So, I have been mostly self thaught programmer (C++), as its a big part of my job (not a regular developer). But so far I have been using a simple text editor like Geany to code and I compile stuff either in terminal (linux) or produce my own make file.

I am starting to wonder if I should switch to a full IDE, as I am on linux, I was thinking of trying KDevelop. But I am simply not sure if its worth, do I even need it?

I have never used an IDE, it seems kind of complicated for the start with “projects” and I havent really found any good introductions to how this workflow is supposed to work.

Do you think using and IDE is something everyone should use? Or do you think a text editor with producing your own make files should be enough?

  • Communist
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    1 year ago

    being able to immediately jump to a line, jump to columns, have line numbers on the left, have css colors show up like this: https://github.com/RRethy/vim-hexokinase

    It’s been awesome for me!

    I do actually use neovim though.

    edit: Oh, I was referring to vim as an IDE, but I now realize you mean that vim is technically just a text editor, but i’ve set it up quite a lot, so, my particular vim setup might be in a weird spot!

    • Tbh, that just sounds like an IDE with extra steps. IntelliJ for example does all of those things as well IIRC and you don’t need to rely on third-party tools.

      Of course you’ll learn a lot more along the way if you configure vim to effectively be an IDE, but the end result is not that different.

      • Communist
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        1 year ago

        While it was a ton of configuration work, it’s now an extremely slim text editor that I use for literally every text file on my computer

        I don’t think intellij’s performance could compare.

        Plus, now that it’s already configured, I just have to share my dotfiles and it’s immediately setup anyway, and I love how vim works with modality and all, i’m not familiar with intellij but it’d have to do quite a lot to sway me at this point.