Please share your experiences with me, thank you
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Top comments (41)
In my opinion, vscode is a very efficient, compact and powerful editor
IDE divide (2004)
As a beginner I would think that given how constrained learning time (and effort) is, learning to use a particular IDE (in any kind of depth) has the lowest priority. But that's just my opinion.
In the end you'll likely have to learn the IDE that's already in use by the team you are joining; that may be VS Code but that's not guaranteed.
Also being able to use a prevalent basic editor like nano in a text-only terminal (via SSH) can be incredibly useful.
Completely off-topic: The Rule of Least Power - i.e. more powerful isn't always better.
Maybe it's because I've always had a bit more standing after joining the industry (was freelance and public service prior), but I've always had the option to use my own IDE. I've rarely found teams using IDE features that were a) unique to the IDE and b) necessary for the process. So there was (beyond licensing issues) never any need to strictly use the team's IDE.
Getting comfortable with an IDE is very useful insofar as it gets you comfortable with your own workflow, which you then need to integrate with the team's workflow. I don't think that's a consideration for beginners, though.
Edit: I very much agree on the closing point, though: Please, for the love of god, get comfortable with a CLI editor. No matter which, but using the CLI for things such as version control and conflict resolution is very very useful. I've stunned juniors with my decision to just open a shell on their PC and resolve conflicts in nano, because it just works a lot better for me than the IDE GUI tools.
Sharing basic competence over a common, endorsed set of tools (whatever individual preferences there may be) should lower the friction for collaboration among team members.
Oh, I do agree on that (hence the edit about using nano for conflict resolution). But generally I expect trainers or Senior devs to be able to cope with the difference or at least take the time to aid in figuring the details out. Using a shared toolkit is very helpful, but it shouldn't be a barrier to entry, is my point I suppose.
I agree!
If you're just getting into things or you jump between different sets of languages (or even if you just want something relatively lightweight), this is definitely what I'd recommend. There are a lot of things it can be configured for just because of the ecosystem.
Since I know I'm gonna be in the PHP ecosystem for a while, I finally made the jump to PhpStorm. But I still have VS Code installed in case I want to try something else.
Such a simple question with so much to consider:
The following article isn't about picking a tool, but it's about sharpening the tool you picked.
On Sharpening Your Tools
Jeremy Friesen for The DEV Team ・ Apr 29 ・ 4 min read
Vs Code (multipurpose)
Atom (I would prefer for web development)
Jupiter Notebook (Python Beginners: step by step code visualization.)
Sublime Text
These are some of the text editors I used which I personally think are good for beginners.
But in the end vs code rules!
Vs Code for TypeScript and Javascript, Visual Studio 2022 for C# and C++. JetBrains for Java.
Agree. I'd add:
Yes the plug-ins. VS Code has the fantastic GitLens. It's a master Git command aide.
Depends on your level of ambition. Nano or Notepad are fine if you want to edit Wordpress templates. If you want to feel productive VS Code or any Jetbrains product. Vim or emacs if you're in it for the long game, or at least learn the key bindings. Whatever makes you feel productive. Personally I use Jetbrains products with vim bindings. Best of both worlds 😄
I am now attempting to answer the question only after reading all the existing responses. My personal focus has always been in helping absolute beginners (those who have little to no experience in programming). So my answer will come from that point of view rather than a beginning professional developer who has seen many things in school but not in the work environment. Also, IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is differnet from a code Editor, although some editors blur the lines between the two. For me and IDE is anenvironment where you can enter code, test it with integrated debugging, and package it for distribution or sharing. Editors mostly rely on external tools to do everything but type and save code. The choice of IDE will often be dictated by the choice of programming language to be used and vice versa. To this day I still recommend BASIC as a starting point but also often recommend Python. I think most true beginners need to learn programming concepts. To me the best way to learn those is to not have things get in the way such as scattered tools and syntax distractions. So I like BASIC and Python for the simple syntax. I like BASIC256 and THONNY respectively as IDEs for those languages. Both are uncluttered, easy for beginners, have built in debugging, and in the case of Thonny have miltiple use modes (easy, basic and advanced).
Charles, thanks for not repeating what has already been said and filling in the gaps.
I really love your point about establishing the difference between an IDE and a Code Editor, many like to blur the line....but the difference is important.
One suggestion though, your comment is insightful but many people who scroll over it because it's a huge block of text...it would be nice if you break it down in 3-line segment like I'm doing with this one — it would be more inviting
That depends on a lot of factors. Budget and technology at the forefront.
The Jetbrains IDEs are excellently versatile and give an all-around consistent experience, but they're also fairly expensive if you're just dabbling in a bunch of different directions.
VSCode is probably the best allround choice if you're up to a bit of plugin fiddling and want to keep your options open.
It also depends on what you call "beginner". What's the goal? Getting deep into specific technologies? Playing with some smaller projects? Contributing pieces of FOSS?
From something as simple as notepad++ (or equivalent), to very specialized IDEs like Android Studio, there's a lot of options that work for a lot of situations very well.
Visual Studio Code is by far the best choice for most developers. My second choice would be Sublime Text.
That's an overgeneralization. For Java devs, for example, VS Code is far from the best.
Fair enough I meant for web development 😄
If it was Python then PyCharm would get my vote. If it was C# then it would be Visual Studio. For the majority of programmers VS Code tends to be their top pick.
Stack Overflow 2021 Developer Survey - IDE
Why not jetbrain？ jetabrain hava excellently Tutorial for beginner.
Hey Hugo! Welcome to the Dev community :)
I'd like to share my personal thoughts - Reinstating on what was stated by @fjones, a crucial point of making something "beginner-friendly" would be having an intuitive interface. I feel oftentimes with JetBrains, beginners might feel overwhelmed by the amount of features it has. Along with this, there's also the price tag, although it's free for students and educators.
I hope you enjoy the Dev community!
If you are a beginner, I would say use a simple text editor like Sublime Text or even a notepad.
Most of today's IDEs done most of simple tasks by themselves. Yes, it is a great thing but if you don't understand why a particular thing is working/being written as it is, you might face problems in a long run.
Depends on what you are going to be doing. The jetbrains ones are excellent but not free. Visual studio community does a lot of things right and is free, but not great when doing heavy frontend development. If you are doing something like console dev then you don't really even have options, but if you are soon swift then probably xcode is your best bet. Like I said, it depends. You need to provide more information and when you don't, a lot of people with good info will pass you straight by for someone who is worth their time and effort more
VSCode is always the beginners go-to. This is because it is extensible, so no matter the language you're learning, there is definitely a support for it on VSCode.
But personally, when I started out as a Web developer I started with Brackets which is very beginner-friendly for html css and js, but it's too bad that it's no longer being maintained.
With Emacs, you can start coding in ELisp right away.
I started off with notepad. Then I switched over to notepad++ for like a week and decided it still sucked just as bad so I went back to good ol notepad. Then I heard about this wonderful IDE called Visual Studio Code. So I tried it and fell in love. VScode hands down.
I really like repl.it and I've been using it for a long time!