So, I have been mostly self thaught programmer (C++), as its a big part of my job (not a regular developer). But so far I have been using a simple text editor like Geany to code and I compile stuff either in terminal (linux) or produce my own make file.
I am starting to wonder if I should switch to a full IDE, as I am on linux, I was thinking of trying KDevelop. But I am simply not sure if its worth, do I even need it?
I have never used an IDE, it seems kind of complicated for the start with “projects” and I havent really found any good introductions to how this workflow is supposed to work.
Do you think using and IDE is something everyone should use? Or do you think a text editor with producing your own make files should be enough?
I stick with vim for years out of that sort of badge of honor. Now I use vscode and nobody is taking it from me.
You can do almost anything in vim or emacs, but I can do it faster in vscode. It’s a really fantastic tool and it’s completely free.
VSCode + Vim extension is where it’s at
VSCode + Vim is one of the configurations I use right now. It’s quite good. Not quite as nice in terms of being Vim as Vim + Tmux, which does get in my way, and it doesn’t handle bookmarking very well, but definitely a very usable setup. I regularly use VSCode, Rider, and Visual Studio all with Vim extensions, and as much as I like Rider, the best Vim extension for it has issues. Visual Studio is probably my overall favorite for web backend, but VSCode is right there with it, and my preference for front-end.
I actually went back to (neo)vim because I found vscode was not quite keyboard-driven enough for my wants. But especially with neovim you can torture it into basically being a IDE with all the available plugins out there (e.g. in my setup I have highlighting, code completion, reporting of syntax errors and forth)
Do you use the vim plugin for VSC to keep your speedy navigation? I miss things like “select up to the next quote” but I’m not enough of a vim user to make the switch myself.
I stick with vim because every time I try to use vscode, I get so bogged down trying to set things up and figure out how to use it that I end up just being like, “eh, fuck it - I’ll do this later.”
Some younger admins and engineers look upon me with awe, but really I’m just secretly a really lazy bastard. I don’t even pack plugins into vim anymore to make my life easier. Just plain old vanilla vim.
At the end of the day there’s some cost-benefit analysis for time spent setting up environment vs time saved by previously setup features. Autocomplete saves a good amount of time but even something like same-file-word suggestion can save a lot of time without any setup.
Yeah, for sure - I don’t deny that at all. For me, it’s a confluence of general burnout, laziness, and comfort with what I already know… and likely not a really urgent need to move to a proper IDE. The majority of my coding is small, one-off Python scripts where I can
:wqand run it and then open it back up to refine, fix bugs, add debugging prints, etc.Even for that there are some nice (vim and otherwise) features where clicking on an error automatically opens up the right file and sets the cursor at the location of the error. Or just seeing errors in a separate panel from the rest of the code.
Yeah, I used to configure vim with syntax highlighting and auto-suggestions and whatever else. I just like… don’t anymore. I’ve been feeling less burned out over the last few months and it seems, at least, like its still lifting slowly. Maybe when I get the energy back, I’ll take another crack at vscode.