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?

  • True Blue
    6•2 years ago

    The line between IDE and text editor is kinda blurry nowadays anyway. I don’t know that much about Geany, but many of the text editors I’ve used were basically full IDEs, except that the IDE features were opt-in.

    Currently I use VScodium as my editor, and I’ve been happy with it. I hear a lot of good things about Kate too, and as a KDE user, I feel like I should try it some time. Kate to me looks like the same spirit of text editor as Geany. Maybe if you’re comfortable with that style of editor, give it shot.

    The 2 editors that have really been catching my eye lately have been Helix and Lapce. I think it’s really cool that Helix went with a Kakoune style “selection → action” system instead of the normal vim style “action → selection”. I think Lapce is trying to be a similar style of editor to Vscode, with simple IDE features by default, but then an extension sytem to expand that. Maybe an editor like that would be approachable to you. Although unlike Helix, Lapce seems to be less production ready for now, so maybe wait on that.

    For now you could of course just try VScode (or VScodium if you’re like me and want open-source software) since that’s a popular one right now.

    • @MinistarOP
      1•2 years ago

      I was looking at Kate as Geany does not seem to get a lot of feature updates, but unfortunately i dont have KDE at work and there does not seem to be a flatpak version of Kate.

      I did not know about VSCodium, and I do actually prefer open source software so I will check this out. Thanks

      • @ravnswood
        1•2 years ago

        IMO VSCode is one of the best options: a text editor with plugins and IDE-like features, but allows the user to create the project from scratch.