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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

We're talking about a C compiler and debugger. Lots of very technically knowledgable people shun IDEs and automated refactoring in that space.

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Sure, that's a valid choice.

But when you're implementing a language ecosystem, proud ignorance of other peoples' usage patterns is just embarassing.

Does proud ignorance of IDEs indicate that RMS may be impolitic or undiplomatic? Yes. Does it indicate he "is disconnected with the present technology?" In the world of C/C++, I don't think being willfully ignorant of IDEs and automated refactoring means you are out of date in your technical knowledge, as the grandparent post implied.

I do. There's a reason that CLion is becoming a thing (can't happen fast enough) and Visual Assist has been a de facto standard in C++ development on Windows for years. The tools exist, they just don't exist in Emacs.

Is RMS still involved with gcc at all? (Non-philosophically?)

He claims not doing any development himself for several years now, so I guess this means no.

The SDK I'm working with at the moment has been entirely coded in VIM and is the only layer between our code and the hardware.

The fact that ESR doesn't use an IDE or automated refactoring is perfectly normal. It's those not able to work without using these tools who scare me.

Wanting an IDE is not the same thing as needing an IDE to be able to work. You're excluding a rather big middle, there.

Only in the UNIX world.

In the game development world, embedded systems and desktops we like our IDEs.

I work on AAA games and I would love to go back to OSX and Emacs if only the tools and debuggers weren't exclusive to Windows and VS.

The UNIX philosophy is to compose stuff out of small tools. I think that you could see what most UNIX programmers use as an IDE, but it is just their personal combination of vi/emacs with refactoring tools (from primitive sed to eg Go's rename tool), etc.

We are working with certain expensive application, developed by one big multinational, that has virtual machine for extending the funtionality by the user (or more realistically, contractor).

The supplied IDE for development is Emacs.

Is it a GIS application?

Yes, it is.

If you look in my comment history you may be able to work out what I do. :-)

If you were sitting in Elisabeth House, there's a chance we met ;-)

Don't tell me that Smallworld is still started from Emacs???

It is an option. However, I'm one of those guys, who like it that way :-)

Doesn't have to be, and there is an Eclipse dev environment.

You can only speak for yourself. Lots of game developers, including myself, do not commonly use heavyweight IDEs.

1. Are you a professional--i.e., making rent off of it--game developer?

2. Are you developing for consoles or PCs, or for some other platform?

3. Do you program in a language that benefits from IDEs, specifically C, C++, C#, or Java?

Speaking for myself.

1. yes 2. yes 3. yes

Now, while I am forced to use Visual Studio as a build system and for it's integrated debugger. I too, generally use other tools for actual development. And I'd love if I didn't have to use VS for it's debugger either.

I'm genuinely curious--what problems have you had with the VS debugger? It's generally quite a bit nicer than the alternatives I've used.

It can only run from inside the IDE and requires extensive use of the mouse and GUIs. This is wasting precious screen space and the mouse is often slower than just typing and composing commands.

Also, since everything is tightly integrated, when something crashes the whole goes down. This can be frustrating when your project takes almost a full minute to load in VS (it's mostly VisualAssistX being busy parsing files and the perforce plugin syncing up).

1. Currently No, but for 5 years, yes. Now only indie in my spare time.

2. I was primarily developing for consoles (PS3, X360 mostly), with some PC work. Now primarily PC and Mobile.

3. Over 70% C or C++. In industry (AAA Console) I was probably 90% C++.

Lots of people do use IDEs in the industry, but lots of people also don't. It's a choice.

The first thing I do when beginning work with a new embedded platform is figure out how to bypass whatever wacky IDE its vendor wants their customers to use.

I am not sure many computer scientists care about the game development world apart from maybe VR+Other cutting edge prototypes that we could only benefit from if gaming funds it.

Very narrow minded and ignorant, typical of a certain type of developers. Video game development has contributed volumes to algorithm optimization, physics and physics approximation, computer graphics, design, industrial design, astrophysics, etc. Virtually every field of computer science.

Not that many.

Except if Windows C++ developers (most of which use VS) don't qualify as "technically knowledgable people".

And who is doing the judging?

There are lots of people who are not Windows C++ developers. Just because there are lots of people who DO use IDEs, doesn't mean there aren't lots of people who don't. Don't take his point so personally - he's just saying RMS ignorance is not that unusual.

I agree with what you said.

I take his phrase as to mean that those people are justified or the majority.

That is, the phrase "lots of very technically knowledgable shun IDEs and automated refactoring" seems to me to imply that technically knowledgable people do/should shun IDEs and automated refactoring in general.

But, as we all know, technically knowledgable people fall in both camps (pro and against IDEs).

> ... Windows C++ developers (most of which use VS) ...

There is no option for anything else on Windows, though. The shell isn't anywhere near as prevalent and you have no other go-to method at all. The whole ecosystem is point & click, which means you'll get nothing but headaches from trying to use a more UNIX-style toolchain in lieu of an IDE.

It's not exactly a point for IDEs when, even if you wanted to, it'd be a hassle to try to integrate another type of workflow into an OS that clearly is not made for it.

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