From: Stu <stu@...>
Date: 2011-06-02T06:11:28+09:00
Subject: Re: What editor or IDE do you use?

You made your point succinctly and eloquently Chad.

I do find it interesting that the topic of text editors becomes a
passionate debate even after all these years. I discovered the Z shell
about 6-7 years ago after a two year stint with bash and previously
worked exclusively with (t)csh and (a)sh.

After discovery of zsh I immediately contacted my buddy who I wanted
to share the joy with whom had been using bash since it's release.

His response was ultimately pragmatic. He felt that he had been using
bash so long that it made no sense for him to switch. I respect that
view.

vi as all good unix utilities builds on the concept that everything is
built from knowledge from the previous tools.

For example if you follow the tool of how shell programming evolved
before perl broke the single command does one thing and one thing
well:

ed => grep => sed => awk ----> perl and now ruby

each one of these builds on the concepts of the previous( much the
same way the shell has evolved). Most of us prefer it because it is on
every unix system so it's always available in some form or another.

vim has many plugin's that can make it act like just about any ide
like environment. Support for syntax highlighting in over 3000
languages, programs, and frameworks. Built in regex and (s)ed style
features in ex. Macros, automation and scripting. They even have
auto-completion.

Ultimately unless someone has been stuck using a closed source editor
or any closed software over an extended period of time they might find
it difficult to switch. Essentially every user has a preference based
on their skill and will prefer the tools that they have hit an apex
with.

Sticking with open source editors( even the GUI ones) in any form will
at least get the user the empowerment and freedoms we all enjoy
working with these tools.

I imagine Stillman's vision wont truly be realized until hundreds of
years after his death where closed source editors and tools will have
hit EOL time and time again while the open source editors based on the
editors of the mid 70's will still be highly developed and in heavy
use for whatever programming is done in that era. Talk about leaving
your legacy.

On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 1:19 PM, Chad Perrin <code@apotheon.net> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 02, 2011 at 03:09:06AM +0900, Wilde, Donald S wrote:
>>
>> Jeez... BSD or Linux... or Doze?
>>
>> Enough already... back to our regularly scheduled Ruby questions! :D
>
> . . . although, the editor question *does* have some relevance for people
> who want some idea of the relative merits and failings of various editors
> when they are assessing the best options for what to use while writing
> Ruby code.
>
> --
> Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]
>