Dem there developers make me so mad!
June 12th, 2007 | Posted in Rants | 17 Comments
I need to rant.
Recently, I was on the lookout for a better development IDE. Up until now Dreamweaver was my default choice. Purely because the agency I worked for used it, familiarity ‘n’ all.
I posted a question to a mailing list, it asked others for alternative editors. Back came the usual response which made me want to scream.
“I use notepad, its all you need.”
“I swear by VIM, that’s what real developers use”
“Dreamweaver!?!?! Emacs all the way”
Why do people need to feel that if you don’t use a “proper” development tool then you are not fit to walk the same planet? It is almost a “I have a small penis therefore need to compensate by claiming to have built a site the size of Amazon using nothing but Chalk and Slate Version 0.01”.
It isn’t shameful to use an editor with code-completion. I find I can rattle through development using a framework such as CodeIgniter with an IDE that tells me that this PHP function has the following arguments. Being able to remember CSS snippets doesn’t make you a better coder, it makes you an advert for Omega 3. I can remember code and snippets, but I choose to allow the editor to complete them for me purely to increase my rate of development.
Some claim that coding by hand is better than code-completion. Isn’t it the same? If I am hand-coding a template and I allow code-completion to present me with the a list of attributes for me to choose from, isn’t that hand-coding? It seems to me that there are many so called experienced developers that feel they have something to prove so embark on a journey of walking over hot coals and sleeping on a bed of nails to prove they are in fact better than everyone else.
I am not knocking Vim,Emac etc users. I am knocking the those that seem to have a dig at people like myself that choose not to use them.
Rant over.
Some people choose to make life harder for themselves. Others to prove a point and some to just say “hey look at me - no hands”.
At the end of the day no-one’s judging you and nobody in real life cares :D
True, note to self. Make this weeks mantra:
Duck - back - water - over :D
I completely agree. For my PHP coding I use Eclipse with the PHP plugin. It seems to work for me pretty well. The code completion could use a little work, but it is a lot better than a straight text editor.
I used Eclipse in the past. May try it again. Ones i have tried are PHPEd and PHP designer. Great for debugging, especially PHPED.
When I experience this kind of mentality, I just think of the mind over matter mantra:
Everyone has their tool of choice. Why developers think they need to ram their favourite down the throats of others is beyond me.
Fiaz, you might want to tweak the comment blockquote style :)
Cheers OJ, Done :)
Yeah, Currently I am working on PHP Designer, its really great. I have also tried PHPEd and KOMODO and found them pretty good.
I’m a long term VIM user, but am well aware of the learning curve. I don’t feel that it’s the editor for everyone, and seems to suit some languages better than others. (eg. TextMate will probably win hands down for Rails dev on a Mac).
I use Visual Studio 2005 a lot with the work that I do, while it’s fairly chunky, it’s a pretty good environment to work in.
I believe there are add-ons giving VS the ability to handle other languages.
VS.PHP
Not sure how good it is.
I use Topstyle - it’s brilliant.
I usenotepad, but I use a combination of Homestyle and Dreamweaver because it’s easier to work with code in colour, and the tag completion is quite handy!
Above should say “can use..”
I did discover this:
http://www.e-texteditor.com/
which is a windows equivalent to textmate, support for bundles. Looks ok. Not free though and still in beta.
Fiaz,
You mention that you use CodeIgniter, have you tried other frameworks? i.e. Prado, Cake, etc…
Up until now I have done most of my coding by hand, but am evaluating different frameworks.
Hi Jeff, I also use Expression Engine and “thought” (though not proven yet) that knowing CI would be an advantage since the same company is behind EE and CI. But yeah, there are countless others and it can be hard to decide.
Like yourself, i also coded by hand. Moving to a framework has been a god send, and something i should have taken up sooner. I have rattled through development much quicker, compared to hand coding.
With CI, i also found the documentation to be excellent, it also has an active forum.
e-texteditor is a little bit flaky (or at least it was the last time I tried it).
There are companies out there adding more and more to the VS IDE (Ruby.NET is a new addition). And with the likes of ViEmu, you can even have it behave like VIM :)
I wholeheartedly agree. I think there should be no stigma attached to saying, “I use Dreamweaver” (which I do). I haven’t found anything else that highlights my code just how I like it, and the code completion is very handy. I don’t find much use for the Design View any more though…