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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 14th, 2023

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  • It’s less about “sucks” and “not sucks” but the point I think is important is that IDEs are generally a closed system. You can’t modify them very much, if at all, to fit your needs. If the IDE out of the box is a good fit for your needs then by all means use it! But if there comes a time that you need to do something that isn’t supported by the IDE you either need to drop to the command line or attempt to hack together some solution in whatever limited extension language/API they support. Or hope that an extension already exists.

    Vim, emacs, and other programmable editors make it easy for you to do that one specific thing you need to do. And there is very likely already a package/plugin that someone made for it. But if there isn’t, it’s so much easier to modify a programmable editor than a closed IDE.

    So really it just comes down to what do you need from your editor? Now if you’re someone like me, I need to try to perfect the way I program. Always trying to find the most efficient way to do some common operation. But if that’s not you that’s totally ok (and honestly I envy you lol)


  • I think you should give (mostly) everything a fair try. At least anything that’s “different” than what you’re used to. As a programmer, you should always be striving to improve your workflow. The ideal workflow is different for everyone. The standard text editing experience with a mouse / using control arrow keys etc to navigate is fine and familiar. But you should really at least experiment with modal editing like vim or kakoune. Beyond just the way you type text, the way you interact with the editor (and by extension the project you’re working on as a whole) is important to consider too. Make files are a great way to simplify those complex commands you run, but there may be a way to achieve those actions in the editor you’re using. Compilation, testing, and running code is just one thing. But what about something like git? Magit on emacs is an example of an extremely well thought out integration of git into an editor. Autocompletion is a whole other story, but you can get that in mostly any kind of editor with LSP integration.

    Anyways the point I’m trying to make is that you should never be stagnant in how you program (editor) and what you program (language, paradigm, domain, etc).

    Only time you should be stagnant is once you’ve at least considered the other options and you know what works for you. :)