows exactly how I think and approach problems and remember the codebase, it'll be mostly useless for me. So I don't bother.
Re: Ask HN: Programmers who don't use autocomplete/LSP, how do you do it?
#15I used to code in pure vim, so no autocomplete and syntax checking. It is definitely possible.
Is it a better way to work though? Well, in some ways, it forces you to use more cycles in your head, so you do gain proficiency, and you can spot mistakes more quickly. This is a skill.
But once I started working on larger codebases and higher complexity code, I felt it was better to redeploy those brain cycles toward thinking more about architecture, and letting the LSP check the code. With an LSP, I'm now able to write more correct code in fewer iterations.
Like everything it's a trade off. Am I impressed by people who can do complex mental arithmetic? Yes, but for anything complicated that I'd rather not get wrong, I will reach for a calculator. Same idea here.
Re: Ask HN: Programmers who don't use autocomplete/LSP, how do you do it?
#16There are still a lot of developers out there that basically are at the hammer and nails level of programming. They use a basic editor with basic syntax colouring and when they write broken grammar, the editor just misbehaves telling them they've typoed something.
Many still use rg and fd or fzf outside or within their editor and are anti IDE.
I think ultimately they do waste time, particularly they see refactoring as a big 4 hours job when people using intelliJ and other proficient IDE will see it as a 5' job.
That said, have you every felt, that using all the bells and whistle, half the time you're being impaired by them? Auto-complete nags you, copilot is completely off the plot and spewing tons of stuff all the time.
The key, I think, is to have all the bells and whistle but have shortcuts to turn them on/off. I have auto-complete only drop down on ctrl+space shortcut, not automatically. And for copilot, I have ctrl+cmd+c for turning it on or off.
That way I can free flow type code as I think of it and get the tools to assist whenever needed. It's the best of both world. The IDE as clutter free as possible, and all the tools at a finger tip.
But renaming symbols throughout large projects without an LSP? Nah, been there, done that, for decades, and I'm glad that's over.
Re: Ask HN: Programmers who don't use autocomplete/LSP, how do you do it?
#17Yes, lots of memorization with an occasional Google search. When you program a lot you just remember things.
More specifically, when you program a lot on your own without these tools, you just remember things.
Using a concise language and style helps, too.
Re: Ask HN: Programmers who don't use autocomplete/LSP, how do you do it?
#18I've recently picked up using lsp now that a lot of my work is in go. I have co-pilot but often forget that it's there and don't use it much.
Generally, I have a hill to climb with a new code base. I get the ideas into my head and then rely on that rather than tooling. It's how I've always worked. I'm very comfortable with my editor so it just does what i think and i don't have to expend effort to translate my thoughts into keystrokes.
That's basically it. This Blog Post by a friend of mine on important editor skills to master is a good read on effectively using an editor https://info.pagnis.in/blog/2014/05/06/10-actions-you-must-i...
Re: Ask HN: Programmers who don't use autocomplete/LSP, how do you do it?
#19You should try turning off those features yourself for at least a month and see what happens ;) You’ll learn the answers yourself, much better than us trying to explain them. You’ll learn where all the reference docs live for your language, libraries, and frameworks, and along the way you’ll learn more by actually reading the docs. You’ll learn the value of good project organization and file naming, and explicit impo…
I use Rust, so explicit imports are required. However, I fail to understand this point
> You’ll learn where all the reference docs live for your language, libraries, and frameworks, and along the way you’ll learn more by actually reading the docs.
With neovim/LSP, I have a key binding (Kg) that opens a small window within the editor with the rustdocs. Not only this is faster than going to the browser, typing the type name, opening the docs, looking up the method but also it ensures that I am looking at the docs of the correct version that my code base is using.
I don't really understand the aversion to using these tools. They are "auto-complete" and not generative complete. This means you need to know what you are going to type for them to help you.
Re: Ask HN: Programmers who don't use autocomplete/LSP, how do you do it?
#20You should try turning off those features yourself for at least a month and see what happens ;) You’ll learn the answers yourself, much better than us trying to explain them. You’ll learn where all the reference docs live for your language, libraries, and frameworks, and along the way you’ll learn more by actually reading the docs. You’ll learn the value of good project organization and file naming, and explicit impo…
Personally, the biggest benefit I get from LSPs is just proactively letting me know compiler errors before running the compiler (and I miss this working in extremely dynamic situations, like macro-heavy lisps). I definitely would side-eye someone who willingly eschewed that. But the rest of your points are well stated from my perspective