[Ocaml-biz] IDEs

[Brandon J. Van Every]

Olivier Grisel wrote:
>
> That's why I call vim and emacs advanced text editors not
> IDEs. Eclipse and VS are IDEs.

GNU Emacs and XEmacs are IDEs.  You've got compiler interfaces,
debuggers, modes for Make, integrated documentation, etc.  I've used
them as IDEs back in the early 90's.  Vim struck me as not having so
much IDE functionality, but I didn't give it much time to settle.  Maybe
*.el files are all the difference in the world and that's why one ends
up being an IDE and the other doesn't.

> Vim (and emacs) is about never using your mouse to be faster. So you
> need to learn the keystrokes by heart (the first two days are
> hard but them it sooo good).

It is a taste, not a universal good.

I cannot remember more than a handful of keys, and these fade when I've
stepped away from the editor for several months.  Re-learning the docs
happens over and over again, it's not like you do it once in your life
and it's over.  For memory and training, it is far, far easier to have
GUI pulldown menus with the keyboard shortcuts given on the menu items.
You keep using the menu items, until you realize you're using some item
so much, that it's worth typing it.  If it doesn't happen you don't
worry about it.  Also there's the esoterica of manipulating buffer
windows via keystrokes, rather than by moving them and resizing them
with the mouse.  GUIs have evolved quite a bit as to what are best
practices for revealing or hiding windows.  Emacs is not so evolved for
how to control screen real estate, and it is yet more stuff to remember
that fades from memory.

> I guess you need to WANT to make the effort in the first
> place. If you
> don't want it, you'll never appreciate vim or emacs and you'd better
> stick to traditional IDEs.

I made the effort once upon a time, for several years, and I don't
appreciate it.  It is a mistake to assume that just because someone
gains experience with the Emacs / Vi way of doing things, that people
will like it.  Many people bail.  There's a camp that finds all this
"keystroke! keystroke! keystroke!" stuff a completely silly obsession.
The best keys, as far as I'm concerned, are the cursor keys.  They're
simple and spatially consistent.  Not much to learn there.


Cheers,                     www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every           Seattle, WA

"The pioneer is the one with the arrows in his back."
                          - anonymous entrepreneur