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Discussion on: Why Are Some Developers so Allergic to IDEs?

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Alex Fedorov

That is an alright use case. If I needed to edit a script on some web page quickly, I might use Vim for that.

The question was more targeted at developers who work in teams on huge codebases where the practice of continuous refactoring is essential to tame the legacy beast.

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Peter Ringelmann

I work with VScode on a large team with giant codebases. The benefit for me is that I can add the extensions I need to be productive, instead of having everything "out of the box"

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Alex Fedorov

Tell us more about how you’re refactoring? How often? What is automated, and what is manual? How much time does it take?

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Peter Ringelmann • Edited

I refactor frequently. Almost everything is automated. I add extensions for anything the editor doesn't have natively. I guess my argument is not against IDEs (I'm a huge intelliJ fan) but rather that I prefer the freedom and flexibility of a faster and more lightweight editor with custom extensions.

I honestly don't know how people use vim on large projects. Willing to be convinced otherwise though :)

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Alex Fedorov

Could you share the list of plugins that you use for refactorings?

(I tried to set up these things myself, but it seemed like a lot of things I need are missing)

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James D • Edited

@pringels have you tried nerdtree in vim? Just getting a navigation tree with an understanding for tabs and splits makes life so much easier in vim.

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Alex Fedorov

I used this or similar when I was a vim user. Works nicely to understand the project files. Also used tabs and splits quite efficiently.

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Peter Ringelmann

I'll give it a shot, thanks! When I first tried getting into vim, someone told me that I shouldn't bother until I've mastered touch-typing. I then did typing tutorials for a few weeks after work until I decided that life is too short :P

Perhaps I'll give it another go.

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Peter Ringelmann

@oleksii it depends on your workflow I guess, but yeah ill gladly send you a list of some of my favourites

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Alex Fedorov

I’d love to have a working set for any workflow. Then I can tweak it from there :)