Um, because it's not? Because its easy and fast?
Already there was a discussion on same topic few days back in the community… just google before you post any 
IDE Discussion
Best Wishes, Saideep Annadatha
Hi Krum,
You didn't say which OS you were interested in...
I'm new to RoR (6 months in, so take what want from my comments) and use Aptana Studio, and before I get all the flames from the Rails gurus regarding IDE's over command line tools can I just say that it's because my front end is usually Flex, which, like Aptana is built on Eclipse, so when I was getting started it seemed natural.
I like the Aptana IDE because it also provides a very simple way of hooking in to the server. Being new to Rails, and coming from a Windows background, I like the Graphical UI.
That said, I have always used the Shell for the usual Ruby/Rails/Rake/ Capistrano commands etc, and only really use Aptana Studio as the editor and nothing more. There is no code hinting to get in the way, but it will tell me if my syntax is wrong (ie unexpected kEND etc) which is really all I need.
However, the last six months learning curve has been massive, and I am
moving more and more towards the Shell and away from the Windows UI
norms........so maybe one day I will shout about textmate or vim to do
my editing from the Shell - but not just yet
Paul
Greg Donald wrote:
There's one feature I've been missing in Emacs:There are only missing features until you add them.
Emacs can be made to do anything!
And people who shy away from that power aren't really programmers IMO.
IDEs make me touch my mouse way too much. The longer I can keep my hands directly on the keyboard, the more productive I am. It's not difficult to understand.
Emacs can be made to do anything!
And people who shy away from that power aren't really programmers IMO.
Good job it's worth a whole 2pence :-/
IDEs make me touch my mouse way too much. The longer I can keep my hands directly on the keyboard, the more productive I am. It's not difficult to understand.
How is it harder to learn the IDE keyboard shortcuts that it is to learn Emacs'? Typically, it would be worth adding "YMMV" to your previous statement, because other people may find there isn't a direct correlation between the ratio of their keyboard:mouse contact and their productivity - I've sat next to people at both extremes; of typing lots of noise, and typing amazing code with very few keypresses, regardless of their development environment.
(of course, YMMV
And people who shy away from that power aren't really programmers IMO.
Good job it's worth a whole 2pence :-/
I'll take it. Paypal work?
How is it harder to learn the IDE keyboard shortcuts that it is to learn Emacs'?
I didn't say it was harder, but you only get what it came pre-programmed with for the most part. Some of them offer some added shortcut functionality but nothing anywhere close to the power of making your own key binding in Lisp.
Another thing is I can start Emacs once and run it until my next reboot, weeks or months from now. I have to restart Eclipse every few hours or so. I can start Emacs in a screen and continue my work from home later in the evening. I can background Emacs and type shell commands. It's so much more.
IDEs usually have a large memory footprint. Eclipse uses over half a GB of ram on my system. Emacs uses 13MBs of ram, but that's only because I have a ton of stuff loaded like ERC, ECB, and Gnus.
Typically, it would be worth adding "YMMV" to your previous statement, because other people may find there isn't a direct correlation between the ratio of their keyboard:mouse contact and their productivity -
If its your job to write code then just write the code. Are you a programmer or not?
I've sat next to people at both extremes; of typing lots of noise, and typing amazing code with very few keypresses,
Yeah, that's the .net people, plugging components together requires very little typing, and very little programming skills for that matter.
regardless of their development environment.
(of course, YMMV
Yup.
How is it harder to learn the IDE keyboard shortcuts that it is to learn Emacs'?
I didn't say it was harder, but you only get what it came pre-programmed with for the most part. Some of them offer some added shortcut functionality but nothing anywhere close to the power of making your own key binding in Lisp.
You commented that your primary objection to IDEs was that they cause you to take your fingers off the keyboard - I suggested that it's possible to navigate through (Ruby) projects all day with little use of the mouse, and also that some people aren't *that* concerned about the hassle involved in moving their hand to a different input mechanism.
<snip swathes of awesome features>
Sure, there's loads of pro's to your favoured development environment (integrated or not) that cause *you* to experience great productivity; given the OP's query, that's all valuable input for him (if he ever comes back to this thread!) but it's a little rude to dismiss people as 2nd class or worse because of the tools they use, or the fact that they care less about their RAM use, or shutting down their computer at night; essentially because they have different priorities to you.
If its your job to write code then just write the code.
That's certainly what a good corporate coding drone should do. I'm not one of those; I certainly program, but I'm not a "programmer" exclusively.
I've sat next to people at both extremes; of typing lots of noise, and typing amazing code with very few keypresses,
Yeah, that's the .net people, plugging components together requires very little typing, and very little programming skills for that matter.
Can't comment, I'm afraid, I've no particular exposure with .Net (and it was not my intention to make a comment about different peoples' productivity a reference to which language is "better")