IDEs are a bane on programmers and entice you with sweet autosugar into habits and religious beliefs on style that have no grounding elsewhere than your little bubble.

IDEs are a toolbox that allow you to be more efficient and productive

[Citation Needed]

@12bitfloat
Nah dude, @noobiemcfoob is right.

@metamourge No, he really isn't

Not using current technology and sticking with old solutions makes work less efficient and devs stay with flawed designs. This often ends with stubborn and uninformed devs.

@Agred them some mighty assumptions of a dev's toolchain simply because they eschew IDEs

I can code in a fucking notepad, but an ide or a good text editor will improve your efficiency

IDEs ROCK!!!

<right click>->Go to definition

Just that one feature saves tons of clicks.

@noobiemcfoob Why yes.
you can use cat, or ed to write code.

have fun. Just don't let anyone else read your code.

I can see how IDEs might mean you know a language in less detail. Can you OTOH explain how they lead to "religious beliefs on style that have no grounding elsewhere"? I don't understand that point.

@VaderNT this was started by a linter configured to enforce a style for the benefit of a particular IDE's lookup feature and nothing else.

@noobiemcfoob What the hell sorta IDE are you using? (Also reformatting linters suck)

@noobiemcfoob But I would still rather use an IDE that needs a specific code style that not use an IDE at all

I'd argue that the problem isn't really on IDEs themselves, but on relying too much on them. You should get your hands dirty once in a while.

One advantage of well equipped IDEs is that it helps with function lookup and syntax checking. This is really important when you have to code in several languages a day. Programmers are asked to know more languages and not just one anymore. So a good IDE can save hours of searching and trying to figure out why the hell something won't compile/run.

Introspection for the win!

If you are too dumb to IDE...

Seriously, you can and should configure the shit out of your IDE.

Who the fuck treats an IDE like an preconfigured work environment Oo

Formatring, Warnings, Linter, Code Analyser... There are lots of things that can and should be configured.

@12bitfloat bullshit, I am soooo far less efficient with shit like eclipse and visual Studio... I shouldn’t have to have a god damn jet engine super computer to run the ide without waiting for it to switch modes or bitch at me because there is an issue with the Intellisense.

IDEs are garbage and keeps people from knowing how their software is built and what is happening in the background... I can do everything the ide can do, from VIM, or Sublime.. and a terminal.. infact I can assure you I do it faster and more efficient with my setup than with an IDE.. no I am not doing children’s java.... I am doing embedded software so the whole Intellisense nature of an IDE falls thru when your not using java and importing libraries of people you don’t know or libraries you didn’t write.. and since it’s not object oriented it’s just plane C ... yeah.. IDEs are shit...

Don’t get me wrong tho I use to write java ... still didn’t use the IDEs it’s all shit

@QuanticoCEO to me, it sounds like your saying that you don't need an IDE for what you do. If your not doing object orientated designs then maybe you don't need an IDE. But I would argue having one is almost essential when working on large scale enterprise projects made by several hundred people who may or may not be at the company anymore...

Ah this be the time to shit on IDE’s. Yes they are fucking god awful. An IDE should only be used after you’ve learned and manually preformed the tasks it’s doing for you yourself. The people that just jump into programming using an IDE wouldn’t be able to program because not only do they not know how to fucking build, compile, or possibly debug; but there’s a smaller chance that they don’t even know the starting bits such as how visual studio writes the code for the main class and function along with using 5 other classes.

But after you’ve done shit yourself for awhile and know how to use it, then you should look into IDE’s to maybe speed up the process but in the end it’s not really that bad hell I prefer it, and I find it faster than running the bloated fucking jet engine that is an IDE.

@Bubbles I have people who work with an IDE and they do all these things...?

@QuanticoCEO The fact that you are less productive with an IDE shows that you don't know how to use it. That's not supposed to be a snarky comment btw. Like with any tool you actually have to learn it before you can use it effectively.

@Bubbles Maybe you don't like OOP because without an IDE, anything more complex than a file source files is miserable. Just throwing that out there

@12bitfloat it’s a possibility but I like pythons version of OOP without even using an IDE so idk if that could be enough to debunk that. I know a lot of people don’t like it but I just personally enjoy it. Also when I use C# I generally use VS or turn VS Code into a mini IDE for C# with .NET Core

@12bitfloat I’m telling you, I’ve been writing software for 25 years.. the IDEs just slow me down .. give me vim.. and terminal and that’s all I need.. everything I need todo can do from there. Even debug with gdb, wiggle lines and printf ....

Most of the IDEs are bloated and fucken slow as shit ... eclipse worst IDE on the planet... visual Studio is next no way should it take 4gb + of fucken ram to run ...

If you only know how to use the IDE to write code and do things you are a shitty engineer.

Infact I don’t hire anyone who doesn’t know how to build a project and debug without a IDE.

@Bubbles EXACTLY EXACTLY EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’

@Owenvii lmfao... it doesn’t matter if you have 5 engineers for 5000 engineers IDEs don’t magically do anything that is essential for my day to day tasks that I can’t do in vim...

If your using a language that requires you to use another tool just to write the language.... it’s probably a shity language

If a project requires an ide .. it must be poorly designed/ architected

I remember 20 or so years ago being on a team of 500 software engineers, and none of use used an IDE... and we released very large enterprise application.

It’s seems the people who grew up with or started writing code with an IDE, are now bound to the IDE .. like paraplegics are to wheelchairs .. and crackheads are to crack. Y’all can’t function without the IDE as a crutch ...

Prove me wrong and the rest of the folks on my side wrong

@Owenvii but if I took away the IDE can they even still program?? Because people nowadays just rely on the IDE to do everything for them. Not even insulting anyone it’s just a regular occurrence nowadays.

@QuanticoCEO yeah you definitely understand where I’m coming from.

@Bubbles lol I am insulting the morons who only know how to use the ide.. it’s like go home and learn the god damn shit or get out of the industry.. they are flooding the industry with fucken morons ...

The reason devs are paid shit, is because they choose to one only learn or focus on one language or 2 and try to concentrate in 1 or 2 industry within the larger industry that is mobiles developers and java programmers... these people who write java and only know mobile development are comply fucked when the mobile market bubble bursts..

These people are a dime a fucken dozen because there are so fucken many of them.. then they have the nerve to think if they can write java for mobile they can write java for anything and or think they can do anything... biggest bullshit ever makes everyone else look bad..

Web developers same thing ... the market is flooded with people who know how to write css and a few things for wordpress. Take Wordpress away and they have no idea wtf todo. And a dime a dozen

All this is why I choose to go move to embedded software... why? Cuz there ain’t any fucken dumb asses from what I’ve seen. No children .. and the market isn’t flooded it’s more or less dry as fuck and people are begging for embeddded engineers.. why because it’s harder... you don’t have libraries and APIs to just use and essentially assemble and throw together a bunch of library calls for an application... embedded you have to know wtf your doing.. and it’s different for each micro... you have to actually read the data sheet and reference manual for each micro and each IC you are using no pre built shit.. no intellisense.. you have to be an expert at your job or you won’t last...

And this is why embedded folks get paid well into the 6 figures lol ..

And no fucken raspberry pie and Arduino is Not embedded software.. it’s all way to abstracted.

@QuanticoCEO I agree. Although I think intellisense is a good tool but I’ve seen people abuse it in the most lazy retarded ways trust makes me think it is a mistake sometimes, it just depends on how it’s used for me.

Autocompletion is a very useful tool, but it shouldn't turn into a substitute for your brain. People that systematically use IntelliSense or some other form of autocompletion to browse the available options and see which one they have to use should switch to a simpler code editor and write code from memory once in a while to keep their knowledge of the language and the standard library fresh.

LOL, "real programmers"...

I have found it.
The pinnacle of programmer elitism.

Most people don't know and don't care what the IDE does for them in the background, nor should they have to. Its the whole 80% vs. 20% thing.

If they don't need to know to get their job done, it doesn't make them shit. People depend on their tools, yes. IDEs are a tool. So is VIM and whatever else being used. You need your tools to do work. Everyone has their own tools.

@QuanticoCEO you can't just argue by saying that it was different back in your day. It doesn't matter what was done 20 years ago, this is today. And today, IDEs are a useful tool in the right hands.

Yes, they can encourage bad habits and laziness. But the people who fall for it then are just bad programmers. You can't seriously suggest that in 2019 we should all be simply working from command line text editors and the like. To do so would be to deny all progression up to that point for the sake of what? To be "real programmers?"

Some of us don't like to limit ourselves just to appear superior or elite. Others of us are okay with spending the extra bucks to buy a stronger computer to support our IDE's. There's nothing wrong with doing what you're doing; both things are valid.

Every tool out there has its pros and cons. I trust I don't need to explain the cons of your tools, seeing as you use them. You know their shortfalls. Its all about what you value..

Tl;dr its opinionated

@Owenvii I completely disagree, that you don’t not need to know what’s going on in the background of the IDE... that’s the biggest load of horseshit I’ve heard... and it contributes to why there are soooo many shitty as programmers flooding the market. Contributes to why as an employer it’s so hard to find software engineers.

Writing software is WAY more than just piecing together functions from Pre made APIs to get something to work...

It’s more than just knowing the sysntax of the fucken language...

It’s problem solving...

When tool abstracts how the shit works... and you have a now at least 2 generations of folks who have only used an IDE .. and think that’s alll there is to programming... just typing shit on the screen.. textually solving a puzzle and the puzzle peices being APIs and libraries of people you don’t know.. and the IDE, giving you hint to how to put the puzzle peice together..

Fuck.. if that’s all programming is.. I can’t wait for real AI to come out and cuz all those mother fuckers will be out of a job real quick.. only the people who know wtf is going on and have actual debugging skills, know how the project is being built know all the dependencies and order of linkage ... can read and interpret the output file... THATS AN ENGINEER...

all the rest bound to an IDE, is just a sack of organs sitting in front of screen typing away, being told whattodo from the computer... rather than telling the computer what todo..

Literally no different than the secretaries of the 50s and 60s... just typing away, no rhyme or reason.. just doing what they are told no thinking for them selves...

Again if you don’t understand what’s going on behind the scenes of the IDE.. and Say you never need to know todo your job.. STEP AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER AND FIND ANOTHER CAREER. Because YOU FAILED!!! You college failed you and all your mentors failed you.. go back and learn again.

@Owenvii here’s the reality... in the real world.. when your product gets recalled, and the issue can’t be blamed on one of the development tools, why? Because the developer is ultimately responsible... you can go back on the company that made the IDE .. and sue them from millions of dollars for causing the issue due to their tool .... you as the developer are responsible.. you can’t be off loading responsibility on tools that you didn’t make...

That’s why we don’t use APIs we didn’t write in production code.... we can’t go back on them, ultimately the OEMs don’t fucken care you can’t pass the blame... you will have to take responsibility... and it’s far easier to take responsibility for shit you wrote from scratch.. why cuz you know the inside and out..

We never ever relay on IDEs to build our projects for production executables.. we use own make recipes.. why because we are in 100% control and 100% responsible...

We don’t relay on IDEs because we have so much legacy software, the IDEs we would have used back then, with their build systems and their compilers... no longer supported.. no longer work on newer computers... what then? When you have to rebuild or revisit software projects from 30 years ago??! Well if you wrote the build system yourselves and your own compiler or used a compiler like Gcc .. there would be no issue rebuilding and revisiting the project of 30 years ago.

Just food for thought

LOL, now its "real engineers"

Making popcorn...

@Owenvii ohh and just for reference that whole situation I described is worsened when your are writing software where life’s are at stake and safety is critical....

My business philosophy is vertical integration and that includes the software... build it from scratch... make it your own... from the build systems to compilers and assembler.

Use whatever text editor you want.. I don’t give a fuck.. but the stuff in the IDE, causes room for crutching and then when that happen.. you open your self up for MAJOR FUCKEN PROBLEMS..

In the end you are 100% responsible... you take on the risk... and if you want to be an assembler of shit and abstract everything.. for the sake of “efficiency and speed of getting the job done”... you are dancing with the devil and when the disaster strikes... you will be caught with your pants down.

That I can promise because I’ve seen it happen many times. People just don’t learn.

@Demolishun whatever dude... one day you may realize and see the reality of the industry and why it’s doomed due people think that this continuing of abstracting shit away so more people can play ..

Or you won’t ever learn it.

@QuanticoCEO Imagine thinking that an IDE just enables you to sit there and do absolutely nothing and have everything done for you. You know that's not true, your being dishonest with yourself and with everyone else.

I agree that knowing makes you better. But most of the times you only maybe need one senior who knows that stuff. I would much rather someone know how to use an IDE well and understand good programming concepts then anything else.

The industry has changed a lot. And there's a reason its growing instead of shrinking. You make it seem like everyone is just getting dumber because of using IDE, and yet, the industry continues to grow. Why would it grow if everyone was just getting worse at their job?

@QuanticoCEO I'm reading this "to IDE or not to IDE" with interest. You've obviously gathered a toolset that works great for you, and you're (while staunchly on the "not to IDE" side) still open to discussion.

After the arguments so far that you found unconvincing, I'd like to ask "the other way round": What kind of arguments would convince you that IDEs do have some utility?

@Demolishun pass the good stuff here my guy. I'm in for the long haul.

I can't fathom being so paranoid that you feel you have to code every single tool and library yourself...

If that was the standard in the industry again everything would take so much longer. Im glad its not. Having open source tools, libraries and frameworks is what has allowed our industry to grow so much.

If you adopt that mindset in todays cutting edge then you will easily get overtaken by people who do take the risk to 'dangerous' outside libraries and tools and do your job faster and cheaper.

Also, dude, who recalls software products nowadays? We patch them. Release updates for them... We don't recall them. 😕

@Owenvii recalls happen all the time on in the automotive industry... most of the time due to software.

Aerospace industry also.

Industrial industry of machines on the line..

Military industry software on the drones, and other weapons..

@Owenvii It sounds like there might be MISRA compliant code being written. In that case the developer better know what is in the libraries to ensure those are MISRA compliant. Embedded is a different animal for sure. Especially in safety systems. I would think for that domain a decent IDE with checkers to ensure the code meets MISRA requirements, has ways to flag non-compliant code so those can be reviewed, etc would make that process better. But this would require objectively looking at these new finagled shtuff the whipper snappers are writing.

@VaderNT I argue that IDEs are great for visual debugging ... and putting a bunch of tools in one application. But how often are you using those tools all day every day...
I argue that the IDEs do a great job of getting “example” projects, and what I refer to as reference material up and running very quickly.. (I use them for that) lol

Having versioning built in may be plus..

Xcode.. for iOS, Android Studio for Android, and Visual Studio for C# I can’t argue .. your kinda stuck using them.. they do a great job of debugging tools built in, that otherwise unless you are the manufacturer of the chips and boards you can’t debug as a middle man developer writing applications for someone else’s platform.. they put you in This sandbox and do a great job keeping you there.. but aside from those 3 use cases I don’t don’t like them.. maybe jetbrains stuff for web.. I have some respect for them.. but embedded industry.. any industry for automotive, aerospace, and industrial embedded systems no use is the IDE..

@Demolishun Ah yes.. I just think its a good idea to always keep an open mind when it comes to tools and systems that could make our jobs easier.

I think its also important to stress that easier doesn't mean worse.. Or lower quality. It just means easier. I feel like lots of people make that mistake...

@Demolishun you are correct regarding MISRA and I haven’t found an ide with MISRA checker built in that was worth its weight in gold... I do have MISRA checkers with text editors built in.. but the text editor potion sucks.. so I just use the static analysis tool for just the analysis...

I also found there are too many tools that try to “keep” you in their environment by trying to give you all the so called features you think you need.. but in reality they feature you really need isn’t in that ide or that ide does a shity job of something else..

Core competencies folks.. use the tool for what it’s good for..

I use a text editor vim and sublime .. because they are fucken great at text manipulation... I use GDB and other debuggers seperatly because they are fucken great at what they do... I use QAC, GIMPLE, and Klockwork, for static analysis why because they do one job really fucken well..
I use make for build trying to switch to ninja but I don’t really see the point it’s only faster regarding files that haven’t changed.
I use helixCore and git for versioning control...

I use all these tool independently why? Because nobody has put them together in a tool that works perfectly... everyone trying todo everything and Putting everything in one tool, in the end everything is sub par. And no feature is really great.

Like putting web browsers in IDEs.. WHY??!!! all of them suck.. non of them are superior to chrome or Firefox .. why would I use the one in the ide? Who uses it?... just cuz you don’t have to leave the environment.. fuck it..

I challenge an IDE to put all the tools together in an ide.. the tools I actually need rather than the tools you think I need, AND make it perform as well as running the tools individually as I do today.

Rather than the “automated” magical land of let’s try todo it all in the IDE.

@Owenvii I don’t mind using libs or frameworks, they help, and some of the tools that are stuffed in an IDE also are useful. But it’s just that people are so reliant on the IDE and it’s fancy features that takes out any form of effort that I’m dead sure a lot of them wouldn’t be able to write code without it.

I’m not saying all or gonna even state a percentage because I don’t know. I also use IDE’s (in some cases it depends) but I genuinely believe it makes a better programmer if they know how to do it manually. Not religiously and only doing that but at least can do it if they need to/ and understand the process and how it all works.

Because anyone can push a button and it do something, not everyone can compile code manually. You can argue with me all day but in the end using an IDE is just writing some code and pushing a button.

@Bubbles EXACTLY!! THANK YOU!

Wow, vim has certainly gotten more interesting:

https://medium.com/@huntie/...

It even has autocompletion and lint plugins and file managers... Kind of like, I dunno, an IDE?

@Demolishun never said I don’t use those plugins for vim...

@Demolishun I think you’re missing the point. We’re not saying we program with black backgrounds with white text or use 0 tools and manually compile a 50+ file C project on our own without a single automation. We’re saying that it’s the process you’re skipping out on and probably not knowing what’s actually going on behind the scenes. And when people start languages like C/C++, Java, C#, etc they are automatically thrown in the direction of an IDE and then when they push your little magic run button they think that’s all it takes, so they don’t know the actual fucking process that is compiling that button is automating and what steps it’s automatically preforming for us. And a text editor like VS Code has a good amount of features that we have normalized to be IDE such as a debugger and git integration. But even then you have to set them up.

hE uSeS SyNTax HiGhlIgHtinG hES a HyPoCrITe hE uSeS IdE fEAtuRes

@QuanticoCEO Idk if we’re going to get anywhere at this point lmao

Can we all just use the common sense that just because people dislike IDE’s they can still use and enjoy the features normal editors come with? Idk if that’s a hard concept to understand. But it’s a true one.

No one uses fucking notepad to program it’s fucking common sense guys

@Bubbles I think they don’t understand the difference between basic text editors and IDEs.

At this point I think many people are actually only using the text editor portion of IDEs with the additional feature of project build and run and compile.

The don’t realize each one of those things are separate tools added into the IDE.. and are not using all the other available tools the IDEs have, as we would have and thus think we are only bitching about the Text editor features of the IDE. Which I am not bitching about the text editor feature of the IDE.. although I believe vim and sublime both handle the text editor far superior to other text editors and text edit portion of IDEs.. due to the manipulation capabilities of sublime and vim.

This sounds more like an experienced versus inexperienced argument.

I remember in the 90s when I was asked to modify some existing code on an embedded C system. They needed a way to have a history on a set of screens. The system was programmed with a C compiler on a QNX system. The build system was already in place. I ran into some issues with my code and a more senior coder showed me how to use the debugger. This quickly showed me the error. We did all our work using vi (which I loathe, no thank you modal editors) and make files. Anytime I struggled I for the most part read the manuals. The code itself ended up being a linked list (which was really easy). This was part of my job at the time. I mainly did control systems design.

According to the logic in this thread I should never have been allowed to program this system, nor allowed to be a developer at all. So the premise that IDEs are flawed because lack of experience is horseshit.

@QuanticoCEO when it comes to Sublime I think it has the best performance and syntax highlighting of all the GUI text editors. I had to make a 5GB file and it’s the only editor that actually made it past 2.5 GB of sample text. And it’s syntax highlighting is just great. It’s the only text editor I’ve seen that highlighted Python and SQL at the same time in the same file. Although VS code is just my go to In general. I wish I could ditch all them for Vim but I only use vim on Linux systems

@Bubbles I agree, but I haven’t used VSCode enough to judge, because it doesn’t instant load like sublime or vim ..

I use sublime while on windows, vim while on Linux.

Vim on windows sucks.

@QuanticoCEO it is a downfall but that’s only because it’s made with electron 🤢🤮 which is one of its worst fucking flaws

@Demolishun experience does factor in but IDE’s don’t teach the people new to programming what a compiler is, how it works, and the difference between the IDE the Compiler and the other tools in the IDE. When I first started I was so confused when I was forced to use an IDE I didn’t know what a compiler was, I didn’t understand what the difference between the options “compile” & “build and compile” because there was no explanation there was no further wisdom besides the buttons that did everything for me, and it killed my motivation to learn C++. But when I came back to it I just installed a compiler and used the editor I was using for Python and I was actually understanding everything. I understood the process I understood what the compiler was and that it was just a tool the IDE uses and it made everything clear. And someone who was introduced to and only uses an IDE will never have that experience and know how great learning that helps know how everything works

Those sugary stuffs can makes you productive, but you can not expect someone to run IDE in all places. In the end it comes down to subjective decisions not objective decision.

Anddd I will just drop this here