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Of course MS Windows is better It has Visual Studio

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Re: Of course MS Windows is better It has Visual Studio

#41

Post by apotheon »

andr wrote: post #2

As a person that started programming on X11 in the late 80s and still uses vim daily, I can't think of a better environment than Visual Studio (possibly with the vi plugin) for programming. It is actually sad that guys like the author of this post and some hardcore Linux geeks pride themselves in the lack of good IDEs. The two main arguments are: 1) C# needs more boilerplate class code than C++ or other languages. Wr…

> C# needs more boilerplate class code than C++ or other languages.

RTFA. C++ was used as an example alongside C#.

> close to Python and Ruby.

You must be using a different Ruby than me (or maybe C# 3.0 has magically gotten rid of all its repetitive BS).

> C# and Visual C++ have huge class libraries, which makes it impossible to use without an IDE.

That was kind of part of the point.

> I'm sorry, but I would always go for the language with the big class library, rather than the one without it.

That says more about you than about whether the lack of VS on Slackware makes MS Windows a better development platform.

> I guess the real problem is sour grapes.

This "they hate us for our freedom" crap gets old really fast, y'know. It's not all about jealousy, no matter how much you wish it was.

Re: Of course MS Windows is better It has Visual Studio

#42

Post by cstejerean »

axod wrote: post #24
cstejerean wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fine, don't change the language. Keep using the same thing for 10 years until it becomes obsolete and then wonder why you're unemployed (hint: nothing to do with outsourcing).

Is lisp obsolete yet?

From the point of view of the average programmer: yes. There are some Lisp jobs available but those are usually taken by the best programmers (as opposed to the ones that look for excuses not to learn new things).

From a quick search on dice here are the number of job listings for lisp, cobol and java.

Lisp: 26 Cobol: 1007 Java: 15494

Re: Of course MS Windows is better It has Visual Studio

#43

Post by apotheon »

trezor wrote: post #6

Expand your horizons a little. Learn to use Vim or Emacs, then spend a year doing serious development in something like Ruby instead of C# or Java, and do it in a Unix-like user environment. So does the author suggest anyone working with Java or C# should quit their job? Or does working with vim also provide you with an alternate space-time continuum which allows you to "just" spend one year doing doing something els…

> So does the author suggest anyone working with Java or C# should quit their job?

No. The author (me) doesn't even suggest that anyone should stop using an IDE for Java or C# development. In fact, the author suggests that development in Java or C# is best done with an IDE, and development in Ruby or Lisp is better done with powerful text processor (like Vim or Emacs) in a Unix-like environment.

If you got the impression I was saying Java and C# programmers should quit their jobs to write code in Ruby and avoid IDEs for the rest of their lives, you weren't reading what I wrote so much as reading into it.

> Or does working with vim also provide you with an alternate space-time continuum which allows you to "just" spend one year doing doing something else entirely without it affecting the world around you and the requirements that you have a job which needs to get done?

It wasn't meant to be taken as "only do this, and nothing else". It was instead meant to be taken as "this is all you need to do to test my point".

Re: Of course MS Windows is better It has Visual Studio

#44

Post by apotheon »

eru wrote: post #10
trezor wrote: post #6

Expand your horizons a little. Learn to use Vim or Emacs, then spend a year doing serious development in something like Ruby instead of C# or Java, and do it in a Unix-like user environment. So does the author suggest anyone working with Java or C# should quit their job? Or does working with vim also provide you with an alternate space-time continuum which allows you to "just" spend one year doing doing something els…

No. But probably Emacs does.

. . . followed by intensive physical therapy to treat RSI.

Re: Of course MS Windows is better It has Visual Studio

#45

Post by apotheon »

cstejerean wrote: post #23
pmorici wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"serious development in something like Ruby " As if Ruby is a more "serious" language than Java or C#?

I don't think doing serious development in Ruby has anything to do with Ruby being a more serious language. The point is to use it for a real project as opposed to yet another blog in X minutes.

Precisely. I have to wonder if pmorici is just looking for excuses to get his/her dander up.

Re: Of course MS Windows is better It has Visual Studio

#46

Post by apotheon »

snprbob86 wrote: post #36

On the subject of toolable languages, the Microsoft Languages teams do a faaaantastic job of making languages that are designed to be used with a proper IDE. For example... Generator expression in Python: (p.Name for p in people) And in C#: from p in people select p.Name Or: people.Select(p => p.Name) Notice how in the C# version, the source comes before the projection. This enables code completion when you type "p."…

The first thing I noticed about that C# example was that it was written in passive voice.

Re: Of course MS Windows is better It has Visual Studio

#47

Post by apotheon »

akeefer wrote: post #40

For anyone who's worked extensively in both worlds, I think it should be obvious that a great IDE is better than a just a text editor. Yes, Emacs and Vim are amazing tools, but no, I'd never go back to Emacs after having used IntelliJ IDEA. There are a lot of hardcore Unix guys that I work with and even the most stubborn Vi/Emacs fans have been converted; it's just that good. VS for C and C++ was never worth giving u…

> that's not because text editors are inherently better than IDEs

Who said they are inherently better? They're better for some languages, and not for others -- and that (alone) doesn't make either set of languages inherently better than the other, either. That's sorta the point in the original essay.

> it's just because the IDEs for those other languages aren't that good yet, and it's unclear if they really can be that good.

Those other languages are designed for people to actually enter a state of "flow" with the language, while IDE-oriented languages like C# are designed for people to actually enter a state of "flow" with the IDE. This does not mean that the only reason to use Vim instead of VS to write Ruby is the fact that VS doesn't support Ruby. Instead, it means that one can be at least as productive with Ruby/Vim as with C#/VS, because Ruby is designed to be highly productive under those conditions, while C# is designed to be highly productive under IDE conditions.

That's the whole point -- and it looks to me like you missed half of it in your eagerness to decide that the reason people use Vim to write Ruby is that the clear superiority of IDEs cannot be achieved by a shitty language like Ruby.

Re: Of course MS Windows is better It has Visual Studio

#48

Post by apotheon »

DarkShikari wrote: post #8
Maro wrote: post #5

I think UNIX users, seeing they're never going to get something as kickass as VS simply adopted an elitist approach and claim that for various reasons (language, vi, emacs) they don't even need one. The benefits of VS are obvious: - tabbed: (could you live without a tabbed browser?), also control+tab brings up a smart switcher - search: suppose you have a large project and are looking for a function call, irrespectiv…

Given what features you describe as "benefits of VS", it sounds like you haven't actually used any of the other editors you claim it is better than, since they have most of the same features. I'd guess most UNIX programmers have used Visual Studio at some point in their programming life (its hard to avoid it!), and the reason they don't like it is because their experience wasn't very good. I used Visual Studio for a…

> Given what features you describe as "benefits of VS", it sounds like you haven't actually used any of the other editors you claim it is better than, since they have most of the same features.

As I read the list of features that are apparently "missing" in everything but VS, I found myself wondering what I'd been doing all these years that made me think I had capabilities I've just been told I don't have. Vim allows me to do all kinds of stuff many VS users seem to think I can't do without VS. What's up with that?

I guess the problem is that VS users expect to be able to transplant their IDE skills from VS to Vim and achieve the same level of productivity in only a week. Taking that approach to it is bound to lead to failure, just as the reverse (taking text processor skills from Vim to VS and expecting to achieve the same level of productivity in a week) would, in large part because doing the same things often requires a very different approach. That different approach doesn't necessarily make one approach any better than the other, but it is different.

. . . and nobody seems willing to keep that in mind while trying out something new and different.

Re: Of course MS Windows is better It has Visual Studio

#49

Post by apotheon »

demallien wrote: post #31
Maro wrote: post #5

I think UNIX users, seeing they're never going to get something as kickass as VS simply adopted an elitist approach and claim that for various reasons (language, vi, emacs) they don't even need one. The benefits of VS are obvious: - tabbed: (could you live without a tabbed browser?), also control+tab brings up a smart switcher - search: suppose you have a large project and are looking for a function call, irrespectiv…

you'll find that a lot of unix programmers use tools such as cscope when they need to navigate around large code bases. If you're a vi sort of person, having one terminal in cscope, and another on the command line to compile/checkin code, and another for the debugger gives a totally acceptable result. Of course, as always the optimal solution for a development environment depends on many things - language, host is, t…

It also depends on the developer's own personal preferences -- which is part of the reason I, for one, prefer the far more flexible and configurable IDE that is known as "Unix" over the more rigidly designed IDE known as "Visual Studio".

Re: Of course MS Windows is better It has Visual Studio

#50

Post by snprbob86 »

apotheon wrote: post #46
snprbob86 wrote: post #36

On the subject of toolable languages, the Microsoft Languages teams do a faaaantastic job of making languages that are designed to be used with a proper IDE. For example... Generator expression in Python: (p.Name for p in people) And in C#: from p in people select p.Name Or: people.Select(p => p.Name) Notice how in the C# version, the source comes before the projection. This enables code completion when you type "p."…

The first thing I noticed about that C# example was that it was written in passive voice.

Let's look at a more complex example. Assume "page" is a list of strings. We want to get every word on the page (exact whitespace treatment and tokenizing behavior isn't important; just the gist)

Python:

  (word for line in page for word in line.split())
C#:

  from line in page, word in line.Split() select word
I think that translates to:

  page.SelectMany(line => line.Split())
The Python is a bit confusing; the first C# example is much easier to read. Verbosity is traded for understanding. It is a careful balancing act, but I prefer the balance in C# in this instance. (Don't get me wrong, C# and Python are by far my two favorite languages, I love them both)
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