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Comment by pylua | Hacker News Reader

I’m not a fan of this personally. It seems very pedantic and honestly the IDE gives such great hints on things already —- I don’t think it actually helps anyone learn anything in the long run.

Also worth mentioning is that having multiple ways to do the same thing also increases complexity

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> the IDE gives such great hints on things already

Requirement to use IDE is one of reasons I don't like Java. I wrote/write code in multiple languages and for all of them a simple text editor is enough. I usually don't use auto-complete because it distracts me and I type fast anyway. But with Java it's hard to be productive without an IDE.

I will never understand why some people actively choose to cripple their productivity. Is it some irrational pride in being able to drill without power tools?

Languages and IDE come and go, vim remains. It is enough to learn it once (so common things are done without additional thinking) and use for different languages. It is also one of very few editors available for all desktop and server OSes I used over the time. I tried to use IDE and Java is the only case where my productivity was crippled without it (C# probably would be the same but I haven't used it). I don't deny IDE have lots of useful features. I just don't feel I need them.

You could make the same argument for using console logging instead of debuggers, and many developers get along with that just fine. Yet they’re missing out on a lot of productivity they never knew was able to be gained.

Debug logs and debugger not replace but complement each other. And while in many situations it is possible to debug without a debugger by adding print-s reverse is not true - I see no way how a debugger can replace logs. Though good debug logs are rare nginx and postfix are rare examples where debug logs are really useful (may be bad debug logs is why this tool got bad reputation).

What to some extend can replace debug logs is tracing which allows to logs events on demand, when you really need them. E. g. Dtrace can be used both for kernel and userspace via USDT (but Dtrace was not invented h̵e̵r̵e̵ on Linux), bpftrace can instrument kernel but unsure about userspace.

Thankfully most IDEs have pretty good vim modes nowadays.

vim mode definitely helps, but still it is not the same as using vim directly. My vimrc is small compare to what I see people share but still has 180 non-comment lines, the same with plugins - only a few but I really use them.

For me, using an IDE would be “crippling my productivity”. Instead of just starting to code, I'd have to wait a few minutes for the IDE to open, and click through a billion GUI windows, just to be able to see my code in a tiny window surrounded by dozens of useless toolbars. And whenever I try to do anything with the code, it will take a second to process my keystroke and then several windows will pop up, obscuring half of the tiny part of the screen that actually contains code. And as a bonus, I'd have to pay more money for this than my dormitory costs? No thanks, I'll stick with Neovim.

Getting better equipment (larger screens, faster computers, licences) would solve most of your concerns with the IDEs. And getting better equipment usually soon becomes a non-problem for professional programmers.

Having an IDE is like hiring a side-kick --- if the side-kick is component enough and you can afford them, why wouldn't you hire one?

Not everyone who codes is a professional programmer.

> if the side-kick is component enough and you can afford them, why wouldn't you hire one?

Because it doesn't provide anything actually useful for me.

Also, I don't want to use proprietary software for moral reasons.

Then the problem isn't IDEs cripple productivity, it is simply that one may not be operating at a scale that benefit from using them.

There are many decent open source IDEs (e.g. NetBeans and Eclipse for Java).

... and IDEA community edition is also free. There's no reason to not choose any of the major IDEs on the basis of cost. You can get free and quite workable editions of all of them, and they're open source as well, so the "moral quandary" is avoidable unless it's artificial.

What's your definition of "proprietary?" All of the major IDEs are open-source in their free editions.

I mean, more seriously, I get it: you have a bee in your bonnet and you will find any reason possible to avoid it. VIM 4EVA and all that, raise your fist and yell.

But I wouldn't even bother with Java as any serious endeavor if I were you; a lot of employers will ask your preference of IDE just to get a sense of who you are as a programmer, and will hide their giggles when you say "I use emacs/vim/notepad++ like a BAWSSSS!" and move on to the next candidate who'll get the performance magnifier of a common and free tool.

> “I use emacs/vim/notepad++ like a BAWSSSS!”

What a strawman. I don't use Neovim with the intent of looking cool or something, but because it makes me highly productive, gives me complete control over my editing experience and I can use it anywhere, not just on powerful desktop computers with a large screen.

You actually wouldn't. You might once - but then you're counting "installing the IDE" as "using the IDE every time" and that just doesn't happen. You're also using a LOT of hyperbole, to the point where you're just plain wrong.

A few minutes for the IDE to open? Nah, bruh. Couple of seconds, and since you leave the IDE open for a while, that startup time gets to be ignored. You aren't starting the IDE, exiting the IDE, running your code, starting your IDE, exiting the IDE, running your code.

You're starting the IDE, writing, running, debugging, reaching some kind of finishing point, THEN shutting down the IDE... maybe. A lot of programmers have their IDEs open 24/7. Over a month's runtime, those three seconds opening the IDE seem (and are) irrelevant.

Billion GUI windows? Nah, bruh. Even IDEA, which has a lot of windows on initial installation, has only a few... and they're all for a point, if you, like, read them.

A second to process your keystroke? Also nonsense. Even a raspi can process faster than that. Unless you're deliberately overloading your machine, I suppose. That's always an option... but a counter to that is "... don't?"

And useless toolbars? Useless to whom? The IDEs you'll find in Java are battle-tested. The useless toolbars are hidden these days. You might not know what they're useful for, but that's not the same as being useless. If you write Java, you'll learn how useful they are.

And as a bonus, you'd ... did you say.. have to pay more money than your dorm costs? ... why?

Java has three major IDEs: IDEA, Eclipse, and Netbeans. (If you want to exclude netbeans, join the crowd. Everyone else excludes it, too.) All three have free editions that cost you ... like... literally... nothing. Zip. Nada. Zilch.

Try again.

Lol, the parent is not serious. People who love to hate Java please take a look at the status quo and stop regurgitating outdated arguments.

You can take vim out of my cold dead hands but there’s no way one will be less productive in Java with modern IDEs unless they willingly choose to

I get that. Poe's Law applies.

I don't know. Can you reliably rename variables/classes in a language that is not designed to facilitate IDEs/toolings?

Go is easy to read/write even without an IDE (unlike Java) and there are refactoring tools which can be called both form CLI and from an IDE.

> refactoring tools

Exactly.

But that’s the thing, they managed to do it in such a way that it requires barely any language change: just imagine an implicit `public class X {` at the top of the file and a closing } at the end.

And now just change the default class loader to be less restrictive in finding main methods, and that’s it. While it really does help teaching people when you can be more focused on the relevant parts only.

I was skeptical too. But after reading the JEP i think i am convinced.

It makes an analogy to packages. We allow classes to exist in the default package. Therefore, I think it's reasonable to allow methods to exist in a default class.

Of course you shouldn't so this in real work, but that's also true of the default package.

I also like that main doesn't need an argument. Many noob programs don't even use the String[] args parameter anyway, so let's not require it.

Seems like a complex explanation when someone new eventually asks why is this done this way.

I personally like using IDEs when coding. Reading is another matter, and the code we read will not always be inside an IDE (e.g. code shared on the web, or written in a book).

Same here. `psvm` is perfectly consistent with the rest of the language. IMHO it is much better to have a consistently verbose/explicit language than an inconsistent one.

It seems kind of weird now that java has a repl anyways.

> It seems very pedantic and honestly the IDE gives such great hints on things already

It's for beginners who might not even know what an IDE is.

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