I’ve used many editors for programming over the years.
- 1996 – 1999, Emacs
- 2000 – 2007, BBEdit
- 2009 – 2011, Emacs
- 2012 – Present, Sublime Text 2
This week I was providing some mentoring with somebody that was using Notepad++ as their code editor of choice. What struck me was how few features of the program he was using. Cursor keys to move around. Not using the find function. Clicking rather than using keystrokes.
It was painful to watch!
The thing is, it doesn’t really matter which editor, or indeed IDE, you use. What’s important is how you use it.
As Andrew Hunt noted in The Pragmatic Programmer, use a single editor well.
Watching somebody who really knows their editor is a joy. I remember a few yers back marvelling at a colleague who used vim and he just flew around it. He had mastered it.
The most important thing is that you know your editor inside out. Be efficient. Be effective. It can make a huge difference to your software development productivity.
photo credit: Code by Riebart, on Flickr
Glen Scott
I’m a freelance software developer with 18 years’ professional experience in web development. I specialise in creating tailor-made, web-based systems that can help your business run like clockwork. I am the Managing Director of Yellow Square Development.
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What you say is wrong on so many counts. It really doesn’t matter if you use an editor well or poorly, what matters is that you write good code. The amount of time thinking and designing code is hugely more than the time spent editing it. Everyone is different, don’t try to make others conform to your idea of what is right. That is religious.
I disagree. The two concepts (writing good code and having good knowledge of how your editor works) are not mutually exclusive. If you can write code well, you can write code faster if you know your editor.
If you work on legacy projects a huge amount of time is spent maintaining and refactoring code. In these cases, your editor can save large amounts of time.