From: MikkelFJ <mikkelfj-anti-spam@...>
Date: 2002-08-17T10:37:52+09:00
Subject: Re: IDE vs. editor

> What I think people
> avoid discussing is how much benefit a decent IDE can provide. I'm talking
> about things like:
> - - built in debugger

Most of the features are either have or have not. Nothing much to dicuss. I
you don't have it there is no argument, if you do have it you won't give it
up. It's not like you are spoiled for choice when it comes down to IDE's
that sports the features you mention.

Integrated debugger, source control and automated makefile management (where
applicable) is great. Yet I sometimes simply sit with multiple instances of
the Scite editor because it is superleightweight, it can execute makefiles
and does jump to the line of error. When the IDE is with you it is great,
but sometimes it is not - especially when working with multiple programming
language makefiles and unit testing that is not supported by the IDE. Also
the IDE eats memory, mismanages screen real-estate and makes it difficult to
do simple things such as creating a new file (3 layers of wizard: do you
want a HTML file yes / no? no. Do you want a C++ file yes / no...).

I really appreciate IDE's they have just grown so much and simpler
alternatives have gotten the most frequently used features.

So there is a time and a place for everything.

> What do you guys think? I don't want this to be an editors suck, or IDEs
suck
> debate - rather, I'm curious how people that have used both IDEs and
straight
> text editors decided on one or the other. What where the show stoppers?

If it wasn't for Scite, you'd not finding me hacking around in some complex
editor where I would have to remember a lot of codes. Vim is not too bad.
Although I do not do much Linux currently I find it important that the
editor I do use supports both platforms, otherwise you are completely
handicapped when you occasionally uses the other platform.