Amen.
At work I'm fond of saying "Eclipse is the devil". :) It gives you tons
of power (tons!) and then every now and then sends you on a two hour
hunt to figure why the right jars aren't getting picked up or some weird
auto-format thing that can't be turned off (yet in this version or
whatever). Or you spend a day or two trying to figure out how to get
some plug-in working right.
Yes, it is great. I just haven't personally needed the power yet. All
of those years of learning refactoring tricks, etc.. However, I figure
the first major refactoring I have to do that isn't covered by my tricks
and requires lots of balls in the air... that's when it will hook me.
Because that's how it got most of the other guys.
And I'd probably still try IDEA first. :) The bottom line is that I'm
still more productive without at this point. Though being able to have
the CVS annotate information in the left margin has almost sent me there
several times. The devil knows each of our weaknesses.
So, an expanded "me too".
-Paul
Frank W. Zammetti wrote:
You realize of course that such a topic can only lead to an IDE war :) LOL!
I've tried I think every major IDE out there, as well as plenty of
lesser known ones. Some I've maybe not given a fair shake to because I
found something that I *really* didn't like right away, but most of them
I've spent considerable time with to get a fair impression.
First, you have to remember that I've been coding a *long* time, and as
such I've become extremely comfortable and, more importantly, effective,
in the way I work. I can tell you from experience that I tend to work a
lot faster than most other developers that I've been able to compare
myself to (note that I'm not saying I'm *better* or anything, just that
I tend to be *faster* than most). I've very much a train-of-thought
person, if I'm in a groove I can churn work out with the best of'em.
What all this means is that if a tool gets in my way *at all*, I tend to
spurn it. Even if the tool may have some advantage in some other way,
the first time it slows me down even a little it's pretty much over.
I have not yet met an IDE that doesn't get in my way. Some are
definitely worse than other (RAD), and some are pretty close to useable
for me (IDEA).
Simple thing bug the s**t out of me... if I right-click on something and
a response isn't *immediate*, it kills me. If it chews on my source
files for a few seconds every time I try and view one, that kills me
(yes, I know it's analyzing to give me code insight and such, but still).
Also, if it does TOO MUCH work for me, I can't stand it. I used to not
want *anything* done for me, but I've kind of changed my mind a bit
there... where I used to want to write my own getters and setters, I'm
happy to let some tool do it for me now (although for me it's a custom
UltraEdit macro).
Also, I can't stand IDEs that throw all sorts of proprietary stuff into
the mix... RAD is the worst in this regard. If someone with a different
IDE, or no IDE at all, can't come along and build my code, than the IDE
has insinuated itself into my code, and that's unacceptable. This used
to be a bigger problem, but admittedly it doesn't seem to be as bad now
(and IDEA is actually very good in this regard in that I can set it up
to be completely independant of my code, one of the reasons its *close*
for me).
The other problem that goes along with the speed issue is that most of
them that I've tried have been Java-based, and I don't care what anyone
says but Java desktop apps are still sluggish, even on high-end
hardware. Oh yes, it's leaps and bounds better than it was, no question
about it, and I'm amazed at how good some Java apps actually are. But
in an IDE, I notice all the little delays here and there, and they add
up for me. Again, a tool can't get in your way or it's counterproductive.
Now, about all those nifty-keen plug-ins most IDEs have... yes, I admit,
I get plug-in envy at times :) But frankly I've found that most of them
I wouldn't use anyway because its just as fast to do it myself, or close
enough to be acceptable, and I definitely prefer knowing what's
happening every step of the way then trusting something to hack my code.
I've seen too many instances over the years of something screwing up
code worse than it ever would have helped.
Which brings me to my last point... where I sit at work, I am near some
people that are historically big RAD fans. However, over the past few
months, as they've tried to have RAD do more and more for them, every
single day without fail I overhear a conversation talking about how RAD
screwed up this config file, or it wouldn't compile something for some
reason that no one can explain, or it just generally wasn't cooperating.
Now, if I had only ever heard these complaints about RAD I'd just say
IBM screwed the pooch (it did) and it was unique to that IDE... but I
*constantly* hear similar stories about other IDEs as well. Most anyone
that is an IDE proponent has war stories along those lines (some have
been lucky and haven't been burned much, others are constantly being
burned).
But, all that being said, I believe using an IDE or not, or which IDE or
other tools you use, is a completely personal thing. My guys at work
get to use whatever tools they want, with only one caveat: it all has to
boil down to an Ant script that anyone can run from a simple command
line, and the actual code must be completely agnostic about development
environment. This is fairly easy to accomplish, and makes it so that 10
different developers with 10 different toolset preference can work on
the same code without difficulty.
To me, whatever is most effective for you is perfectly OK. I'm not
going to try and convince anyone one way or another. And while I will
continue to try various IDEs as I have the opportunity, so far none
allow me to work as efficiently as a copy of UltraEdit, Directory Opus,
Ant and a command line... those are the four windows open on my PC every
minute of every day, and I wouldn't (at this point) have it any other
way :)
Frank
Sean Schofield wrote:
Please keep in mind that there are still a good number of people who do
not use an IDE at all.
Why on earth would you someone do such a thing? Seriously. I'd like
to know :-)
Frank W. Zammetti
sean
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