Sublime is NOT a Code Editor!

I was at Pycon Lt last week, and though there are so many good things I have to write about it, I couldn't help but rant this down. Half the speakers were using Sublime. And about 3/4ths of those attending whose screens I glanced at from afar were too. The remaining were using Vim. And that is just such a sad sight to see! Look, I get if you're one of the elites who've learnt Vim well and can boast doing everything there with great efficiency. But most don't learn. A good editor makes it impossible to not use its features. And have you seen what a real editor can do?
Here's why IntelliSense is amazing:
  • Amazing autocomplete that works
    Python is dynamically typed and that makes it almost impossible for the editor to know what a variable is, or what it does. And yet, it's amazing how well IntelliSense does it. Jedi and youcompleteme for Vim are terrible.
  • Inbuilt Debugger
    Putting print statements to debug code is like knowing you have a stain on your clothes but instead of cleaning it, you vomit over yourself and then clean your clothes. Use a debugger! It'll stop right at each breakpoint where you can print - (read evaluate) all that you'd like.
  • Overall Programming Efficiency & Learning
    I rarely use the mouse for anything anymore on Pycharm or Android Studio. And I don't type half the code I write.
    • Alt-Enter the mistakes.
      The editor is supposed to tell you what's wrong wherever it can, even before compiling. 
    • Ctrl-Space every time after the dot.
      If you have to Google the syntax for every method call to know what functions follow after the dot, and its arguments, you're not using an editor.
    • Ctrl-Shift-F, Ctrl-Shift-O.
      Automatically format your code, and organize imports. It's ugly to see unused imports lying around, and methods not formatted properly. Plus you 're gonna wait until your Continuous Integration tool complains to fix these. 
    • And so many more. Refactor everywhere, multiline editing, moving files to different folders without thinking about the imports, code collapsing, I could go on. 
Ctrl-S. What wait?
I now press reformat/reorganize subconsciously just as I used to press Ctrl-S years ago on Word. And now I don't anymore. Because an IDE can even go so far as handling local versioning of a file without me asking to do it. Unless I'm on silly Sublime! Or, I'm doing the ugly :wq on Vim.

Comments

  1. Parth GanatraFebruary 9, 2020 at 8:08 AM

    Since when did you learn this much about vim?
    You can use vim plugin for intellij to sort of get best of both worlds.

    ReplyDelete

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