Title is totally misleading. I use Rstudio, which is an IDE, and there's none of those "terrible" features in Copilet. Does it make my code terrible?
What do you really get from IDE-driven development?
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Re: What do you really get from IDE-driven development?
#12I'm not sure I buy his argument. I see many programmers who produce inferior code with an IDE and many programmers who produce excellent code with an IDE. I'm in the Java ecosystem, where IDEs are pretty much ubiquitous. But I've used plain editors in the past mostly for other languages. All in all, I don't see the link between using an IDE or not and the quality of the outcome. But I do see the link between using an…
his argument is pretty specific: 8x-------------- He’s a really good programmer, but that’s not why his solutions were better. Since he didn’t have suggestions to guide him, he read the docs and by simply perusing them, was aware of methods and other features that the IDE did not suggest. There were better ways in the libraries they were using that weren’t apparent in the IDE. And that makes sense: in the interface f…
It’s not mutually exclusive though right? For instance, google search has auto complete/recommendation to nearly any query. I use that when helpful and know when to ignore it as well and type in my entire query. (Genuinely curious as I don’t use these IDE features.)
Re: What do you really get from IDE-driven development?
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Re: What do you really get from IDE-driven development?
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Re: What do you really get from IDE-driven development?
#15I can't speak for Github CoPilot as I don't use it nor intend to ever use it but I find this article extremely unconvincing. He is basically considering an IDE as an autocomplete suggestion automaton. For me the features of an IDE that I use and value (fast code browsing both across my code and the code of my dependencies, refactoring support and taking care of mundane stuff like code formatting and import statements) have very little to do with autocomplete method suggestions.
I also find the workflow that author is describing where people blindly probe around until autocomplete suggests them a method that does what they want extremely unrealistic. Most developers will look up various libraries and options to accomplish a thing, indeed the only way you can get autocomplete to even work is if you kinda know what library/tooling you want to use.
For example if you want to use a b-tree for something the IDE can't read your mind, you're gonna have to go on the internet and see the options available in the language of your choice, weight them out, decide on one, add the library to dependency management file in your language and only then will the IDE be able to provide any help.
Re: What do you really get from IDE-driven development?
#16I've been using IDEs since Turbo Pascal came out. Delphi 5 was the most productive thing I've ever used for building GUI programs.
Python and languages that support lists, dictionaries, etc. natively have an advantage as far as expressivity. Generics and other support in Lazarus, the Delphi clone I use, lag far behind. However, for building GUI programs, it's still the best option for me.
Something even better for non-gui programs is IDLE, the python REPL... it lets you experiment with the data interactively, the make a program out of it, once you've figured out your algorithm, etc.
Better support of REPLs inside the IDE would be the way to go, I think.
Re: What do you really get from IDE-driven development?
#17I learned programming before IDEs existed so I think I can join the author's crotchety old elitist club. As such I'm also a sceptic of anything AI-driven or crowdsourced.
On the other hand, I recently allowed Visual Studio to use whatever their version of AI autocomplete is called and holy smokes - it can read my mind!
Sure, you can complain about how things were better before the latest crop of tools allowed the unwashed masses to trample your domain but if you're smart you take advantage of the good parts while being aware of the bad ones.
Re: What do you really get from IDE-driven development?
#18Let's all just start writing code on a typewriter... I remember the 90s IDEs. They were not fun. But still better than nothing! Thanks to Copilot, etc bad programmers can now get a lot further, and perhaps it would be good for them to struggle so that they can become better, but don't lay bad code at the feet of an IDE.
> not fun In the 90s IDEs were all the rage, from Turbo Pascal to Visual Basic - the pinnacle of usability IMO.
Peak IDE was Delphi 2 Professional, IMHO.
Re: What do you really get from IDE-driven development?
#19On the theory level the article talks about I don’t really have a problem with IDEs Not always suggesting the sort of optimal solution so long as it reduces my cognitive load and gets the job done.
Regarding copilot, I’d say it guesses the exact code I would write or code that is very similar to it over 50% of the time. My main complaint there is sometimes it oddly miss places a parentheses and sometimes it seems to block the code completion function of VS code. This is with typescript/jsx. Other than that which I assume is going to be fixed eventually copilots been a very pleasant experience for me.
Re: What do you really get from IDE-driven development?
#20This is an argument against programming by autocomplete, not an argument against programming with IDEs. IDEs make this method of programming possible , but they don't make it mandatory. The primary thing I use autocomplete for is to insert method calls that I already know that I want. Secondarily I use it like a documentation browser to read the documentation for every function that I could call if I'm trying to figu…
autocomplete is a memory multiplier.... it allows developers to be able to use vast/larger array of languages without having to remember every detail of the syntax.
As long as you know the concepts, autocomplete helps fills the details. This is especially useful if you are switching between multiple languages, from Java to Swift to Objective-C in one project. Autocomplete helps you keep productive and makes context switching much easier.