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Show HN: I rebuilt the only parts of my IDE I use, in Rust, over a weekend

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Re: Show HN: I rebuilt the only parts of my IDE I use, in Rust, over a weekend

#31

Post by smt88 »

johnfn wrote: post #6
smt88 wrote: post #4

The primary value of IDEs in the agentic era are: debugging, code review (with good diffing), and management of the agent’s context. I also use mine for browsing databases, but not everyone does that. You seem to have one of those three. I’m not sure what your coding background is, but debuggers/profilers are incredibly useful and important, and it’s essentially malpractice for a developer never to use them.

It is a little crazy to accuse people not using the dev tools you like of malpractice.

"Debugger" is not just a "dev tool I like." It's the only way to see what a program is doing while it's doing it, unless you're just writing to your console and hoping you captured enough state with your write statements.

I understand there are people who haven't used debuggers before and don't know what they're missing out on, but there's no excuse for that anymore because it's become much easier to set them up and use them.

Re: Show HN: I rebuilt the only parts of my IDE I use, in Rust, over a weekend

#32

Post by smt88 »

M4R5H4LL wrote: post #8
smt88 wrote: post #4

The primary value of IDEs in the agentic era are: debugging, code review (with good diffing), and management of the agent’s context. I also use mine for browsing databases, but not everyone does that. You seem to have one of those three. I’m not sure what your coding background is, but debuggers/profilers are incredibly useful and important, and it’s essentially malpractice for a developer never to use them.

Such a cringy and unpleasant statement... OP is smart to adjust to change. I have hand-written software for the past 30 years, and the moment I stop using my IDE, you’d tell me don’t know what I am doing?? Dude, I probably was writing assembly code by hand when there were no IDEs and you were still trying to figure out the taste of Play-Doh. Some people really need to put their head in the right place.

This response is so strange and unrelated to what I wrote, it feels like you're not even responding to me in the first place.

> OP is smart to adjust to change

When did I tell OP not to change? My comment was about how my own workflow has changed radically in the last couple of years.

> the moment I stop using my IDE, you’d tell me don’t know what I am doing??

What? I didn't do anything of the sort.

> Dude, I probably was writing assembly code by hand when there were no IDEs and you were still trying to figure out the taste of Play-Doh

This is incredibly childish. If you really are as old as you imply, the cringe is all you, friend.

Re: Show HN: I rebuilt the only parts of my IDE I use, in Rust, over a weekend

#33

Post by kyle-ssg »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #24
spiralcoaster wrote: post #11

Actual title: I had Claude code up a diff tool in Rust over the weekend My guess is this made it to the front page solely from the Rust boost.

That's just too funny, even the README is entirely vibe-coded and the label under the image doesn't describe AT ALL the content of the image: > ~120fps scrolling a 37k-line package-lock.json — viewport virtualization + off-thread highlighting. When it's a static PNG of an extremely small diff. I'm flagging the post as spam, that's what it is.

Hey, actually there's a script that generates the screenshots so that I don't have to adjust them every time the UI changes. I do get 120fps with a 37k line package-lock, try it yourself if you don't believe me.

Re: Show HN: I rebuilt the only parts of my IDE I use, in Rust, over a weekend

#34

Post by smt88 »

xtracto wrote: post #15
smt88 wrote: post #4

The primary value of IDEs in the agentic era are: debugging, code review (with good diffing), and management of the agent’s context. I also use mine for browsing databases, but not everyone does that. You seem to have one of those three. I’m not sure what your coding background is, but debuggers/profilers are incredibly useful and important, and it’s essentially malpractice for a developer never to use them.

>but debuggers/profilers are incredibly useful and important, and it’s essentially malpractice for a developer never to use them. Just wait for the moment you need to write code for an embedded platform that doesn't have a debugging mechanism. I've been programming for more than 30 years. Funnily, I used to use debuggers A LOT (in Borland Turbo C++ DOS "IDE" times, Visual Basic, Eclipse, Netbeans, Adobe Flash Builder…

> Just wait for the moment you need to write code for an embedded platform that doesn't have a debugging mechanism.

Very close to 0% of programmers on this site are doing this. The vast majority are writing JavaScript/TypeScript, Python, or some other high-level language and targeting web platforms.

> But nowadays I seldomly use the debugger, if at all.

That might be fine for you and your use cases, but it's not fine for CRUD app developers who are essentially passing and mutating data around databases and state machines.

Re: Show HN: I rebuilt the only parts of my IDE I use, in Rust, over a weekend

#35

Post by kyle-ssg »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #30
kyle-ssg wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, actually my goal is to stop using my IDE, it'll be one less subscription for me. So I won't get tired of this, I plan on using it daily. I've spent quite a few years obsessing over software quality so I won't accept unpolished and buggy!

Everyone who vibe codes something over the weekend thinks that their vibe coded software will be the greatest thing since sliced bread. Then they realise that as they continue prompting, it takes disproportionately large amounts of effort to see any progress as program complexity rises and the token predictor begins tripping over itself more and more. At least use it daily for a month rather than saying you plan to u…

I do agree with some of this principle, if I sat blasting prompts with all the things I could think of, of course it won't end well. Strong regression tests and good patterns are needed.

RE a month usage, that is a good idea, I will use it for a month and do a more long-form post.

I've been using it since I started building it, and have not touched my IDE, thats the goal. All commits to the repository have been made via the tool itself.

Re: Show HN: I rebuilt the only parts of my IDE I use, in Rust, over a weekend

#36

Post by smt88 »

kyle-ssg wrote: post #5
smt88 wrote: post #4

The primary value of IDEs in the agentic era are: debugging, code review (with good diffing), and management of the agent’s context. I also use mine for browsing databases, but not everyone does that. You seem to have one of those three. I’m not sure what your coding background is, but debuggers/profilers are incredibly useful and important, and it’s essentially malpractice for a developer never to use them.

Hey! I'm a web and mobile developer for past 12 years and have wrote quite a lot of code over the years (github for receipts). I actually even written a mobile application profiler, it's on GitHub. Debugging and profiling has always been outside of the IDE for me, except when I started out as a Java Developer.

My point was not at all to accuse you of using the wrong tools, but rather to point out that your rebuilt IDE is missing something very valuable (combining the debugging and editing experience).

I don't and have never understood why someone spins up a full-weight IDE and then not used that same GUI to manage their debugger, since you get a lot of added benefits from that (being able to copy/paste from the editor to code evaluation/REPL for example).

I wasn't trying to criticize this early work at all. It looks like a fun and promising project!

Re: Show HN: I rebuilt the only parts of my IDE I use, in Rust, over a weekend

#37

Post by kyle-ssg »

mathieudombrock wrote: post #22

Why would you choose to have the ai use a language you don't understand? Isn't this basically admitting you had nothing to do with this project and anyone else could pay an ai to make the same thing easily? Is this something you expect other people to use? Are you planning to maintain this? Are you making a point about ai capabilities? Is this just a joke? I guess I don't really understand the point of posts like thi…

I'm making a point about IDEs, I think their usefulness is declining. No, I do not expect other people to use this, but they can and I will.

Re: Show HN: I rebuilt the only parts of my IDE I use, in Rust, over a weekend

#40

Post by kyle-ssg »

smt88 wrote: post #36
kyle-ssg wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey! I'm a web and mobile developer for past 12 years and have wrote quite a lot of code over the years (github for receipts). I actually even written a mobile application profiler, it's on GitHub. Debugging and profiling has always been outside of the IDE for me, except when I started out as a Java Developer.

My point was not at all to accuse you of using the wrong tools, but rather to point out that your rebuilt IDE is missing something very valuable (combining the debugging and editing experience). I don't and have never understood why someone spins up a full-weight IDE and then not used that same GUI to manage their debugger, since you get a lot of added benefits from that (being able to copy/paste from the editor to c…

Hey, no worries, I don't think you were criticising! I guess this IDE was prominently started for me, and I wouldn't use an internal debugger vs debugging in Chrome for example. I think if I added one, the debugger would be opt-in/installable rather than always bundled.
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