Ask HN: What modern “legendary” programmer prefers IDE other than Vim or Emacs?
By "modern" I mean, started programming around a time when emacs, vim AND other (e.g. Visual Studio) were available to choose from
26 comments
Honest question: what’s the point of this question? what does it matter?
If “legendary programmers” all chiseled bits into a disk with a scalpel would that make it a good idea?
Use whatever makes you comfortable and allow others to do the same. Don’t emulate or even care about “legendary programmers” tooling.
If “legendary programmers” all chiseled bits into a disk with a scalpel would that make it a good idea?
Use whatever makes you comfortable and allow others to do the same. Don’t emulate or even care about “legendary programmers” tooling.
Let me respectfully disagree. Tooling is super important in any trade but in programming it can make be multiplier (all other things being equal).
It's like saying "What modern olympic gold medal runners prefer Adidas shoes over Nike?", with the implication that Adidas shoes are inferior in some way.
They are olympians, you're not. Use whatever shoes you want to use.
Tooling does matter, but what "legendary programmers" tooling looks like doesn't outside of a professional curiosity.
They are olympians, you're not. Use whatever shoes you want to use.
Tooling does matter, but what "legendary programmers" tooling looks like doesn't outside of a professional curiosity.
if you don't learn from the best, how do you improve?
Legendary programmers don’t become legendary because of their text editors but because of the code that they write.
Linus Torvalds has used a janky version of micro Emacs that he picked up as a university student in Finland.[1] Will it make you a better programmer if you switch to his editor? No. Just use whatever you are comfortable with, like he has. He has used this editor because he got used to its peculiar keybindings. He rather worked on the kernel than to learn new keybindings.
[1] https://github.com/torvalds/uemacs
Linus Torvalds has used a janky version of micro Emacs that he picked up as a university student in Finland.[1] Will it make you a better programmer if you switch to his editor? No. Just use whatever you are comfortable with, like he has. He has used this editor because he got used to its peculiar keybindings. He rather worked on the kernel than to learn new keybindings.
[1] https://github.com/torvalds/uemacs
If IT would actually learn from the past it wouldn't be a fashion driven industry.
I know John Carmack prefers an IDE. I believe he talks about it in this interview with Lex Fridman
https://youtu.be/I845O57ZSy4
https://youtu.be/I845O57ZSy4
Andreas kling of serenityOS uses clion, and makes good use of its features. He's an awesome programmer, and no doubt proficient in vim if he needs to be, but seeing him interact with the IDE does shown its use, especially with the speed he operates at.
Thank you, had not heard of him and found some useful info in various places including: https://usesthis.com/interviews/andreas.kling/
So anyone programming in the last 25 years or so?
25 years ago I was using a mix of Visual Studio and Emacs. 25 years later I use Emacs a bit but don’t write much code. I use BBEdit more than Emacs now.
25 years ago I was using a mix of Visual Studio and Emacs. 25 years later I use Emacs a bit but don’t write much code. I use BBEdit more than Emacs now.
I remembered this Geany example.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePZEkbbf3fc
Bio:
> My name is Kamil Dębowski (or Errichto) and I'm quite good at competitive programming. I'm a finalist of multiple big programming competitions like ICPC, Facebook Hacker Cup and Google Code Jam (even got 2nd place in 2018). I also organize competitions, which means inventing and preparing problems.
Not sure if they still use Geany, or if you consider this person legendary (some people really gatekeep around words like that), but there's at least a data point for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePZEkbbf3fc
Bio:
> My name is Kamil Dębowski (or Errichto) and I'm quite good at competitive programming. I'm a finalist of multiple big programming competitions like ICPC, Facebook Hacker Cup and Google Code Jam (even got 2nd place in 2018). I also organize competitions, which means inventing and preparing problems.
Not sure if they still use Geany, or if you consider this person legendary (some people really gatekeep around words like that), but there's at least a data point for you.
That's for competitive programming, you really want to stick with the most common tools there. Otherwise you have to learn different set of stuff for each on-site competition. Common as in "included in the standard OS image at competitions".
For example, I use Far Manager/Kate for competitive programming and small scripts (sometimes Vim), but not way I use any of these for professional development.
For example, I use Far Manager/Kate for competitive programming and small scripts (sometimes Vim), but not way I use any of these for professional development.
Trying to understand this--are Far Manager & Kate included in the standard OS image at competitions, but your favorite work IDE is not? Or is it more that your work config files & plugins are not available/needed in competitions?
Yes. In some competitions about ten years ago in ex-USSR it was typically Windows + Far Manager (maybe some other stuff, but not always), in international competitions it was some flavor of Linux with a stock KDE (hence Kate) or GNOME (hence Gedit).
No professional IDEs almost certainly (no license to use), and the set of free IDEs depends on what organizers like: some installed NetBeans, some installed Eclipse CDT, some did both, some did neither.
No external resources like configs and plugins are typically allowed either.
Of course, it depends on a competition. I'm mostly talking about IOI (International Olympiad in Informatics for school students) and ICPC (International Collegiate Programming Contest). Online competitions are another beast.
No professional IDEs almost certainly (no license to use), and the set of free IDEs depends on what organizers like: some installed NetBeans, some installed Eclipse CDT, some did both, some did neither.
No external resources like configs and plugins are typically allowed either.
Of course, it depends on a competition. I'm mostly talking about IOI (International Olympiad in Informatics for school students) and ICPC (International Collegiate Programming Contest). Online competitions are another beast.
interesting, had no idea of those limitations / considerations in competitive programming
Had not seen that before thank you!
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emacs and vim people write code that is as confusing as their editors. change my view
Seems short-sighted to jump to conclusions about people's output based on the tools they use.
well, yes, true. but the design of your environment affects your design sensibilities