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Aaron L Marks
Aaron L Marks

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What Your IDE Says About You

Worried about what your IDE (Interactive Development Environment) or text editor says about you as a developer? Look no further. In this article, we will examine the impact of various IDEs and text editors to determine exactly what they say about you.

  • Visual Studio Code: You are a developer.
  • Visual Studio Professional: You are a developer with RAM to spare.
  • Eclipse: You are a developer building Java apps (or possibly something else).
  • Notepad++: You are a developer.
  • Vi/Vim: You are a developer.
  • Android Studio: You are a developer building Android apps.
  • Sublime Text: You are a developer.
  • Atom: You are still a developer.

Have I made my point? Your identity as a developer is not defined by the tools you use to create.

Do you write code in one of the listed IDEs? Congrats, you're a developer.

Do you write code in an IDE or text editor I didn't mention? Congrats, you're a developer.

Wait.. you don't even write code but you still create applications? Awesome! You're a developer.

The last thing we need in tech is more gatekeeping. Let's be cool.

Top comments (33)

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moopet profile image
Ben Sinclair

"Hahaha", he says, clicking the little heart icon, while secretly knowing in his heart that Vim is still the best.

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James Ingold

While I won't say Vim is the best, I think it does enforce a different paradigm of thinking that is beneficial to growth as a developer. It helped me think about concepts differently and got me to deep dive on Linux to really start to understand OS level things. (files, processes, etc)
That said, VSCode with VIM bindings is hard to beat.
My crazy workflow right now is have the main app open in VIM and VSCode. Do most of my coding in VIM, when I need to actually debug something, go to VSCode. Use all the tools :D

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v6 profile image
🦄N B🛡 • Edited

VSCode with VIM bindings is hard to beat.

I keep forgetting they have this. One day my deep suspicions of Microsoft will wane enough to use it. Today is not that day, nor is tomorrow. But these little reminders bring it closer.

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moopet profile image
Ben Sinclair

I use it like that. In fact, and I know this is getting 180-degrees from the point of the post, but I have this in my config:

nnoremap <leader>vs :silent exec "!open vscodium://file/" . expand("%:p") . ":" . line(".") . ":" . col(".")<cr>:redraw!<cr>

If I'm using Vim and want to switch to VSCode (I use VSCodium here) then I hit up the mapping and boom, there it goes. This is most useful when I want to use the debugger, which is sometimes easier in VSCode than it is in Vdebug.

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v6 profile image
🦄N B🛡

I use VSCodium

I would expect nothing less of such a gentleman and a scholar.

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jamesingold profile image
James Ingold • Edited

Oh my gosh, how did I not know about VSCodium. Thanks and that vim key remap is glorious!

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amdev83 profile image
Aaron L Marks

My thought is that whatever tool makes development easiest for you is the best tool. (Full disclosure: I'm a huge fan of Visual Studio Code.)

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Matthieu Cneude • Edited

Totally agree.

I think finding the editor you have the most fun with (productivity comes with fun) is essential. That's why we should all keep our mind open and try different tools, before spiting on Vim or yelling at the sky that Intellij is the Tool of the Devil.

I went from Intellij to Vim, after criticizing Vim as much as I could. It was such a mistake.

I liked VS Code with Vim binding, but not enough.

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Chuck

Yep built my first website with Notepad(no ++) in 1998. Tomorrow I have an interview for possible my first professional developer position but I've always been a developer.

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Aaron L Marks

I built my first website the same way in 1996! Nothing but Notepad (old school) and Netscape Navigator. The way I see it is... if you write code or build apps (because codeless development is becoming a thing now), you are a developer. The moment you start getting paid for it, your experience simply changes forms from "experience" to "professional experience"...

Good luck on your interview! I'm sure you got this!

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Michel Renaud

I use Visual Studio Professional at work and Community at home. At work, well, that's what we use. At home I've tried Visual Studio Code and even Visual Studio for Mac but found them lacking something I had really gotten used to over the years.

I do use Visual Studio Code (it's always open while I use "full VS"), but mostly as a text editor, the way some use Notepad (could never stand Notepad, even 30 years ago).

I'll judge by what level of hell you put me through, not by the IDE you use. hehehe :D

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Jim

Visual Studio Professional: You are a developer with a company who pays for MSDN.
Notepad++: You would rather use Sublime, but their license doesn't let you use it at work.
Vi/Vim: nano is easier, but don't want to lose my geek card.

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Filipe Herculano

Only reason Emacs is not in that list is because it’s closer to an OS than to an IDE 😂

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thecodepixi profile image
Emmy | Pixi

Love this! Personally I have always used VSCode but I've also used Sublime and Atom and for in browser IDE I love love love Glitch.

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amdev83 profile image
Aaron L Marks

Oooh Glitch! I didn't even think about that one. Cloud9 is another good one for in browser development environments.

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Emmy | Pixi

Glitch and Repl.it are probably my faves. I've actually never head of cloud 9 so I'll have to look it up and try it out.

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Angelo Verlain

My opinions:

Notepad++: You are trying to be a developer
Sublime Text: You want to go simple (No RAM to spare)
Vim: U have a thing with UNIX/GNU
Atom: You tried, now you can't uninstall it.
Eclipse: You followed some (old) online tutorial

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v6 profile image
🦄N B🛡

Vim: U have a thing with UNIX/GNU

The GNU, It's true. At this point it's more like it has a thing with me.

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Akhmedshakh

I love my notepad, y u do dis( lol

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Abhinav Kulshreshtha

What does emacs says about those who use it? I recently started using spacemacs and I can see myself using it occasionally. VS Code is best. But having a license for sublime text doesn't hurt.

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amdev83 profile image
Aaron L Marks

Having never used Emacs, I can only assume that if you are writing code in it - you're a developer. :-)

VS Code is definitely a great tool! I'm becoming a big fan of it for sure...

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madza profile image
Madza • Edited
  • Notepad+Internet Explorer : Real 10X dev (also likes to live dangerously) 💥
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amdev83 profile image
Aaron L Marks

I remember those days... mangling HTML and CSS in Notepad while swearing at Internet Explorer.

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TJ Barber

This is the One True Way to develop software.

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Elliot Derhay

Thought at first this was going to be a snarky personality post.

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Pachi 🥑

Louder for the people in the back please!!!
This post it pure gold!!! 🖤🖤🖤

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