Thoughts on editors (Emacs in particular)

http://pinard.progiciels-bpi.ca/opinions/editors.html

by charzom • 19 years ago

18 21 19 years ago

ivankirigin3• 19 years ago

The Hacker News community would do well to minimize discussions about optimal editors. It just isn't that interesting or important.

lst• 19 years ago

When I consider the time spent in thinking about a line of code and typing it into my editor, I couldn't agree more.

mangodrunk• 19 years ago

I agree with both of you, but I think it is wise to choose a good editor when you start. If the editor is any good, it can help you and reduce the time it takes to program, so more time is spent on thinking than typing. I'm sure you don't use Notepad or Nano.

But, yeah, dead topic to me, I already chose my editor and could care less what someone else says, only if it's about a new one, then I may care.

tx• 19 years ago

Yea... and then when you're finally know what to do, you're held back by bottlenecks and deficits of your editor/IDE. Doing "context switch" on your brain, switching from the problem you're programming to "how the heck do I tell it to stop auto-indenting 8char tabs?!" is frustrating. It's slowing you down. Things get only worse when you're dealing with many files.

It's not the "typing time" that good editors save you, it's the "thinking time" they save since you're not forced to think much about them.

When I was forced to switch from Visual Studio 6 to VS2003, my productivity really suffered. Things did not work the way I wanted and I kept cold-rebooting my brain after every little interruption. Now I'm switching to vim and while it may not be as "fast" for certain tasks, its consistency and transparency makes me forget it's there. Besides, by not relying on arrow keys, pageup/down, del/ins and so on, vim allows me to be equally productive on unknown keyboards, especially on laptops, easily switching computers, which I happen to do quite often.

Goladus2• 19 years ago

Why do you say that? It would seem to me that editor choice can be as important as language choice, and understanding the features of the editor are important to fast, effective development. One of the most interesting articles I read this year was about editors.

mdakin5• 19 years ago

Neither choice matters much. Smart, flexible people tend to get the job done one way or another. If a bottleneck becomes apparent they work around it: revise, redesign, change languages, tools, editors as necessary.

Historically a lot of useless dogma and arguments have surrounded the choice of editor. There is a desire to avoid that sort of low-quality discussion.

nirs• 19 years ago

Of course it is interesting - this is your major tool. Photographers are obsessed with cameras, programmers with editors...

bluishgreen• 19 years ago

I do quiet a bit of photography, imho photographers should not be obsessed with camera. and that further implies that this is not a good explanation for programmers to be obsessed with editors. The key word is "obsessed". You should definitely think about it. But save the obsession for other important things.

mdakin5• 19 years ago

Such people are properly known as "camera fondlers". [1] Only some of them are actually photographers.

[1] http://nemeng.com/leica/002e.shtml

jsrfded• 19 years ago

It's a bit shallow to sum a 5000 word essay which spans the history of the FSF, the rise of linux, and the cultural friction between the two, viewed (oddly, but intruigingly) through the lens of one's editor with 'you said editor, let's not talk about editors' .. well it's sort of missing the point of the essay, IMO.

ivankirigin3• 19 years ago

I think you're right. I over-simplified things.

But that doesn't mean I find the discussion on this page interesting. Editors are very utilitarian, and for some reason lots of people talk about them. Feel free to have at it. I'll refrain from comment and up-votes.

Tichy• 19 years ago

The constant complaints about inappropriate posts bother me more than the inappropriate posts themselves. Why is it even necessary to comment? If you a new item is not interesting, just don't vote it up?

ivankirigin3• 19 years ago

Point taken. But I don't think voting will be enough. This topic isn't the worst, but some topics are really bad and have momentum. To fight the momentum, not up-voting doesn't seem enough.

amichail• 19 years ago

The choice of editor matters in the sense that you would gain quite a lot by using an IDE with automated refactorings.

khoerling• 19 years ago

Yes! Or, an IDE which integrates a debugging tool, key bindings, API-sensitive auto-complete, run-time manipulation, and many other language-specific features geared toward easing development in that language.

Thoughts on editors (Emacs in particular)

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