I don't use IDEs because I hate being distracted by their features (most of which I don't want). A good syntax highlighting text editor with tabs is all I want.
Ask HN: What is the must have feature of your IDE
51–60 of 71 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is the must have feature of your IDE
#52Pros: Vi's ability to be easily mouseless, and it's wonderful "editing language". By "editing language" I mean that editing commands follow a syntax with verbs, objects, modifiers, etc. The "dw" command, for instance, deletes a word. Then you learn that "p" is a paragraph object. Can you "dp" to delete a paragraph? Of course, because that's how it goes in vi/vim. Want to delete 4 words? 4dw. Want to change a word? cw…
I always found it a bit awkward to get in and out of VIs 'edit modes', it just seemed so unnatural.
Re: Ask HN: What is the must have feature of your IDE
#53Emacs keybindings, extensibility (that would include configurability.) I'm an Emacs user. I don't have a very long init.el but appreciate being able to deactivate stuff I don't use, especially things like scrollbars, toolbars, etc. Using IDEs I feel overwhelmed (too many GUI elements) and powerless (mostly because I'm not familiar with them, but discoverability is important too, see Emacs' apropos.)
Discoverability is important, and the ability to 'get out' of any mode easily. But at the same time, not visually overloading the user, which I think most IDEs are guilty of.
Re: Ask HN: What is the must have feature of your IDE
#54Must have: - An editor that can show different line-endings (cr/lf) and it must be possible to between them (nice to have - switching that independently for each open file). - Text search per file, per project and per solution. Nice to have: - Correct syntax highlighting - Find definitions/declarations in c++ code correctly - Free software - Cross platform support - Support for different compilers - Show potential co…
Does having the configuration files and project files not saved within the project solve most of the problems you describe with user-settings and project files?
Re: Ask HN: What is the must have feature of your IDE
#55Since I started to use Vim, I can't switch to any other editor or IDE. It's not because Vim editor is so great or because I don't like those niceties that other editors and IDEs offer, but it's because I have those Vim-bindings in my muscle memory and I can't be productive w/o them. Show me an IDE that has nice support for Vim-bindings and is highly customizable (plugin support with rich API, programming language I c…
I had difficulty getting into lighttable for some reason.
Re: Ask HN: What is the must have feature of your IDE
#56Not being slow. Is that a feature? For example, when IDEs like Eclipse decide to take 2 minutes to switch between an xml file and a java and javascript file. Why so many devs put up with this is beyond me, but I digress...
Anybody know why it takes so long? Is it because the file needs to load up all the documentation, code bindings, auto-completes, etc. that many other people here have mentioned?
I'm guessing if an IDE is looking through a file every time it opens and mapping that files method paths throughout the project, that could take a bit of time.
Re: Ask HN: What is the must have feature of your IDE
#57This comment only on the first question: Ability to reverse engineer the program flow and provide a sequence diagram based on a run. THis should have the ability to specify a filter so unnecessary noise/well understood parts of the program flow can be skipped
Have you seen this somewhere already?
I'm not sure how difficult this would be to create, but I'm thinking if implemented properly, it could help in working with less/scss and show how changing a variable or class would affect the rest of the compiled css. What classes and ids would be affected, etc. etc.
Re: Ask HN: What is the must have feature of your IDE
#58This might sound stupid, but I like IDEs that look good. Honestly, they all have pretty much the same feature set. I like to use applications that are pleasing to stare at for hours on end (and don't require much customization to get there).
What have you found that looks good? Sublime is ok, so is Lighttable.
Re: Ask HN: What is the must have feature of your IDE
#59cannot live without (from VS): - syntax highlighting obviously - THIS IS BIG: open IDE with unlimited number of instances. I forgot which IDE annoyed me on this one... IntelliJ? - reference lookup - intellisense - code (unit test) coverage map, unit test project integration - ability to make my own extension, add-on, macros, etc - SCM integration, detect file change and indicates which files have been changed in sour…
I'll have to take a look at how VS gives a unit test coverage map. I was trying to figure out a way to link unit tests to their code to make it easier (visually) to write your tests and your code at the same time in the same window and watch your tests pass in real time as you code.
Similar to the original lighttable demo, but using tests, and hopefully easier to understand.
Re: Ask HN: What is the must have feature of your IDE
#60My IDE must have only single feature: it must be Idea :-).