Benefits of Not Using an IDE

#1

Post by defaulty » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 2:06 PM UTC

Benefits of Not Using an IDE
alexander-hansen.dev

Re: Benefits of Not Using an IDE

#2

Post by shreddit » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 2:16 PM UTC

I think that’s why VSCode is so popular. It’s a very powerful text editor, not a light version of an IDE.

On the other side, I’d never use vsc to edit a normal text file…

Re: Benefits of Not Using an IDE

#3

Post by adamnemecek » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 2:17 PM UTC

I don’t get why these articles get written. They are so predictable and just…overdone. What’s next “the unreasonable effectiveness of the vim text editor”? You are literally verbatim repeating the a thing that has been written one million times.

Re: Benefits of Not Using an IDE

#4

Post by Rd6n6 » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 2:17 PM UTC

A good ide is all about auto completion and refactoring tools. The autocompletion means you don’t have to spend as much time memorizing apis, so you can focus more on simplifying your design and minimizing coupling. In something like unreal engine, the intellisense really sets ides apart. The refactoring means you can quickly and easily make large changes to make the code easier to work in. You can just work significantly faster if you have both of these things.

I don’t really use other ide features. Separate terminals are great

Re: Benefits of Not Using an IDE

#5

Post by k__ » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 2:17 PM UTC

I used Webstorm for years, but switched to VSCode.

It's just more flexible, which allows me to use new tech/langs very quickly.

If you don't focus on IDE features, you tend to implement quality of life improvements at a level that also works in an editor. Like in the language, framework, or library you're using (See the code generators point in the article).

With languages like Rust, that have zero cost abstractions, you don't even run into performance problems when doing so.

Re: Benefits of Not Using an IDE

#6

Post by simonw » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 2:18 PM UTC

shreddit wrote: post #2

I think that’s why VSCode is so popular. It’s a very powerful text editor, not a light version of an IDE. On the other side, I’d never use vsc to edit a normal text file…

I've spent my entire career avoiding IDEs, and now VS Code has finally sucked me into what I'm increasingly suspicious is an IDE cunningly disguised as a text editor.

I use it to edit random text files full of notes too, because I trust it to bring back my unsaved work if my laptop crashes.

Re: Benefits of Not Using an IDE

#7

Post by throw3849 » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 2:19 PM UTC

I feel most of those points are obsolete with Idea. It takes seconds to start and so on.

Only benefit I see is remote development over terminal.

Re: Benefits of Not Using an IDE

#8

Post by nerdbaggy » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 2:19 PM UTC

He bashes VS Code at the end but that seems exactly what he wants. VS Code is more of a text editor then an IDE, and you can turn off all the “issues” he complains about.

Re: Benefits of Not Using an IDE

#9

Post by onion2k » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 2:20 PM UTC

Not having an IDE doesn't make me remember things. In my case it just means I use a very limited subset of the features, because I'm not being reminded of the things I don't remember and I don't get to see newer language features unless I happen to read a blog post or see something here on HN. I tend to fall back to implementing things with primitives and fail to use built-in functionality.

Re: Benefits of Not Using an IDE

#10

Post by Insanity » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 2:20 PM UTC

As the author points out, it does depend on the language. I switched to vim "full-time" when moving to a Go team. (Prev Java).

Java is a language that does not lend itself to vim. Even just compiling and running a sufficiently large java program can be a pain without an IDE setup.