Hacker News Reader

Comment by theplumber | Hacker News Reader

When I started learning Go I went all in including using the recommended editor (acme editor) which has no syntax highlighting, no autocomplete and a very different way of writing code. My production went down a lot but the quality of the code went up a lot.

I think the lack of syntax highlighting was one reason for that. It makes you think more about the code you write and how it should compose, while a fully fledged IDE encourages you to just throw more code at the problem.

I think the ACME way should be used for love of code and ideally when you want to create libraries that stand the test of time. When you just want to get things done fast bring the full IDE and now some LLM vibes and it’s done.

View on HN

I go through intervals of turning autocomplete on and off. I think autocomplete is useful for boilerplate (similarly LLMs are useful for boilerplate), but I prefer not to use either when writing code where correctness is particularly important. This is because it’s easier for me to internalize what something is doing by typing it out. It’s actually more effort for me to understand code by reading it rather than writing it.

I experience something similar with system design, where the act of creating a diagram helps me to understand much faster than trying to read someone else’s diagram. It’s not because only I can create good diagrams (I cannot) but again because the act of creating one helps me internalize the design.

I think there's a lot of value to be gained from turning all modern day features off for once and just code "raw", no syntax highlighting, just typing out all the code. Doesn't even need to be your own code, manually transfering code over can also help a lot with your basic coding skills.

I think a lot of people lose this over time because it's easier to use templates, autocomplete and LLMs, work from a higher level. But it's nice to go back to basics. Consider also firing up Pico-8 and writing some really really bad code. It's got a very rudimentary editor, 40 columns of code, no syntax highlighting, and you're limited in how much total code you can write. It also helps with leetcode since a lot of leetcode uses game coding tricks like modulo operators, min/max/clamp, etc (that's as far as I got, don't judge).

Are you using the Go fonts?

https://go.dev/blog/go-fonts

Reply on news.ycombinator.com