Ask Slashdot: Correlation Between Text Editor and Programming Language?

tyggna writes: "The flame wars of different shells and text editors have long been established, but my question is this: are text editors and various languages linked? Do the majority of Ruby programmers use Emacs? Are most Perl programmers using vim?

Please post your editor and language of choice in the comments."

Comments

Uh, sure..

[Anonymous Coward]

Some editors are more useful or even custom tailored for specific languages or functional areas, and naturally people who use those languages or work in those areas tend to gravitate towards them.

Some languages (like java) are almost unusable without one of several popular editors, which deal with a lot of the boilerplate and let you navigate around the kind of "a million small pieces" type code you get with java. You can code java in vim if you want to, but working on a large java project with vim is probably not a common practice (I'm sure several counter-examples will be provided below).

Apple is probably the king of the designated editor group, with microsoft coming in at a close second. These are relatively closed stacks and have purpose built (and pretty decent) tools to work with them, so most people do.

And then some languages (scripting languages, c/c++) are edited commonly with just about everything.

Outside specific editor features designed with a specific language in mind, or tools which require a specific editor, I don't think anything drives someone to use one generic editor over another one of similar capability. People chose vim vs emacs for non-language specific reasons (for example: number of attached hands).

Also this is a really lame question. Does anyone really care about editor flame wars any more? People use what they like, what works, or what they are mandated to.

Re:Uh, sure..

[1s44c]

I think we should close the comments here. The parent covered all the important points.

Re:Uh, sure..

[Anonymous Coward]

I meant as far as having a "one true editor".

Visual studio is popular for windows development, but there are also plenty of popular alternatives.

Does anyone do any kind of development for apple without using xcode? I've never even heard of another editor in common use on apple.

Re:Uh, sure..

[thewebsiteisdown]

Apple is probably the king of the designated editor group, with microsoft coming in at a close second Wut. Visual Studio is light years ahead of any other IDE anywhere

This is the correct answer. IDGAF what anyone says about it, VS has no equal. That debugger is as close to magic as I've seen a computer come.

Re:Uh, sure..

[DataPath]

Obviously false.

Emacs comes with a built-in psychoanalyst - a critical feature for any experienced developer. Especially one using Emacs.

Visual Studio lacks such a feature, so the logical conclusion is that developers using Visual Studio are simply inexperienced.

Although, to be fair, Emacs isn't properly an IDE, it's an OS that comes with IDE features.

Re:Uh, sure..

[Anonymous Coward]

No, he missed at least one reason why scripting and c/c++ languages are commonly edited with just about anything. They're too complex or lack the proper hints to allow easily creatable intelligent tooling. Another factor is timing. Developers starting on Emacs/VI when there was nothing else around kept with those tools. Newer developers grab the newer tools and stick with those. I'd bet the older languages are more commonly edited in text editors compared to newer languages. The exception to this is when one first starts learning to program. Most people start out on a text editor because a full IDE looks too complex.

Re:Uh, sure..

[thewebsiteisdown]

We use visual studio constantly, every day, usually with multiple large projects open per box at a time, building to Debug, pushing and pulling from git repo's, and being really productive in the process. Apparently running it on a 486 with 256mb of RAM is, well, your fucking problem. Get a box that can support and IDE, or use notepad. There are hundreds of thousands of VS users that can call bullshit on your rant.

Re:Uh, sure..

[Anonymous Coward]

And there's even a vi plugin for it that turns it into a text editor!

Re:Uh, sure..

[Anonymous Coward]

Emacs *does* come with a built in psychoanalyst. Press ESC x doctor ENTER. Please do it now; you need it.

Re: Uh, sure..

[dreamchaser]

Seriously. While I've done small C/C++ programs with just a text editor, and IDE is virtually a must for any sort of medium to large sized project.

Re:Uh, sure..

[jafac]

He's not joking.

Open emacs.
Type the command "xdoctor".

Best part: no copay.

Re:Uh, sure..

[Rakarra]

No. The typical 486 motherboard had 4 simm slots. Anybody who didn't populate them with 4MB simms was a fucking idiot.

Or in college. Or just "not rich."

This was back before remember prices came down, in the early 90s memory was still f'ing expensive.
I remember I could start a kernel compile when I went to bed and wake up to find it still going thanks to the hard drive thrashing.

I scrimped and saved and managed to double my ram to 8 MB. Kernel compiles took about 1/4 the time after that. I still couldn't run both X and a compile at the same time though...

Emacs, vi, IDE

[mrflash818]

In that order.

OK

[slapout]

"Please post your editor and language of choice in the comments."

O'Reilly and English

N/A

[Oligonicella]

I don't use one language, I don't use one machine, I don't use one operating system, I don't use one editor and I don't program into any language with just one of those editors. So, to me, the entire topic reduces to "That doesn't even make sense."

emacs, vi in a pinch.

[Mysticalfruit]

If I have to write a tool, I create a new buffer in emacs and have at it. If I'm standing in front of a machine fixing it, I'll reach for vi, only because it's on every platform.

I work in almost a 100% UNIX environment and what I generally see on people's desktops are: emacs, Eclipse (some flavor) and IntelliJ.

C/C++/Java/Ruby/Python and I use....

[RedHackTea]

Quill pen on papyrus. I have a dedicated typist to re-type all of it when I'm done into whatever editor it chooses. I also have a stenographer for when my hand gets tired. I never get compilation errors.

Emacs and whatever language suits the job.

[BitterOak]

Emacs is my editor of choice. As for language, I use whatever best suits the task at hand, most frequently: Perl, Ruby, Java, C, and JavaScript. And if I'm customizing emacs, I use lisp.

If the editor really matters

[msobkow]

If the editor really matters, you're not much of a programmer. Text is text -- any editor should do.

Don't confuse relying on IDE crutches with being an editor.

Re:No love for nano?

[bazmonkey]

No love for nano?

No.

Copy Con

[RatBastard]

Copy Con > myjob.bat. Editing is for wimps.

Re:Oldster, not hipster

[PolygamousRanchKid]

cat, sed and echo. What's "make"? A is certainly for Aho, and K for Kernighan, but I have no idea who "M" and "E" are . . . ?

VIM

[j127]

I picked up Vim on my own while in my early 30s, because I was curious. I had already used Emacs for months, and have tried many other editors for months or years at a time. Vim has a steep learning curve, but it ended up being mind-blowing. It's like connecting your brain directly to the computer. Once you have the muscle memory, you just think something and it happens with a few keystrokes. An experienced Vim user who is serious about learning the editor is probably faster than an experienced Emacs user. I'm not putting down Emacs, since I'm experimenting with a switch to Emacs/Evil, but modal editing is faster from what I've seen. For help in Vim while in the terminal, just type: ESC :h Or just press F1 in Gvim. You can get to Gvim from Vim by typing: :gui

Re: vi, Emacs or IDE

[gdshaw]

I never understood why a couple of GNU command line tools made it worth calling the OS GNU/Linux.

I'm told that they contributed a few libraries too, but with cryptic names like glibc they surely can't be that important.