[aklug] Re: Coding websites by text editor...

On Mon, 16 Aug 2010, Tim Gibney wrote:

> I have been out of the loop in web programming for awhile.
> This argument started in the mac thread about basic editors is similiar to
> the arguments of the early 1990s. The UI needs more attention in modern
> programming. Until the last couple of years it was not even taught in
> computer science. Windows 3.0 apps sucked very bad and didn't have features
> like cut and paste with the mouse and were odd. Old x11 apps were bad in
> Unix as well a decade ago. The web is the same as many here have used nasty
> intranet sites doing work at corporations.
>
> It is time to use modern tools for visual design. It does not mean you are
> less of a man for using WYSIWYG candy, but is rather a tool to make sure
> what you see on the design screen is what the user will see. On the web this
> means great CSS support and textures for buttons and menus that don't look
> from 2,000. It means putting a huge emphasis on UI that is equal to the
> design of logic of the app. If a user can not find a function then what is
> the point of writing it?
>
> As you can tell I am in the IDE crowd. I believe many open source apps like
> this and I think we should write one. We wrote Gimp and paint.net to compete
> with paintshop pro and photoshop. Just an open source idea that is badly
> needed if we want open standards to succeed. I do not have the budget for
> $$$ proprietary software but it can do the job quite well. I was thinking of
> writing a 3rd party addon for Eclipse and Netbeans that use the desing mode
> of Swing with dynamic html instead to have a visual preview of a webpage.

<Sigh> I managed to avoid getting involved when you guys trolled about
editors, but I can't resist this one.

My $0.02: IDEs suck. Sure, I've used them and they're handy for quickly
throwing together a UI, but what happens after that? The bulk of the code
one typically writes isn't for defining the UI but for the triggered events.
And that's where all the IDEs completely fall apart. The first time I want
to make a mass change to a block of code or a complex search & replace
where only a regex will do and I want to chuck the entire computer out a
window.

If the extent of an IDE is to generate boilerplate for coding on later, I'm
there. But I wouldn't give up vi for all the tool tip API references or
function call drop down lists in the world. Besides, what you can code up
with, say, vim's internal extension language, tends to be more usable,
keeping your keys on the keyboard where they're useful. Not lost groping
for a mouse and scrolling across two desktops just to find a freaking menu.

And let's not forget what an atrocious mess most IDE "code generators"
create. Especially every HTML IDE I've ever seen. There's not one that I'm
aware of that can generate tighter, cleaner code than a human.

End sum: you're adding yet another translation layer between you and the
computer, another chance for additional bloat to creap into your
application. If you can't work with the actual text which your
compiler/browser/whatever actual deals with how much control do you really
have? How annoyed are you going to be when you want to go beyond the simple
things IDEs are good at and you have to hand-edit the code to get something
more complicated working?

Why fight an IDE UI to get it to conform to your wishes? Just go to the
source, and be done with it.

I know, I'm old, I need to shut up. But my text editor can beat up your
IDE. ;-)

         --Arthur Corliss
           Live Free or Die
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Received on Mon Aug 16 22:20:28 2010