Yeah, I forgot the debugger point :)
Like I said, I've been coding *a lot* of years (25+ at this point)..
granted, most of that wasn't Java, but still... I've become extremely
intuitive in my debugging approach. I don't say this with an ego...
which is rare for me! :) ... but I can't tell you how many times someone
has asked me to help debug something, and I'd look at the code for a
little while and then say "ok, change X to Y and try it", and lo and
behold that solves the problem, but then I can't explain why.
So, for me, 95% of the time, a debugger doesn't help me. There have
been cases where a colleague and me both were trying to debug something,
he with an IDE and all the debugging capabilities in has, and me with
Notepad and a command line, and guess who finds the problem first?
Again, not as an ego stroke or anything, but just to illustrate that at
a certain point a debugger doesn't help as much as you would logically
expect.
That being said, I have become rather fond of JSwat for those times when
my intuition fails me :) Most of my build scripts now include a target
that starts JSwat and gets it ready to debug whatever the project is.
But again, let me repeat my constant refrain: whatever works best for an
individual developer is OK with me :) I think coding is a very
personal, tailored thing, and that's probably why there's so many IDEs,
text editor and other options :)
Frank
Sean Schofield wrote:
Ummm... I guess you guys don't do a lot of debugging then? You would
rather imagine what a value was a certain point in time rather then
actually know what is was? If you never make mistakes then there is
no issue but if you think a value is 'x' it only take 5 seconds to be
100% sure. Of course there is System.out.println but are you going to
add those for all 10, 15 values in question?
I agree that a lot of IDE features are overrated. I'm also not a big
fan of Eclipse either but that is not the only IDE. There are some
things an IDE gives you that I think you're crazy to miss out on.
Managing all of your packages and classpaths is trivial. Then there
are the refactoring tools.
I don't know if it makes sense to use a text editor just because you
are "mad at your IDE." Maybe you should get a better IDE? Try
JBuilder 2005. The free version does everything you vi lovers would
need. I don't buy the argument that IDE's are slow. I agreed with
that argument when the first java based IDE's emerged in the 90's but
we're way past that point. You can also turn off most of the
questionably helpful stuff that you are complaining about.
My 2 cents. You are free to use whatever you want of course. Just
thought it would be a fun Friday topic to find out what the IDE haters
are thinking. I'm pretty comfortable sticking with mine but whatever
"flips your boat."
sean
On 12/9/05, Frank W. Zammetti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
That's a good point Greg, and it applies for me too... I have a number
of different IDEs installed, and on occassion I will use a feature of
one or another... I've pulled stuff into IDEA and used its code
inspectors for example. I've used an Eclipse plug-in here and there
too. So it's not like I *never* touch an IDE, but for me its very
targeted usages, I can't imagine being in any of them all day.
Frank
Greg Reddin wrote:
On Dec 9, 2005, at 8:02 AM, 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 :-)
Bragging rights, what else :-)
There are occasions when I simply use vi and ant/maven/etc. either
because I'm wanting to be closer to the bits and know what's going on
or I'm too lazy to start Netbeans or because I'm pissed off at
Netbeans. Then as soon as i have to code a JavaBean with a bunch of
gets/sets I'll fire it up. Or do some refactoring, etc.
So it just depends on my mood. When I feel trapped by the IDE I'll
move it out of the way. When I feel trapped by the command line I fire
up the IDE. Sometimes I like to go without an IDE just so I will not
forget what the IDE is really doing for me.
And sometimes it's because I'm using a new tool and either the IDE
doesn't support it yet or I'm trying to learn it first before I try to
learn how the IDE wants me to use it. Case in point: Creator and
JSF. On my first JSF app I'm doing it at the command line using
NetBeans for coding and maven to build. Then I'll probably do my next
one in Creator so I can see what kind of value it adds.
I used to think people who used multiple IDE's had a death wish, but
now I'm seeing the value in that too. For example, Creator is based on
Netbeans 4, but I like some features in Netbeand 5. So I'm starting to
use Creator in places where it makes sense to do so, Netbeans
elsewhere, and maven to compile/run/test everything. I haven't tried
Eclipse yet :-)
Greg
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