Why not use an IDE?

You can use an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) if you feel strongly about it. An IDE can make you more productive in some environments. But I don’t recommend an IDE ever when learning a language.

Why?

Lots of reasons.

  1. When learning, you are still trying to commit the syntax and grammar of the new language to memory. If every other keystroke is <CTRL>-space and you let the tool autocomplete everything, you will never really master the language.

  2. An IDE is not a ‘free lunch’. They are typically complex applications with loads of options that require as much learning as the modes and keyboard commands in vim. Unless you put in the time and effort to learn the IDE, you won’t realize most of the productivity gains anyways.

  3. IDEs typically only support one, or a few language really well. Microsoft Visual Studio is an exception. I would rate it as very good for Visual Basic, C#, and Web Development (including JavaScript).

    There are no ‘great’ C or C++ IDEs.

    But even if you find a great IDE, if you work in a different language, then you need to potentially learn a completely different tool to work with the other language.

  4. IDEs are great if you are working on a single, medium sized project for an extended period of time. Think more than 1,000 lines of code.

    On a project, the time it takes to setup a new project is worth the investment, because you’ll be working on it for potentially a long time.

    This is not what we do in the classroom.

    We create lots of very small programs, because we are trying to distill new concepts down to the smallest program that will demonstrate the idea.

    In this environment, IDEs get in the way, because it takes more time to make a new project in the IDE, than it does to just type make my_program on the command line or in vim.

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