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The Return of Fancy Tools

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Re: The Return of Fancy Tools

#141

Post by theelous3 »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #134

Amusingly, the last paragraph is almost the exact opposite conclusion I just typed on another thread, that Ctrl-P type interfaces in Vim is the future of programming UI. I've struggled with the notetaking issue as well and think the important part isn't the taking notes, but the processes around it. The paper/ink based note systems that work possibly do so because they accidentally force you to refer back to things r…

> but the processes around it

Couldn't agree more.

I keep a notes vim open in i3's scratchpad. Mod+minus and it appears front and center, I make a note. I shortcut again and it's gone. I use one giant text file so everything is always searchable on hand.

I never kept notes before this setup, no matter how hard I tried. I just made it as ridiculously easy and zero-brain-required as possible. I don't even like using vim, but the setup is just too straightforward. I've become a note making machine, and I love it.

Re: The Return of Fancy Tools

#142

Post by yout2 »

Another example: Java and C++ got disrupted by Python and Ruby, which were considered to be much simpler to read and write, but now we are seeing more static typing, for example Python with type hints and friendlier static languages like Go/Kotlin/Swift. Perhaps mirrors the shift between text editors and IDEs.

Re: The Return of Fancy Tools

#143

Post by aunty_helen »

yout2 wrote: post #142

Another example: Java and C++ got disrupted by Python and Ruby, which were considered to be much simpler to read and write, but now we are seeing more static typing, for example Python with type hints and friendlier static languages like Go/Kotlin/Swift. Perhaps mirrors the shift between text editors and IDEs.

With Python you can write super simple to super complex. If you have a large project that benefits by type hinting, use type hinting.

Re: The Return of Fancy Tools

#144

Post by coldtea »

bitexploder wrote: post #44

First, this is an interesting take, and I think there is some kernels to consider in it. However, the author is painting very broadly with a large brush and smudging a lot. I have been happily using PyCharm/IntelliJ since what feels like the dawn of time. It is a perfectly complex and rewarding Fancy Tool. People still use IDEs for C/C++ this whole time, etc. I think the author is taking their personal journey and ex…

The post is not about what this or that place or person uses or "always have used".

It's well understood that some people have "always used" IDEs, and other people have "always used" Vim/Emacs.

The post is about general trends. What kinds of tools were trending/rising at some point, what at another at so on.

In that sense, counter-examples don't negate a statistical observation. Only whether the trends described in it is right or wrong matters, not whether some or even many buck them.

Re: The Return of Fancy Tools

#145

Post by pjmlp »

aunty_helen wrote: post #143
yout2 wrote: post #142

Another example: Java and C++ got disrupted by Python and Ruby, which were considered to be much simpler to read and write, but now we are seeing more static typing, for example Python with type hints and friendlier static languages like Go/Kotlin/Swift. Perhaps mirrors the shift between text editors and IDEs.

With Python you can write super simple to super complex. If you have a large project that benefits by type hinting, use type hinting.

As long as performance isn't part of the requirements, then it is time to rewrite it into Java and C++.

Re: The Return of Fancy Tools

#146

Post by coldtea »

jruthers wrote: post #72
bitexploder wrote: post #44

First, this is an interesting take, and I think there is some kernels to consider in it. However, the author is painting very broadly with a large brush and smudging a lot. I have been happily using PyCharm/IntelliJ since what feels like the dawn of time. It is a perfectly complex and rewarding Fancy Tool. People still use IDEs for C/C++ this whole time, etc. I think the author is taking their personal journey and ex…

Right. The idea that Jira has been replaced made me laugh. There's probably a crowd of people that want to move on to the next issue tracker flavour and that's fine but I've got work to do that isn't tool shuffling. I'll use the one that integrates with so many of our systems and, though flawed, does a great job.

>Right. The idea that Jira has been replaced made me laugh.

It shouldn't though. Jira wasn't always here, and it wont be here forever.

And what's even more important, and is the point of the post, trends don't stay the same, whether a tool still maintains its existing userbase or even increases it.

In a changing market, a tool might hold or even increase its userbase, but still end up with much smaller marketshare.

If we add qualitative considerations too, then it's also very possible a tool to remain dominant even in market share, but still lose mindshare (and eventually be dropped by the next gen of developers).

Tons of people and companies use Visual Basic too, but it's not where things are happening (or what one should study to get a job in 2021).

Re: The Return of Fancy Tools

#147

Post by coldtea »

jcelerier wrote: post #106

> Visual Studio was “disrupted” by Sublime Text and TextMate, no it was not. people didn't migrate from VS to Sublime, they migrated from notepad++ to Sublime. I have never met anyone who stopped using IDEs once they started, except maybe for VSCode with a few hundred plug-ins to reconstruct an IDE piece-wise (but with much less "integration" between the different plug-ins)

>I have never met anyone who stopped using IDEs once they started

Well, I, for one, used to use Eclipse and moved to Sublime. It also has to do with changing dev languages and trends over a period. 2005 might have been all about J2EE, 2015 was all about Node, etc.

Re: The Return of Fancy Tools

#148

Post by pjmlp »

jiggawatts wrote: post #129
drawkbox wrote: post #2

Good games should be easy to approach and difficult to master . Good tools should be easy to approach with the ability to customize and do more advanced actions, but never difficult Good tools and products encapsulate complexity but still allow access to it where needed. Good tools aim to simplify complexity, not complexify simplicity. Good engineers and product people make tools that aim to simplify. Make it approac…

"Good tools aim to simplify complexity, not complexify simplicity." Some people don't realise that this is a goal, or that it's even possible. At Microsoft, this was the philosophy behind the .NET Framework standard library. It is simple, beautiful, and abstracts away reams of complex boilerplate that was necessary with C++ programming. Now? I'm using Azure, and... oh... my god. Every internal piece of wiring is expo…

As long time developer on the Windows ecosystem I really don't get what happened.

I fully agree with the experience, add on top of that CLI tools for what used to be VS wizards, code instead of GUI designers, killing C++/CX replaced by C++/WinRT, which after 4 years still doesn't have VS tooling support, 5 competing GUI frameworks on Windows,....

Culture reboot at Microsoft went a bit too far in the wrong direction.

Re: The Return of Fancy Tools

#149

Post by ZeroGravitas »

theelous3 wrote: post #141
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #134

Amusingly, the last paragraph is almost the exact opposite conclusion I just typed on another thread, that Ctrl-P type interfaces in Vim is the future of programming UI. I've struggled with the notetaking issue as well and think the important part isn't the taking notes, but the processes around it. The paper/ink based note systems that work possibly do so because they accidentally force you to refer back to things r…

> but the processes around it Couldn't agree more. I keep a notes vim open in i3's scratchpad. Mod+minus and it appears front and center, I make a note. I shortcut again and it's gone. I use one giant text file so everything is always searchable on hand. I never kept notes before this setup, no matter how hard I tried. I just made it as ridiculously easy and zero-brain-required as possible. I don't even like using vi…

Sounds similar to my current setup. Partly inspired by Bullet Journal's paper based system, it's a per "project" (basically usually a git repo) notespage, that appears and disappears with a hotkey. It also acts as a margin to center the other vim buffer when I'm only working on one file.

It functions mostly as a Todo, so if I'm in the middle of one thing and think of another thing that I want to come back to later, I can add it here. And when I'm thinking, what next? I can consult it and tick things off to feel like I'm making progress and remind me to break big tasks into smaller tasks.

As yet incomplete parts of the process are stealing some ideas from Bullet Journal and having global "pages" that I can call up, a system for copying (not moving!) issues to other places (similar to the > in bullet journals). My theory is that digital workflows err on the side of only showing you what's relevant, and you need to correct for that to a degree to see the full benefit.

I do still like "thinking" with a pen and paper though, not sure why, but then distilling that down into typed text.

Re: The Return of Fancy Tools

#150

Post by RajuVarghese »

akagr wrote: post #100
bitexploder wrote: post #44

First, this is an interesting take, and I think there is some kernels to consider in it. However, the author is painting very broadly with a large brush and smudging a lot. I have been happily using PyCharm/IntelliJ since what feels like the dawn of time. It is a perfectly complex and rewarding Fancy Tool. People still use IDEs for C/C++ this whole time, etc. I think the author is taking their personal journey and ex…

Org mode is easy to get started with if you’re an emacs user. I am one. But before I used emacs, there was no org mode in my life. And let’s face it, while emacs and vim allow you to craft your flow, most people are gonna use something like VSCode. Emacs and Vim have not been able to escape their old school image, even with all their awesomeness. I’d argue that ease-of-starting also includes how visible something is,…

I agree with you. I had used micro-emacs in the 80's and when, about 3 years back, I heard about org mode I wanted to become a big boy and start using emacs. It was a bitter struggle and for many months I regretted that I had even started down this path. But now I can do the basics and it feels much better. I know that I will be rewarded if I persist.
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