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Am i missing out if I dont use an IDE? (self.programming)

submitted 2 years ago by Ministar to c/[email protected]

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So, I have been mostly self thaught programmer (C++), as its a big part of my job (not a regular developer). But so far I have been using a simple text editor like Geany to code and I compile stuff either in terminal (linux) or produce my own make file.

I am starting to wonder if I should switch to a full IDE, as I am on linux, I was thinking of trying KDevelop. But I am simply not sure if its worth, do I even need it?

I have never used an IDE, it seems kind of complicated for the start with "projects" and I havent really found any good introductions to how this workflow is supposed to work.

Do you think using and IDE is something everyone should use? Or do you think a text editor with producing your own make files should be enough?

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

I use vim, and I can safely say, it was worth bothering to learn it and set it up, ESPECIALLY if you make a career out of it, and one time I had a friend who didn't use an IDE and I showed him how much easier it was to do certain things on vim and he felt very very stupid for using notepad.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I've moved to neovim myself after 20+ years of vim and 30+ years of programming with various editors and even monitors. I've used IDEs when in projects where everyone does and where the build may rely on them (yes, that's a disaster) or when it's the only tool offered (old obscure embedded systems). But I've never wanted to use any of them or found the results useful. Debuggers and editors can be extended to do anything extra an IDE does.

Extra tips: Helix might have an even better command system. Kate almost works like an IDE and offers a vi command mode in a GUI editor.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

being able to immediately jump to a line, jump to columns, have line numbers on the left, have css colors show up like this: https://github.com/RRethy/vim-hexokinase

It's been awesome for me!

I do actually use neovim though.

edit: Oh, I was referring to vim as an IDE, but I now realize you mean that vim is technically just a text editor, but i've set it up quite a lot, so, my particular vim setup might be in a weird spot!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Tbh, that just sounds like an IDE with extra steps. IntelliJ for example does all of those things as well IIRC and you don't need to rely on third-party tools.

Of course you'll learn a lot more along the way if you configure vim to effectively be an IDE, but the end result is not that different.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

While it was a ton of configuration work, it's now an extremely slim text editor that I use for literally every text file on my computer

I don't think intellij's performance could compare.

Plus, now that it's already configured, I just have to share my dotfiles and it's immediately setup anyway, and I love how vim works with modality and all, i'm not familiar with intellij but it'd have to do quite a lot to sway me at this point.