Eschew IDEs and Text Editors for Pure Close-to-the-Metal Web Development
Remove distraction of tools so we can focus on code.
“I find it funny how there’s this spectrum where you can’t go too far in either direction...use a plain text editor and you’re an idiot, use an IDE and you’re an idiot. Use vim or emacs and you’re good, unless you picked vim or emacs.” —Ashton Kutcher, on learning to code
The other day I had a very interesting conversation with other Web developers on Irc about what editors we use. We all had a wide range of opinions about what tool is best for the task of writing code. Even after 15 minutes of conversation, there was no resolution amongst the group; a few friendships were broken and some users were even banned from the channel. Not to mention the time that was wasted which we could have used actually writing code.
I have always said that 10% of programming is writing code and the other 90% is choosing and learning the tools used in writing said code.
If you think about it. I am correct.
There are three steps to picking a text editor: looking at the options, testing the options, and then selecting and learning your choice. There is one step to learning code: just actually learning it. According to my calculations, we could cut 3 out of those 4 collective steps simply by not using any text editors or IDEs in our workflow.
That’s an approximately 68% increase in performance.
Not only is time wasted in choosing and handling the steep learning curves of text editors and IDEs, millions of dollars is spent every year on licenses for proprietary software. All that money, just so we could appear worthy of the title “web developer.” 1 in 10 Americans say HTML is an STD, yet we are worried less about infection and more about how cool or uncool we will be seen as based on the tools that we use. You know what’s cooler than spending $99 on a license of Vim? Abstinence.
Abstinence of text editors and IDEs.
A lot of you are going to think I’m crazy for proposing what is essentially a boycott of tools we’ve used since the birth of the Internet 25 years ago. You’ll probably think “it’s impossible.” Yes, changing habits is one of the hardest problems in Web Development, but solving hard problems is why we are so important in America.
Web developers make up more than 50% of computerized eyeglass owners in North America, and we also make a majority of the web sites which are used for important tasks like applying for healthcare and making digital money by digitally creating new types of digital money. We make the world a better place for folks everywhere.
It’s time we do something good for ourselves and bring development back where it belongs — close to the medal. The only way to do that is to stop using text editors and IDEs.
Jenn Schiffer is a web developer and was profiled in O’Reilly and Vogue’s Haute’st 30 Devs Under 30 of 2013.
