Why should I use an IDE

Question

In another question  Mark speaks highly of IDEs  saying  some people still just dont know  why  they should use one       As someone who uses vim for programming  and works in an environment where most all of my colleagues use either vim or emacs for all of their work  what are the advantages of IDEs   Why should I use one   I m sure this is a charged issue for some people  and I m not interested in starting a flame war  so please only reply with the reasons you believe an IDE-based approach is superior   I m not interested in hearing about why I shouldn t use an IDE  I already don t use one   I m interested in hearing from  the other side of the fence   so to speak   If you think that IDEs may be suitable for some types of work but not others  I m also interested to hear why

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I m not sure there s a clear dividing line between a text editor and an IDE  You have the likes of Notepad at one end of the scale  and the best modern IDEs at the other  but there are a lot of thing in between  Most text editors have syntax highlighting  editors aimed at programmers often have various other features such as easy code navigation and auto complete  Emacs even lets you integrate a debugger  The IDEs of even ten years ago had far less features to help programmers than you d expect of a serious text editor these days

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Having an IDE has the following advantages    Compiling is usually  on the fly  which means no more switching to the command line to compile Debugging is integrated  and having that in an IDE means that the step debugger actually uses your in-place editor to visually show you which code is executed IDE s usually have more semantic knowledge of the language you re working in  and can show you possible problems while typing  Refactoring is much more powerfull than the  search replace     There are much more  maybe you should give it a try

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An IDE allows one to work faster and more easily    I noticed I spent a lot of time navigating in the code in a simple text editor     In a good IDE  that time goes down if the IDE supports jumping to functions  to previous editing position to variables    Also  a good IDE reduces the time to experiment with different language features and projects  as the start-up time can be small

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GUI-based IDEs like Visual Studio and Eclipse have several advantages over text-based IDEs like Emacs or vim because of their display capabilities    WYSIWYG preview and live editing for GUI design Efficient property editors  eg  color selection using a GUI palette  including positioning gradient stops etc  Graphical depiction of code outlines  file interrelationships  etc More efficient use of screen real-estate to show breakpoints  bookmarks  errors  etc Better drag and drop support with OS and other applications Integrated editing of drawings  images  3D models  etc Display and edit of database models   Basically with a GUI-based IDE you can get more useful information on screen at once and you can view edit graphical portions of of your application as easily as text portions   One of the coolest things to experience as a developer is editing a method that computes some data and seeing the live output of your code displayed graphically in another window  just as your user will see it when you run the app   Now that s WYSIWYG editing   Text-based IDEs like Emacs and vim can add features like code completion and refactoring over time  so in the long run their main limitation is their text-based display model

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It s really VERY simple  But this answer is a bit of a paradox in that I am discussing something only EMBEDDED level developers ever encounter  The reason this is an odd view is that frankly when I was doing embedded work  the brief time I was making any real money  an IDE would be down right STRANGE and most of your coworkers would wonder why you can t remember enough about SNMP ASN 1 or whatever protocol you were dealing with to just  do your job   BUT you can NOT  as far as I know  do a graphical simulation of what your microcontroller is doing in something like  real time  without an  IDE

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An IDE handles grunt work that saves you time   It keeps all associated project files together which makes it easy to collaborate   You can usually integrate your source control into your IDE saving more grunt work and further enhancing collaboration   If it has auto complete features  it can help you explore your language of choice and also save some typing   Basically  an IDE reduces non-programming work for the programmer

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I have used Emacs as my primary environment for both development and mail news for about 10 year  1994-2004   I discovered the power of IDEs when I forced myself to learn Java in 2004  and to my surprise that I actually liked the IDE  IntelliJ IDEA    I will not go into specific reasons since a lot of them have already been mentioned here -- just remember that the different people love different features  Me and a colleague used the same IDE  both of us used just a fraction of the features available  and we disliked each others way of using the IDE  but we both liked the IDE itself    But there is one advantage with IDEs over Emacs Vim related environments I want to focus on  You spend less time installing configuring the features you want   With Wing IDE  for Python  I m ready to start developing 15-20 minutes after installation  No idea how many hours I would need to get the features I use up and running with Emacs Vim

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The short answer as to why I use an IDE is laziness   I m a lazy soul who doesn t like to do things a difficult way when there is an easy way to do it instead  IDE s make life easy and so appeal to us lazy folk   As I type code  the IDE automatically checks the validity of the code  I can highlight a method and hit F1 to get help  right click and select  go to to definition  to jump straight to where it is defined  I hit one button and the application  with debugger automatically attached is launched for me  And so the list goes on  All the things that a developer does on a day to day basis is gathered under one roof   There is no need to use an IDE  It is just much harder work not to

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An IDE handles grunt work that saves you time   It keeps all associated project files together which makes it easy to collaborate   You can usually integrate your source control into your IDE saving more grunt work and further enhancing collaboration   If it has auto complete features  it can help you explore your language of choice and also save some typing   Basically  an IDE reduces non-programming work for the programmer

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To me it s just the the GUI version of everything we did in the good old days of the terminal  I will always agree that IDE are not very superior because they hide a lot of stuff  especially concerning the linking stuff  but they have a notable advantage in some cases  for example with certain development platforms like Qt   Some IDE like visual of others even seem to parse your code as you type it  and detect errors before you even compile  it seems logics that only an IDE can work closely with a compiler to immediately detect problem in the typed source   My wild answer that the IDE Command-line flame war exists is just because the C C   executable building is not very well handled from a standardized point of view  unlike with the D language  every platform handles compiling linking etc its own way  so to make it less messy they make an IDE   From your viewpoint it might be more simple to use the command-line  if there would have been only one compiler with standard options  it would have been easy  but the truth is C C   is flexible  so in the end  all platform do it their own way  hence the IDE to not waste explaining how to do it   If you can learn how an executable talks to the kernel or if you know anything about compiler design  maybe there is a way to work with a proper command-line  but I doubt you have   Microsoft or Apple  all evil they would be  have to propose a straight-forward way to build application without entering in the details  and since building an application depends directly on the architecture of the OS  it will hardly be  standard  as the command-line is   To put it simple  big and complex applications where you don t want to dig too deep into what it does -  IDE  little pieces of software or simple system software-design -  command-line  Except of course those nifty libraries that embed a Makefile  but that s another story   Also I think IDE are used when the application delivered has something to do with  ironically  a GUI or something that has an interface or is directly bound to an OS  so again  it s also for people who will use a UI GUI without knowing how it works  while people who will program systems won t need it all   IDE is just modern shit  but I think in 100 years the command-line will still exist

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I have used Emacs as my primary environment for both development and mail news for about 10 year  1994-2004   I discovered the power of IDEs when I forced myself to learn Java in 2004  and to my surprise that I actually liked the IDE  IntelliJ IDEA    I will not go into specific reasons since a lot of them have already been mentioned here -- just remember that the different people love different features  Me and a colleague used the same IDE  both of us used just a fraction of the features available  and we disliked each others way of using the IDE  but we both liked the IDE itself    But there is one advantage with IDEs over Emacs Vim related environments I want to focus on  You spend less time installing configuring the features you want   With Wing IDE  for Python  I m ready to start developing 15-20 minutes after installation  No idea how many hours I would need to get the features I use up and running with Emacs Vim

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My main  reason to use one is when the code goes beyond 100 files   Although ctags can do the work  some IDEs have a pretty good way to navigate the files easily an super fast   It saves time when you have a lot of work to do

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Eclipse   Having code higlighting  compiling in the background  pointing out my errors as I go along   Integration with javadoc  suggesting variable names with ctrl-Space   When I compile  I get errors right there  I can double click on an error  and it displays the appropriate line   Really well integrated with JUnit  ctrl-F11 runs the test  tells me the tests have failed  If there is an exception in the output window  I can double click on a line  and takes me to the line that failed  Not only that  but ctrl-F11 makes sure everything is compiled before it runs the tests  which means I never forget to do that    Integration with ant  One command to build and deploy the application   Integration with debuggers  including remote debugging of web servers   FANTASTIC refactoring tools  searching for references to a section of code  Helps me know the impact of a change   All in all  it makes me more productive

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Eclipse   Having code higlighting  compiling in the background  pointing out my errors as I go along   Integration with javadoc  suggesting variable names with ctrl-Space   When I compile  I get errors right there  I can double click on an error  and it displays the appropriate line   Really well integrated with JUnit  ctrl-F11 runs the test  tells me the tests have failed  If there is an exception in the output window  I can double click on a line  and takes me to the line that failed  Not only that  but ctrl-F11 makes sure everything is compiled before it runs the tests  which means I never forget to do that    Integration with ant  One command to build and deploy the application   Integration with debuggers  including remote debugging of web servers   FANTASTIC refactoring tools  searching for references to a section of code  Helps me know the impact of a change   All in all  it makes me more productive

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I don t think it s fair to do the classic  text editor and console window vs IDE  when  text editor  is really emacs  Most features that are typical for IDE s are also in emacs  Or perhaps they even originated there  and modern IDE s are mainly interface improvements simplifications   This means that for the original question  the answer is not so clear-cut  It depends on how people at the site in question use emacs  if they mainly use it as a text editor  or if they go all out and use custom scripting  learn the commands for the relevant modes  know about code tagging and so on

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An IDE can be a  superior  choice based depending upon what a developer is trying to accomplish    A text editor can be  superior  because IDEs are typically geared toward one  or a small selection  of languages     If a developer spends most of his her time in a single languge or a  cluster  of related languages  like C  and T-SQL   in one OS  then the GUI design  debug  intellisense  refactoring etc  tools offered by a good IDE can be very compelling   If  for instance  you spend most of your time working in VB NET  with maybe a little T-SQL now and then  in a Windows environment  then you d be pretty silly to not look at Visual Studio or a comparable IDE   I have no prejudice towards those who prefer IDEs or text editors  both can be very productive and useful if learned well

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Don t think of it as exclusive   Use the IDE for the benefits it provides  and switch to vim preferred text editor when you need some serious focus   I find the IDE better for refactoring and browsing and debugging and for figuring out what to do   Small things are then done right in the IDE  large things I flip to vim to finish the job

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I have used Emacs as my primary environment for both development and mail news for about 10 year  1994-2004   I discovered the power of IDEs when I forced myself to learn Java in 2004  and to my surprise that I actually liked the IDE  IntelliJ IDEA    I will not go into specific reasons since a lot of them have already been mentioned here -- just remember that the different people love different features  Me and a colleague used the same IDE  both of us used just a fraction of the features available  and we disliked each others way of using the IDE  but we both liked the IDE itself    But there is one advantage with IDEs over Emacs Vim related environments I want to focus on  You spend less time installing configuring the features you want   With Wing IDE  for Python  I m ready to start developing 15-20 minutes after installation  No idea how many hours I would need to get the features I use up and running with Emacs Vim

User · Answer

It depends highly on what you re doing and what language you re doing it in   Personally  I tend to not use an IDE  or  my IDE consists of 3 xterms running vim  one running a database client  and one with a bash prompt or tailing logs   depending on how broadly you define  IDE   for most of my work  but  if I were to find myself developing a platform-native GUI  then I d reach for a language-appropriate IDE in an instant - IMO  IDEs and graphical form editing are clearly made for each other

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Having an IDE has the following advantages    Compiling is usually  on the fly  which means no more switching to the command line to compile Debugging is integrated  and having that in an IDE means that the step debugger actually uses your in-place editor to visually show you which code is executed IDE s usually have more semantic knowledge of the language you re working in  and can show you possible problems while typing  Refactoring is much more powerfull than the  search replace     There are much more  maybe you should give it a try

User · Answer

I don t think it s fair to do the classic  text editor and console window vs IDE  when  text editor  is really emacs  Most features that are typical for IDE s are also in emacs  Or perhaps they even originated there  and modern IDE s are mainly interface improvements simplifications   This means that for the original question  the answer is not so clear-cut  It depends on how people at the site in question use emacs  if they mainly use it as a text editor  or if they go all out and use custom scripting  learn the commands for the relevant modes  know about code tagging and so on

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I do not understand what you are asking  You ask  Should I use an IDE instead of      but I don t understand what the alternative is - Vim and Emacs fulfil many functions any IDE will give you  The only aspect they do not handle that a larger IDE may are things like UI designers  Then your question boils down to simply  what IDE should I use  with arguments to be made for the simpler realm of Vim and Emacs

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There might be different reasons for different people  For me these are the advantages    Provides an integrated feel to the project  For instance i will have all the related projects files in single view  Provides increased code productivity like   Syntax Highlighting Referring of assemblies Intellisense Centralized view of database and related UI files  Debugging features    End of the day  it helps me to code faster than i can do in a notepad or wordpad  That is a pretty good reason for me to prefer an IDE

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I come at this question from the opposite direction   I was brought up in programming with very few pitstops in Makefile Emacs land   From my very earliest compiler on DOS  Microsoft Quick C  I had an IDE to automate things   I spent many years working in Visual C   6 0  and as I graduated into Enterprise Java  I worked with Borland JBuilder and then settled on Eclipse  which has become very productive for me     Throughout my initial self-teaching  college  and now professional career  I have come to learn that any major software development done solely within the IDE becomes counterproductive   I say this because most IDE s wants you to work in their peculiar I-control-how-the-world-works style   You have to slice and dice your projects along their lines   You have manage your project builds using their odd dialog boxes   Most IDE s manage complex build dependencies between projects poorly  and dependencies can be difficult to get working 100    I have been in situations where IDE s would not produce a working build of my code unless I did a Clean Rebuild All   Finally  there s rarely a clean way to move your software out of development and into other environments like QA or Production from an IDE   It s usually a clicky fest to get all your deployment units built  or you ve got some awkward tool that the IDE vendor gives you to bundle stuff up   But again  that tool usually demands that your project and build structure absolutely conforms to their rules - and sometimes that just won t work for your projects  requirements   I have learned that  to do large-scale development with a team  we can be the most productive if we develop our code using an IDE and do all of our builds using manually written command line scripts    We like Apache Ant for Java development    We ve found that running our scripts out of the IDE is just a click fest or an automation nightmare for complex builds  it s much easier  and less disruptive  to alt tab out to a shell and run the scripts there   Manual builds requires us to miss out on some of the niceties in the modern IDE like background compilation  but what we gain is much more critical   clean and easy builds that can live in multiple environments   The  one click build  all those agile guys talk about   We have it   Our build scripts can be directly invoked by continuous integration systems as well   Having builds managed through continuous integration allows us to more formally stage and migrate your code deployments to different environments  and lets us know almost immediately when someone checks in bad code that breaks the build or unit tests   In truth  my taking the role of build away from the IDE hasn t hurt us too badly   The intellisense and refactoring tools in Eclipse are still completely useful and valid - the background compilation simply serves to support those tools   And  Eclipse s peculiar slicing of projects has served as a very nice way to mentally break down our problem sets in a way everyone can understand  still a tad bit verbose for my tastes though    I think one of the most important things about Eclipse is the excellent SCM integrations  that s what makes team development so enjoyable   We use Subversion Eclipse  and that has been very productive and very easy to train our people to become experts at

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I m not entirely sold on the use of IDEs  However  I think that the most valuable aspect of a good IDE  like Eclipse  is the well-integrated Cscope-style functionality rapid comprehension of a large code base     For example  in Eclipse  you see a method takes an argument of type FooBar  yet you have no idea what it means  Rather than waste a minute finding the definition the hard way  and risk all sorts of distractions along the way   just select FooBar  hit F3  and it opens the relevant source file to the very line that FooBar is defined   The downside of IDEs  in my opinion  is that they give you a bigger learning curve  except in the case in which you want to use the absolutely default configuration   This is true for Emacs as well

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I don t think it s fair to do the classic  text editor and console window vs IDE  when  text editor  is really emacs  Most features that are typical for IDE s are also in emacs  Or perhaps they even originated there  and modern IDE s are mainly interface improvements simplifications   This means that for the original question  the answer is not so clear-cut  It depends on how people at the site in question use emacs  if they mainly use it as a text editor  or if they go all out and use custom scripting  learn the commands for the relevant modes  know about code tagging and so on

User · Answer

Saves time to develop  Makes life easier by providing features like Integrated debugging  intellisense   There are lot many  but will recommend to use one  they are more than obvious

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I also almost exclusively use Vim  almost because I m trying to learn emacs now  for all my development stuff  I think sheer intuitiveness  from the GUI of course  is the primary reason why people like to use IDEs  By being intuitive  little to no learning overhead of the tool is required  The lesser the learning overhead  the more they can get work done

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Saves time to develop  Makes life easier by providing features like Integrated debugging  intellisense   There are lot many  but will recommend to use one  they are more than obvious

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It depends highly on what you re doing and what language you re doing it in   Personally  I tend to not use an IDE  or  my IDE consists of 3 xterms running vim  one running a database client  and one with a bash prompt or tailing logs   depending on how broadly you define  IDE   for most of my work  but  if I were to find myself developing a platform-native GUI  then I d reach for a language-appropriate IDE in an instant - IMO  IDEs and graphical form editing are clearly made for each other

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It really depends on what language you re using  but in C  and Java I find IDEs beneficial for    Quickly navigating to a type without needing to worry about namespace  project etc Navigating to members by treating them as hyperlinks Autocompletion when you can t remember the names of all members by heart Automatic code generation Refactoring  massive one  Organise imports  automatically adding appropriate imports in Java  using directives in C   Warning-as-you-type  i e  some errors don t even require a compile cycle  Hovering over something to see the docs Keeping a view of files  errors warnings console unit tests etc and source code all on the screen at the same time in a useful way Ease of running unit tests from the same window Integrated debugging Integrated source control Navigating to where a compile-time error or run-time exception occurred directly from the error details  Etc    All of these save time  They re things I could do manually  but with more pain  I d rather be coding

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It depends highly on what you re doing and what language you re doing it in   Personally  I tend to not use an IDE  or  my IDE consists of 3 xterms running vim  one running a database client  and one with a bash prompt or tailing logs   depending on how broadly you define  IDE   for most of my work  but  if I were to find myself developing a platform-native GUI  then I d reach for a language-appropriate IDE in an instant - IMO  IDEs and graphical form editing are clearly made for each other

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In addition to the other answers  I love combining the developing power of an IDE with the editing power of Vim using something like the ViPlugin for Eclipse

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It definitely leads to an improvement in productivity for me  To the point where I even code Linux applications in Visual Studio on Vista and then use a Linux virtual machine to build them    You don t have to memorize all of the arguments to a function or method call  once you start typing it the IDE will show you what arguments are needed  You get wizards to set project properties  compiler options  etc  You can search for things throughout the entire project instead of just the current document or files in a folder  If you get a compiler error  double-click it and it takes you right to the offending line   Integration of tools like model editors  connecting to and browsing external databases  managing collections of code  snippets   GUI modeling tools  etc  All of these things could be had separately  but having them all within the same development environment saves a lot of time and keeps the development process flowing more efficiently

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Eclipse   Having code higlighting  compiling in the background  pointing out my errors as I go along   Integration with javadoc  suggesting variable names with ctrl-Space   When I compile  I get errors right there  I can double click on an error  and it displays the appropriate line   Really well integrated with JUnit  ctrl-F11 runs the test  tells me the tests have failed  If there is an exception in the output window  I can double click on a line  and takes me to the line that failed  Not only that  but ctrl-F11 makes sure everything is compiled before it runs the tests  which means I never forget to do that    Integration with ant  One command to build and deploy the application   Integration with debuggers  including remote debugging of web servers   FANTASTIC refactoring tools  searching for references to a section of code  Helps me know the impact of a change   All in all  it makes me more productive

User · Answer

An IDE can be a  superior  choice based depending upon what a developer is trying to accomplish    A text editor can be  superior  because IDEs are typically geared toward one  or a small selection  of languages     If a developer spends most of his her time in a single languge or a  cluster  of related languages  like C  and T-SQL   in one OS  then the GUI design  debug  intellisense  refactoring etc  tools offered by a good IDE can be very compelling   If  for instance  you spend most of your time working in VB NET  with maybe a little T-SQL now and then  in a Windows environment  then you d be pretty silly to not look at Visual Studio or a comparable IDE   I have no prejudice towards those who prefer IDEs or text editors  both can be very productive and useful if learned well

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A very good reason for using IDEs is that they are the accepted way of producing modern software  If you do not use one  then you likely use  old fashioned  stuff like vi and emacs  This can lead people to conclude - possibly wrongly - that you are stuck in your ways and unable to adapt to new ways of working  In an industry such as software development - where ideas can be out of date in mere months - this is a dangerous state to get into  It could seriously damage your future job prospects

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I think it has mostly to do with scope of awareness for the developer  The IDE provides a macroscopic view of the developer s work context  You can simultaneously see class hierarchies  referenced resources  database schemas  SDK help references  etc  And with so many things affected by  and affecting  your keystrokes  and the expanding volume of architectures and architectural intersections  it gets more and more difficult to work solely from one island of code at a time   OTOH   just me and vim and the man pages  gives me a much leaner microscopic - but intense and precise - view of my work  This is ok if I have a well-designed  well-partitioned  sparsely coupled highly cohesive codebase built in one language with one set of static libraries to work from - not your typical situation  especially as dev team sizes grow and reshape the code structure over time  distance  and personal preference   I m currently working on projects in Flex and  NET  One of the nicer things about Flex is how few different ways there are to accomplish a standard thing - pull data from a database  open close read write a file  etc   Yet I m using the Flex Builder Eclipse IDE - a typical heavy-weight example like VS  because I m still learning the basics and I need the training wheels  I expect to evolve back to vim once I m confident of my patterns   In this view  I can do what I need to do professionally by knowing a few things really really well   OTOH  I can t imagine getting to that point with  NET because the view I m expected to maintain keeps expanding and shifting  There much less conceptual integrity  and over several developers on a project over several months  much less consistency - but the IDE supports that  maybe encourages it  So the developer really needs to  and can more easily  know many more things adequately  Which also has the benefit of helping them answer  or even understand  a lot higher percentage of the questions on StackOverflow  I e  we can have a deeper knowledge stack  And we can respond to a wider variety of help-wanted ads   Things can go too far in both directions  Maybe with the  editor-only  scope  it s like  if you only have a hammer  everything looks like a nail   With the IDE approach  for whatever you want to fasten together  you have a broad selection of fasteners and associated ranges of tools to choose from - nals hammers  screws screwdrivers  bolts wrenches  adhesives glue-guns clamps  magnets  and on and on - all at your fingertips  with a wizard to help you get started

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There s only one thing to consider when deciding whether to use an IDE or not  and that s whether it makes you more productive or not   Short question so short answer

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GUI-based IDEs like Visual Studio and Eclipse have several advantages over text-based IDEs like Emacs or vim because of their display capabilities    WYSIWYG preview and live editing for GUI design Efficient property editors  eg  color selection using a GUI palette  including positioning gradient stops etc  Graphical depiction of code outlines  file interrelationships  etc More efficient use of screen real-estate to show breakpoints  bookmarks  errors  etc Better drag and drop support with OS and other applications Integrated editing of drawings  images  3D models  etc Display and edit of database models   Basically with a GUI-based IDE you can get more useful information on screen at once and you can view edit graphical portions of of your application as easily as text portions   One of the coolest things to experience as a developer is editing a method that computes some data and seeing the live output of your code displayed graphically in another window  just as your user will see it when you run the app   Now that s WYSIWYG editing   Text-based IDEs like Emacs and vim can add features like code completion and refactoring over time  so in the long run their main limitation is their text-based display model

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I prefer an IDE because it permits me to integrate editing compiling debugging  with a 1-click jump from error to line generating the error  Further  it permits multiple panes of information with OS-standard interfaces displaying the information  In short  it gives the user a mouse-based input interface with a modern output interface instead of relying on 1970s technology and interfaces for my help   There are more sophisticated users and uses for an IDE  I don t claim to use them or to know them all  When I have need  I will learn them

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There might be different reasons for different people  For me these are the advantages    Provides an integrated feel to the project  For instance i will have all the related projects files in single view  Provides increased code productivity like   Syntax Highlighting Referring of assemblies Intellisense Centralized view of database and related UI files  Debugging features    End of the day  it helps me to code faster than i can do in a notepad or wordpad  That is a pretty good reason for me to prefer an IDE

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The short answer as to why I use an IDE is laziness   I m a lazy soul who doesn t like to do things a difficult way when there is an easy way to do it instead  IDE s make life easy and so appeal to us lazy folk   As I type code  the IDE automatically checks the validity of the code  I can highlight a method and hit F1 to get help  right click and select  go to to definition  to jump straight to where it is defined  I hit one button and the application  with debugger automatically attached is launched for me  And so the list goes on  All the things that a developer does on a day to day basis is gathered under one roof   There is no need to use an IDE  It is just much harder work not to

User · Answer

There might be different reasons for different people  For me these are the advantages    Provides an integrated feel to the project  For instance i will have all the related projects files in single view  Provides increased code productivity like   Syntax Highlighting Referring of assemblies Intellisense Centralized view of database and related UI files  Debugging features    End of the day  it helps me to code faster than i can do in a notepad or wordpad  That is a pretty good reason for me to prefer an IDE

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A couple of reasons I can think of for using an IDE    Integrated help is a favorite   The built-in Refactor with Preview of the Visual Studio IntelliSense  syntax hightlighting  ease of navigation for large projects  integrated debugging  etc   although I know with addins you can probably get a lot of this with Emacs and Vim   Also  I think IDEs these days have a wider user-base  and probably more people developing add-ins for them  but I might be wrong    And quite frankly  I like my mouse  When I use pure text-based editors it gets lonely

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It really depends on what language you re using  but in C  and Java I find IDEs beneficial for    Quickly navigating to a type without needing to worry about namespace  project etc Navigating to members by treating them as hyperlinks Autocompletion when you can t remember the names of all members by heart Automatic code generation Refactoring  massive one  Organise imports  automatically adding appropriate imports in Java  using directives in C   Warning-as-you-type  i e  some errors don t even require a compile cycle  Hovering over something to see the docs Keeping a view of files  errors warnings console unit tests etc and source code all on the screen at the same time in a useful way Ease of running unit tests from the same window Integrated debugging Integrated source control Navigating to where a compile-time error or run-time exception occurred directly from the error details  Etc    All of these save time  They re things I could do manually  but with more pain  I d rather be coding

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Having an IDE has the following advantages    Compiling is usually  on the fly  which means no more switching to the command line to compile Debugging is integrated  and having that in an IDE means that the step debugger actually uses your in-place editor to visually show you which code is executed IDE s usually have more semantic knowledge of the language you re working in  and can show you possible problems while typing  Refactoring is much more powerfull than the  search replace     There are much more  maybe you should give it a try

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Code completion  It helps a lot with exploring code

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It really depends on what language you re using  but in C  and Java I find IDEs beneficial for    Quickly navigating to a type without needing to worry about namespace  project etc Navigating to members by treating them as hyperlinks Autocompletion when you can t remember the names of all members by heart Automatic code generation Refactoring  massive one  Organise imports  automatically adding appropriate imports in Java  using directives in C   Warning-as-you-type  i e  some errors don t even require a compile cycle  Hovering over something to see the docs Keeping a view of files  errors warnings console unit tests etc and source code all on the screen at the same time in a useful way Ease of running unit tests from the same window Integrated debugging Integrated source control Navigating to where a compile-time error or run-time exception occurred directly from the error details  Etc    All of these save time  They re things I could do manually  but with more pain  I d rather be coding

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A very good reason for using IDEs is that they are the accepted way of producing modern software  If you do not use one  then you likely use  old fashioned  stuff like vi and emacs  This can lead people to conclude - possibly wrongly - that you are stuck in your ways and unable to adapt to new ways of working  In an industry such as software development - where ideas can be out of date in mere months - this is a dangerous state to get into  It could seriously damage your future job prospects

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I do not understand what you are asking  You ask  Should I use an IDE instead of      but I don t understand what the alternative is - Vim and Emacs fulfil many functions any IDE will give you  The only aspect they do not handle that a larger IDE may are things like UI designers  Then your question boils down to simply  what IDE should I use  with arguments to be made for the simpler realm of Vim and Emacs

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I m not entirely sold on the use of IDEs  However  I think that the most valuable aspect of a good IDE  like Eclipse  is the well-integrated Cscope-style functionality rapid comprehension of a large code base     For example  in Eclipse  you see a method takes an argument of type FooBar  yet you have no idea what it means  Rather than waste a minute finding the definition the hard way  and risk all sorts of distractions along the way   just select FooBar  hit F3  and it opens the relevant source file to the very line that FooBar is defined   The downside of IDEs  in my opinion  is that they give you a bigger learning curve  except in the case in which you want to use the absolutely default configuration   This is true for Emacs as well

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Code completion  It helps a lot with exploring code

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Code completion  It helps a lot with exploring code

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I m not sure there s a clear dividing line between a text editor and an IDE  You have the likes of Notepad at one end of the scale  and the best modern IDEs at the other  but there are a lot of thing in between  Most text editors have syntax highlighting  editors aimed at programmers often have various other features such as easy code navigation and auto complete  Emacs even lets you integrate a debugger  The IDEs of even ten years ago had far less features to help programmers than you d expect of a serious text editor these days

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I prefer an IDE because it permits me to integrate editing compiling debugging  with a 1-click jump from error to line generating the error  Further  it permits multiple panes of information with OS-standard interfaces displaying the information  In short  it gives the user a mouse-based input interface with a modern output interface instead of relying on 1970s technology and interfaces for my help   There are more sophisticated users and uses for an IDE  I don t claim to use them or to know them all  When I have need  I will learn them

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A very good reason for using IDEs is that they are the accepted way of producing modern software  If you do not use one  then you likely use  old fashioned  stuff like vi and emacs  This can lead people to conclude - possibly wrongly - that you are stuck in your ways and unable to adapt to new ways of working  In an industry such as software development - where ideas can be out of date in mere months - this is a dangerous state to get into  It could seriously damage your future job prospects

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An IDE can be a  superior  choice based depending upon what a developer is trying to accomplish    A text editor can be  superior  because IDEs are typically geared toward one  or a small selection  of languages     If a developer spends most of his her time in a single languge or a  cluster  of related languages  like C  and T-SQL   in one OS  then the GUI design  debug  intellisense  refactoring etc  tools offered by a good IDE can be very compelling   If  for instance  you spend most of your time working in VB NET  with maybe a little T-SQL now and then  in a Windows environment  then you d be pretty silly to not look at Visual Studio or a comparable IDE   I have no prejudice towards those who prefer IDEs or text editors  both can be very productive and useful if learned well

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I m not entirely sold on the use of IDEs  However  I think that the most valuable aspect of a good IDE  like Eclipse  is the well-integrated Cscope-style functionality rapid comprehension of a large code base     For example  in Eclipse  you see a method takes an argument of type FooBar  yet you have no idea what it means  Rather than waste a minute finding the definition the hard way  and risk all sorts of distractions along the way   just select FooBar  hit F3  and it opens the relevant source file to the very line that FooBar is defined   The downside of IDEs  in my opinion  is that they give you a bigger learning curve  except in the case in which you want to use the absolutely default configuration   This is true for Emacs as well

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I prefer an IDE because it permits me to integrate editing compiling debugging  with a 1-click jump from error to line generating the error  Further  it permits multiple panes of information with OS-standard interfaces displaying the information  In short  it gives the user a mouse-based input interface with a modern output interface instead of relying on 1970s technology and interfaces for my help   There are more sophisticated users and uses for an IDE  I don t claim to use them or to know them all  When I have need  I will learn them

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There might be different reasons for different people  For me these are the advantages    Provides an integrated feel to the project  For instance i will have all the related projects files in single view  Provides increased code productivity like   Syntax Highlighting Referring of assemblies Intellisense Centralized view of database and related UI files  Debugging features    End of the day  it helps me to code faster than i can do in a notepad or wordpad  That is a pretty good reason for me to prefer an IDE

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I m not sure there s a clear dividing line between a text editor and an IDE  You have the likes of Notepad at one end of the scale  and the best modern IDEs at the other  but there are a lot of thing in between  Most text editors have syntax highlighting  editors aimed at programmers often have various other features such as easy code navigation and auto complete  Emacs even lets you integrate a debugger  The IDEs of even ten years ago had far less features to help programmers than you d expect of a serious text editor these days

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Saves time to develop  Makes life easier by providing features like Integrated debugging  intellisense   There are lot many  but will recommend to use one  they are more than obvious

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I like an IDE because it puts a lot of functionality at my fingertips   Editing Compilation visibility of files in the project are all things I value in an IDE   I use Visual Studio now but in a former life I used SlickEdit and found that it made my development process more streamlined than when I wasn t using it

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The short answer as to why I use an IDE is laziness   I m a lazy soul who doesn t like to do things a difficult way when there is an easy way to do it instead  IDE s make life easy and so appeal to us lazy folk   As I type code  the IDE automatically checks the validity of the code  I can highlight a method and hit F1 to get help  right click and select  go to to definition  to jump straight to where it is defined  I hit one button and the application  with debugger automatically attached is launched for me  And so the list goes on  All the things that a developer does on a day to day basis is gathered under one roof   There is no need to use an IDE  It is just much harder work not to

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Simply put  an IDE offers additional time-saving features over a simple editor

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My main  reason to use one is when the code goes beyond 100 files   Although ctags can do the work  some IDEs have a pretty good way to navigate the files easily an super fast   It saves time when you have a lot of work to do

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Being the author of the response that you highlight in your question  and admittedly coming to this one a bit late  I d have to say that among the many reasons that have been listed  the productivity of a professional developer is one of the most highly-regarded skills   By productivity  I mean the ability to do your job efficiently with the best-possible results  IDEs enable this on many levels  I m not an Emacs expert  but I doubt that it lacks any of the features of the major IDEs   Design  documentation  tracking  developing  building  analyzing  deploying  and maintenance  key stepping stones in an enterprise application  can all be done within an IDE   Why you wouldn t use something so powerful if you have the choice   As an experiment  commit yourself to use an IDE for  say  30 days  and see how you feel  I would love to read your thoughts on the experience

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I m not entirely sold on the use of IDEs  However  I think that the most valuable aspect of a good IDE  like Eclipse  is the well-integrated Cscope-style functionality rapid comprehension of a large code base     For example  in Eclipse  you see a method takes an argument of type FooBar  yet you have no idea what it means  Rather than waste a minute finding the definition the hard way  and risk all sorts of distractions along the way   just select FooBar  hit F3  and it opens the relevant source file to the very line that FooBar is defined   The downside of IDEs  in my opinion  is that they give you a bigger learning curve  except in the case in which you want to use the absolutely default configuration   This is true for Emacs as well

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A couple of reasons I can think of for using an IDE    Integrated help is a favorite   The built-in Refactor with Preview of the Visual Studio IntelliSense  syntax hightlighting  ease of navigation for large projects  integrated debugging  etc   although I know with addins you can probably get a lot of this with Emacs and Vim   Also  I think IDEs these days have a wider user-base  and probably more people developing add-ins for them  but I might be wrong    And quite frankly  I like my mouse  When I use pure text-based editors it gets lonely

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I think it has mostly to do with scope of awareness for the developer  The IDE provides a macroscopic view of the developer s work context  You can simultaneously see class hierarchies  referenced resources  database schemas  SDK help references  etc  And with so many things affected by  and affecting  your keystrokes  and the expanding volume of architectures and architectural intersections  it gets more and more difficult to work solely from one island of code at a time   OTOH   just me and vim and the man pages  gives me a much leaner microscopic - but intense and precise - view of my work  This is ok if I have a well-designed  well-partitioned  sparsely coupled highly cohesive codebase built in one language with one set of static libraries to work from - not your typical situation  especially as dev team sizes grow and reshape the code structure over time  distance  and personal preference   I m currently working on projects in Flex and  NET  One of the nicer things about Flex is how few different ways there are to accomplish a standard thing - pull data from a database  open close read write a file  etc   Yet I m using the Flex Builder Eclipse IDE - a typical heavy-weight example like VS  because I m still learning the basics and I need the training wheels  I expect to evolve back to vim once I m confident of my patterns   In this view  I can do what I need to do professionally by knowing a few things really really well   OTOH  I can t imagine getting to that point with  NET because the view I m expected to maintain keeps expanding and shifting  There much less conceptual integrity  and over several developers on a project over several months  much less consistency - but the IDE supports that  maybe encourages it  So the developer really needs to  and can more easily  know many more things adequately  Which also has the benefit of helping them answer  or even understand  a lot higher percentage of the questions on StackOverflow  I e  we can have a deeper knowledge stack  And we can respond to a wider variety of help-wanted ads   Things can go too far in both directions  Maybe with the  editor-only  scope  it s like  if you only have a hammer  everything looks like a nail   With the IDE approach  for whatever you want to fasten together  you have a broad selection of fasteners and associated ranges of tools to choose from - nals hammers  screws screwdrivers  bolts wrenches  adhesives glue-guns clamps  magnets  and on and on - all at your fingertips  with a wizard to help you get started

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There s only one thing to consider when deciding whether to use an IDE or not  and that s whether it makes you more productive or not   Short question so short answer

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Don t think of it as exclusive   Use the IDE for the benefits it provides  and switch to vim preferred text editor when you need some serious focus   I find the IDE better for refactoring and browsing and debugging and for figuring out what to do   Small things are then done right in the IDE  large things I flip to vim to finish the job

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I do not understand what you are asking  You ask  Should I use an IDE instead of      but I don t understand what the alternative is - Vim and Emacs fulfil many functions any IDE will give you  The only aspect they do not handle that a larger IDE may are things like UI designers  Then your question boils down to simply  what IDE should I use  with arguments to be made for the simpler realm of Vim and Emacs

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There s only one thing to consider when deciding whether to use an IDE or not  and that s whether it makes you more productive or not   Short question so short answer

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It definitely leads to an improvement in productivity for me  To the point where I even code Linux applications in Visual Studio on Vista and then use a Linux virtual machine to build them    You don t have to memorize all of the arguments to a function or method call  once you start typing it the IDE will show you what arguments are needed  You get wizards to set project properties  compiler options  etc  You can search for things throughout the entire project instead of just the current document or files in a folder  If you get a compiler error  double-click it and it takes you right to the offending line   Integration of tools like model editors  connecting to and browsing external databases  managing collections of code  snippets   GUI modeling tools  etc  All of these things could be had separately  but having them all within the same development environment saves a lot of time and keeps the development process flowing more efficiently

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Being the author of the response that you highlight in your question  and admittedly coming to this one a bit late  I d have to say that among the many reasons that have been listed  the productivity of a professional developer is one of the most highly-regarded skills   By productivity  I mean the ability to do your job efficiently with the best-possible results  IDEs enable this on many levels  I m not an Emacs expert  but I doubt that it lacks any of the features of the major IDEs   Design  documentation  tracking  developing  building  analyzing  deploying  and maintenance  key stepping stones in an enterprise application  can all be done within an IDE   Why you wouldn t use something so powerful if you have the choice   As an experiment  commit yourself to use an IDE for  say  30 days  and see how you feel  I would love to read your thoughts on the experience

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I come at this question from the opposite direction   I was brought up in programming with very few pitstops in Makefile Emacs land   From my very earliest compiler on DOS  Microsoft Quick C  I had an IDE to automate things   I spent many years working in Visual C   6 0  and as I graduated into Enterprise Java  I worked with Borland JBuilder and then settled on Eclipse  which has become very productive for me     Throughout my initial self-teaching  college  and now professional career  I have come to learn that any major software development done solely within the IDE becomes counterproductive   I say this because most IDE s wants you to work in their peculiar I-control-how-the-world-works style   You have to slice and dice your projects along their lines   You have manage your project builds using their odd dialog boxes   Most IDE s manage complex build dependencies between projects poorly  and dependencies can be difficult to get working 100    I have been in situations where IDE s would not produce a working build of my code unless I did a Clean Rebuild All   Finally  there s rarely a clean way to move your software out of development and into other environments like QA or Production from an IDE   It s usually a clicky fest to get all your deployment units built  or you ve got some awkward tool that the IDE vendor gives you to bundle stuff up   But again  that tool usually demands that your project and build structure absolutely conforms to their rules - and sometimes that just won t work for your projects  requirements   I have learned that  to do large-scale development with a team  we can be the most productive if we develop our code using an IDE and do all of our builds using manually written command line scripts    We like Apache Ant for Java development    We ve found that running our scripts out of the IDE is just a click fest or an automation nightmare for complex builds  it s much easier  and less disruptive  to alt tab out to a shell and run the scripts there   Manual builds requires us to miss out on some of the niceties in the modern IDE like background compilation  but what we gain is much more critical   clean and easy builds that can live in multiple environments   The  one click build  all those agile guys talk about   We have it   Our build scripts can be directly invoked by continuous integration systems as well   Having builds managed through continuous integration allows us to more formally stage and migrate your code deployments to different environments  and lets us know almost immediately when someone checks in bad code that breaks the build or unit tests   In truth  my taking the role of build away from the IDE hasn t hurt us too badly   The intellisense and refactoring tools in Eclipse are still completely useful and valid - the background compilation simply serves to support those tools   And  Eclipse s peculiar slicing of projects has served as a very nice way to mentally break down our problem sets in a way everyone can understand  still a tad bit verbose for my tastes though    I think one of the most important things about Eclipse is the excellent SCM integrations  that s what makes team development so enjoyable   We use Subversion Eclipse  and that has been very productive and very easy to train our people to become experts at

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IntelliSense  the integrated debugger  and the immediate window make me enormously more productive  Visual nbsp Studio nbsp 2008   With everything at my fingertips  I can keep the vast majority of an enormous project inside of my head while writing code  Microsoft may keep dropping the ball on their OSs  but Visual Studio is one of the finest products ever developed

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To me it s just the the GUI version of everything we did in the good old days of the terminal  I will always agree that IDE are not very superior because they hide a lot of stuff  especially concerning the linking stuff  but they have a notable advantage in some cases  for example with certain development platforms like Qt   Some IDE like visual of others even seem to parse your code as you type it  and detect errors before you even compile  it seems logics that only an IDE can work closely with a compiler to immediately detect problem in the typed source   My wild answer that the IDE Command-line flame war exists is just because the C C   executable building is not very well handled from a standardized point of view  unlike with the D language  every platform handles compiling linking etc its own way  so to make it less messy they make an IDE   From your viewpoint it might be more simple to use the command-line  if there would have been only one compiler with standard options  it would have been easy  but the truth is C C   is flexible  so in the end  all platform do it their own way  hence the IDE to not waste explaining how to do it   If you can learn how an executable talks to the kernel or if you know anything about compiler design  maybe there is a way to work with a proper command-line  but I doubt you have   Microsoft or Apple  all evil they would be  have to propose a straight-forward way to build application without entering in the details  and since building an application depends directly on the architecture of the OS  it will hardly be  standard  as the command-line is   To put it simple  big and complex applications where you don t want to dig too deep into what it does -  IDE  little pieces of software or simple system software-design -  command-line  Except of course those nifty libraries that embed a Makefile  but that s another story   Also I think IDE are used when the application delivered has something to do with  ironically  a GUI or something that has an interface or is directly bound to an OS  so again  it s also for people who will use a UI GUI without knowing how it works  while people who will program systems won t need it all   IDE is just modern shit  but I think in 100 years the command-line will still exist

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There s only one thing to consider when deciding whether to use an IDE or not  and that s whether it makes you more productive or not   Short question so short answer

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It really depends on what language you re using  but in C  and Java I find IDEs beneficial for    Quickly navigating to a type without needing to worry about namespace  project etc Navigating to members by treating them as hyperlinks Autocompletion when you can t remember the names of all members by heart Automatic code generation Refactoring  massive one  Organise imports  automatically adding appropriate imports in Java  using directives in C   Warning-as-you-type  i e  some errors don t even require a compile cycle  Hovering over something to see the docs Keeping a view of files  errors warnings console unit tests etc and source code all on the screen at the same time in a useful way Ease of running unit tests from the same window Integrated debugging Integrated source control Navigating to where a compile-time error or run-time exception occurred directly from the error details  Etc    All of these save time  They re things I could do manually  but with more pain  I d rather be coding

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It depends highly on what you re doing and what language you re doing it in   Personally  I tend to not use an IDE  or  my IDE consists of 3 xterms running vim  one running a database client  and one with a bash prompt or tailing logs   depending on how broadly you define  IDE   for most of my work  but  if I were to find myself developing a platform-native GUI  then I d reach for a language-appropriate IDE in an instant - IMO  IDEs and graphical form editing are clearly made for each other

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For me  an IDE is better because it allows faster navigation in code which is important if you have something in your mind to implement  Supposed you do not use an IDE  it takes longer to get to the destination  Your thoughts may be interupted more often  It means more clicks more keys have to be pressed  One has to concentrate more on the thought how to implement things  Of course  you can write down things too but then one must jump between the design and implementation  Also  a GUI designer makes a big difference  If you do that by hand  it may take longer

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I have used Emacs as my primary environment for both development and mail news for about 10 year  1994-2004   I discovered the power of IDEs when I forced myself to learn Java in 2004  and to my surprise that I actually liked the IDE  IntelliJ IDEA    I will not go into specific reasons since a lot of them have already been mentioned here -- just remember that the different people love different features  Me and a colleague used the same IDE  both of us used just a fraction of the features available  and we disliked each others way of using the IDE  but we both liked the IDE itself    But there is one advantage with IDEs over Emacs Vim related environments I want to focus on  You spend less time installing configuring the features you want   With Wing IDE  for Python  I m ready to start developing 15-20 minutes after installation  No idea how many hours I would need to get the features I use up and running with Emacs Vim

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In addition to the other answers  I love combining the developing power of an IDE with the editing power of Vim using something like the ViPlugin for Eclipse

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I do not understand what you are asking  You ask  Should I use an IDE instead of      but I don t understand what the alternative is - Vim and Emacs fulfil many functions any IDE will give you  The only aspect they do not handle that a larger IDE may are things like UI designers  Then your question boils down to simply  what IDE should I use  with arguments to be made for the simpler realm of Vim and Emacs

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I prefer an IDE because it permits me to integrate editing compiling debugging  with a 1-click jump from error to line generating the error  Further  it permits multiple panes of information with OS-standard interfaces displaying the information  In short  it gives the user a mouse-based input interface with a modern output interface instead of relying on 1970s technology and interfaces for my help   There are more sophisticated users and uses for an IDE  I don t claim to use them or to know them all  When I have need  I will learn them

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I like an IDE because it puts a lot of functionality at my fingertips   Editing Compilation visibility of files in the project are all things I value in an IDE   I use Visual Studio now but in a former life I used SlickEdit and found that it made my development process more streamlined than when I wasn t using it

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IntelliSense  the integrated debugger  and the immediate window make me enormously more productive  Visual nbsp Studio nbsp 2008   With everything at my fingertips  I can keep the vast majority of an enormous project inside of my head while writing code  Microsoft may keep dropping the ball on their OSs  but Visual Studio is one of the finest products ever developed

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A couple of reasons I can think of for using an IDE    Integrated help is a favorite   The built-in Refactor with Preview of the Visual Studio IntelliSense  syntax hightlighting  ease of navigation for large projects  integrated debugging  etc   although I know with addins you can probably get a lot of this with Emacs and Vim   Also  I think IDEs these days have a wider user-base  and probably more people developing add-ins for them  but I might be wrong    And quite frankly  I like my mouse  When I use pure text-based editors it gets lonely

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I also almost exclusively use Vim  almost because I m trying to learn emacs now  for all my development stuff  I think sheer intuitiveness  from the GUI of course  is the primary reason why people like to use IDEs  By being intuitive  little to no learning overhead of the tool is required  The lesser the learning overhead  the more they can get work done

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In addition to the other answers  I love combining the developing power of an IDE with the editing power of Vim using something like the ViPlugin for Eclipse

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Eclipse   Having code higlighting  compiling in the background  pointing out my errors as I go along   Integration with javadoc  suggesting variable names with ctrl-Space   When I compile  I get errors right there  I can double click on an error  and it displays the appropriate line   Really well integrated with JUnit  ctrl-F11 runs the test  tells me the tests have failed  If there is an exception in the output window  I can double click on a line  and takes me to the line that failed  Not only that  but ctrl-F11 makes sure everything is compiled before it runs the tests  which means I never forget to do that    Integration with ant  One command to build and deploy the application   Integration with debuggers  including remote debugging of web servers   FANTASTIC refactoring tools  searching for references to a section of code  Helps me know the impact of a change   All in all  it makes me more productive

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For me  an IDE is better because it allows faster navigation in code which is important if you have something in your mind to implement  Supposed you do not use an IDE  it takes longer to get to the destination  Your thoughts may be interupted more often  It means more clicks more keys have to be pressed  One has to concentrate more on the thought how to implement things  Of course  you can write down things too but then one must jump between the design and implementation  Also  a GUI designer makes a big difference  If you do that by hand  it may take longer

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I think it has mostly to do with scope of awareness for the developer  The IDE provides a macroscopic view of the developer s work context  You can simultaneously see class hierarchies  referenced resources  database schemas  SDK help references  etc  And with so many things affected by  and affecting  your keystrokes  and the expanding volume of architectures and architectural intersections  it gets more and more difficult to work solely from one island of code at a time   OTOH   just me and vim and the man pages  gives me a much leaner microscopic - but intense and precise - view of my work  This is ok if I have a well-designed  well-partitioned  sparsely coupled highly cohesive codebase built in one language with one set of static libraries to work from - not your typical situation  especially as dev team sizes grow and reshape the code structure over time  distance  and personal preference   I m currently working on projects in Flex and  NET  One of the nicer things about Flex is how few different ways there are to accomplish a standard thing - pull data from a database  open close read write a file  etc   Yet I m using the Flex Builder Eclipse IDE - a typical heavy-weight example like VS  because I m still learning the basics and I need the training wheels  I expect to evolve back to vim once I m confident of my patterns   In this view  I can do what I need to do professionally by knowing a few things really really well   OTOH  I can t imagine getting to that point with  NET because the view I m expected to maintain keeps expanding and shifting  There much less conceptual integrity  and over several developers on a project over several months  much less consistency - but the IDE supports that  maybe encourages it  So the developer really needs to  and can more easily  know many more things adequately  Which also has the benefit of helping them answer  or even understand  a lot higher percentage of the questions on StackOverflow  I e  we can have a deeper knowledge stack  And we can respond to a wider variety of help-wanted ads   Things can go too far in both directions  Maybe with the  editor-only  scope  it s like  if you only have a hammer  everything looks like a nail   With the IDE approach  for whatever you want to fasten together  you have a broad selection of fasteners and associated ranges of tools to choose from - nals hammers  screws screwdrivers  bolts wrenches  adhesives glue-guns clamps  magnets  and on and on - all at your fingertips  with a wizard to help you get started

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I don t think it s fair to do the classic  text editor and console window vs IDE  when  text editor  is really emacs  Most features that are typical for IDE s are also in emacs  Or perhaps they even originated there  and modern IDE s are mainly interface improvements simplifications   This means that for the original question  the answer is not so clear-cut  It depends on how people at the site in question use emacs  if they mainly use it as a text editor  or if they go all out and use custom scripting  learn the commands for the relevant modes  know about code tagging and so on

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Simply put  an IDE offers additional time-saving features over a simple editor

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Saves time to develop  Makes life easier by providing features like Integrated debugging  intellisense   There are lot many  but will recommend to use one  they are more than obvious

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Being the author of the response that you highlight in your question  and admittedly coming to this one a bit late  I d have to say that among the many reasons that have been listed  the productivity of a professional developer is one of the most highly-regarded skills   By productivity  I mean the ability to do your job efficiently with the best-possible results  IDEs enable this on many levels  I m not an Emacs expert  but I doubt that it lacks any of the features of the major IDEs   Design  documentation  tracking  developing  building  analyzing  deploying  and maintenance  key stepping stones in an enterprise application  can all be done within an IDE   Why you wouldn t use something so powerful if you have the choice   As an experiment  commit yourself to use an IDE for  say  30 days  and see how you feel  I would love to read your thoughts on the experience

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A very good reason for using IDEs is that they are the accepted way of producing modern software  If you do not use one  then you likely use  old fashioned  stuff like vi and emacs  This can lead people to conclude - possibly wrongly - that you are stuck in your ways and unable to adapt to new ways of working  In an industry such as software development - where ideas can be out of date in mere months - this is a dangerous state to get into  It could seriously damage your future job prospects

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I think it has mostly to do with scope of awareness for the developer  The IDE provides a macroscopic view of the developer s work context  You can simultaneously see class hierarchies  referenced resources  database schemas  SDK help references  etc  And with so many things affected by  and affecting  your keystrokes  and the expanding volume of architectures and architectural intersections  it gets more and more difficult to work solely from one island of code at a time   OTOH   just me and vim and the man pages  gives me a much leaner microscopic - but intense and precise - view of my work  This is ok if I have a well-designed  well-partitioned  sparsely coupled highly cohesive codebase built in one language with one set of static libraries to work from - not your typical situation  especially as dev team sizes grow and reshape the code structure over time  distance  and personal preference   I m currently working on projects in Flex and  NET  One of the nicer things about Flex is how few different ways there are to accomplish a standard thing - pull data from a database  open close read write a file  etc   Yet I m using the Flex Builder Eclipse IDE - a typical heavy-weight example like VS  because I m still learning the basics and I need the training wheels  I expect to evolve back to vim once I m confident of my patterns   In this view  I can do what I need to do professionally by knowing a few things really really well   OTOH  I can t imagine getting to that point with  NET because the view I m expected to maintain keeps expanding and shifting  There much less conceptual integrity  and over several developers on a project over several months  much less consistency - but the IDE supports that  maybe encourages it  So the developer really needs to  and can more easily  know many more things adequately  Which also has the benefit of helping them answer  or even understand  a lot higher percentage of the questions on StackOverflow  I e  we can have a deeper knowledge stack  And we can respond to a wider variety of help-wanted ads   Things can go too far in both directions  Maybe with the  editor-only  scope  it s like  if you only have a hammer  everything looks like a nail   With the IDE approach  for whatever you want to fasten together  you have a broad selection of fasteners and associated ranges of tools to choose from - nals hammers  screws screwdrivers  bolts wrenches  adhesives glue-guns clamps  magnets  and on and on - all at your fingertips  with a wizard to help you get started

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Being the author of the response that you highlight in your question  and admittedly coming to this one a bit late  I d have to say that among the many reasons that have been listed  the productivity of a professional developer is one of the most highly-regarded skills   By productivity  I mean the ability to do your job efficiently with the best-possible results  IDEs enable this on many levels  I m not an Emacs expert  but I doubt that it lacks any of the features of the major IDEs   Design  documentation  tracking  developing  building  analyzing  deploying  and maintenance  key stepping stones in an enterprise application  can all be done within an IDE   Why you wouldn t use something so powerful if you have the choice   As an experiment  commit yourself to use an IDE for  say  30 days  and see how you feel  I would love to read your thoughts on the experience

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An IDE can be a  superior  choice based depending upon what a developer is trying to accomplish    A text editor can be  superior  because IDEs are typically geared toward one  or a small selection  of languages     If a developer spends most of his her time in a single languge or a  cluster  of related languages  like C  and T-SQL   in one OS  then the GUI design  debug  intellisense  refactoring etc  tools offered by a good IDE can be very compelling   If  for instance  you spend most of your time working in VB NET  with maybe a little T-SQL now and then  in a Windows environment  then you d be pretty silly to not look at Visual Studio or a comparable IDE   I have no prejudice towards those who prefer IDEs or text editors  both can be very productive and useful if learned well

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I m not sure there s a clear dividing line between a text editor and an IDE  You have the likes of Notepad at one end of the scale  and the best modern IDEs at the other  but there are a lot of thing in between  Most text editors have syntax highlighting  editors aimed at programmers often have various other features such as easy code navigation and auto complete  Emacs even lets you integrate a debugger  The IDEs of even ten years ago had far less features to help programmers than you d expect of a serious text editor these days

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Don t think of it as exclusive   Use the IDE for the benefits it provides  and switch to vim preferred text editor when you need some serious focus   I find the IDE better for refactoring and browsing and debugging and for figuring out what to do   Small things are then done right in the IDE  large things I flip to vim to finish the job

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IDEs are basically    Editor w code completion  refactoring and documentation Debugger Filesystem explorer SCMS client Build tool   all in a single package   You can have all this  and some more  using separate tools or just a great programmable editor and extra tools  like Emacs  Vim as well but has a little less IDEbility IMO    If you find yourself switching a lot between one utility and the next that could be integrated in the environment or if you are missing some of the abilities listed here  and more completely in other posts   maybe it s time to move to an IDE  or to improve the IDEbility of your environment by adding macros or what not   If you have built yourself an  IDE   in the sense I mention above  using more than one program  then there s no need to move to an actual IDE

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I like an IDE because it puts a lot of functionality at my fingertips   Editing Compilation visibility of files in the project are all things I value in an IDE   I use Visual Studio now but in a former life I used SlickEdit and found that it made my development process more streamlined than when I wasn t using it

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Having an IDE has the following advantages    Compiling is usually  on the fly  which means no more switching to the command line to compile Debugging is integrated  and having that in an IDE means that the step debugger actually uses your in-place editor to visually show you which code is executed IDE s usually have more semantic knowledge of the language you re working in  and can show you possible problems while typing  Refactoring is much more powerfull than the  search replace     There are much more  maybe you should give it a try

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In addition to the other answers  I love combining the developing power of an IDE with the editing power of Vim using something like the ViPlugin for Eclipse

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I like an IDE because it puts a lot of functionality at my fingertips   Editing Compilation visibility of files in the project are all things I value in an IDE   I use Visual Studio now but in a former life I used SlickEdit and found that it made my development process more streamlined than when I wasn t using it

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My main  reason to use one is when the code goes beyond 100 files   Although ctags can do the work  some IDEs have a pretty good way to navigate the files easily an super fast   It saves time when you have a lot of work to do

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IDEs are basically    Editor w code completion  refactoring and documentation Debugger Filesystem explorer SCMS client Build tool   all in a single package   You can have all this  and some more  using separate tools or just a great programmable editor and extra tools  like Emacs  Vim as well but has a little less IDEbility IMO    If you find yourself switching a lot between one utility and the next that could be integrated in the environment or if you are missing some of the abilities listed here  and more completely in other posts   maybe it s time to move to an IDE  or to improve the IDEbility of your environment by adding macros or what not   If you have built yourself an  IDE   in the sense I mention above  using more than one program  then there s no need to move to an actual IDE

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My main  reason to use one is when the code goes beyond 100 files   Although ctags can do the work  some IDEs have a pretty good way to navigate the files easily an super fast   It saves time when you have a lot of work to do

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IDEs are basically    Editor w code completion  refactoring and documentation Debugger Filesystem explorer SCMS client Build tool   all in a single package   You can have all this  and some more  using separate tools or just a great programmable editor and extra tools  like Emacs  Vim as well but has a little less IDEbility IMO    If you find yourself switching a lot between one utility and the next that could be integrated in the environment or if you are missing some of the abilities listed here  and more completely in other posts   maybe it s time to move to an IDE  or to improve the IDEbility of your environment by adding macros or what not   If you have built yourself an  IDE   in the sense I mention above  using more than one program  then there s no need to move to an actual IDE

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An IDE handles grunt work that saves you time   It keeps all associated project files together which makes it easy to collaborate   You can usually integrate your source control into your IDE saving more grunt work and further enhancing collaboration   If it has auto complete features  it can help you explore your language of choice and also save some typing   Basically  an IDE reduces non-programming work for the programmer

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It definitely leads to an improvement in productivity for me  To the point where I even code Linux applications in Visual Studio on Vista and then use a Linux virtual machine to build them    You don t have to memorize all of the arguments to a function or method call  once you start typing it the IDE will show you what arguments are needed  You get wizards to set project properties  compiler options  etc  You can search for things throughout the entire project instead of just the current document or files in a folder  If you get a compiler error  double-click it and it takes you right to the offending line   Integration of tools like model editors  connecting to and browsing external databases  managing collections of code  snippets   GUI modeling tools  etc  All of these things could be had separately  but having them all within the same development environment saves a lot of time and keeps the development process flowing more efficiently

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The short answer as to why I use an IDE is laziness   I m a lazy soul who doesn t like to do things a difficult way when there is an easy way to do it instead  IDE s make life easy and so appeal to us lazy folk   As I type code  the IDE automatically checks the validity of the code  I can highlight a method and hit F1 to get help  right click and select  go to to definition  to jump straight to where it is defined  I hit one button and the application  with debugger automatically attached is launched for me  And so the list goes on  All the things that a developer does on a day to day basis is gathered under one roof   There is no need to use an IDE  It is just much harder work not to

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Simply put  an IDE offers additional time-saving features over a simple editor

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A couple of reasons I can think of for using an IDE    Integrated help is a favorite   The built-in Refactor with Preview of the Visual Studio IntelliSense  syntax hightlighting  ease of navigation for large projects  integrated debugging  etc   although I know with addins you can probably get a lot of this with Emacs and Vim   Also  I think IDEs these days have a wider user-base  and probably more people developing add-ins for them  but I might be wrong    And quite frankly  I like my mouse  When I use pure text-based editors it gets lonely

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Simply put  an IDE offers additional time-saving features over a simple editor

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It definitely leads to an improvement in productivity for me  To the point where I even code Linux applications in Visual Studio on Vista and then use a Linux virtual machine to build them    You don t have to memorize all of the arguments to a function or method call  once you start typing it the IDE will show you what arguments are needed  You get wizards to set project properties  compiler options  etc  You can search for things throughout the entire project instead of just the current document or files in a folder  If you get a compiler error  double-click it and it takes you right to the offending line   Integration of tools like model editors  connecting to and browsing external databases  managing collections of code  snippets   GUI modeling tools  etc  All of these things could be had separately  but having them all within the same development environment saves a lot of time and keeps the development process flowing more efficiently

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Don t think of it as exclusive   Use the IDE for the benefits it provides  and switch to vim preferred text editor when you need some serious focus   I find the IDE better for refactoring and browsing and debugging and for figuring out what to do   Small things are then done right in the IDE  large things I flip to vim to finish the job

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Code completion  It helps a lot with exploring code

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An IDE allows one to work faster and more easily    I noticed I spent a lot of time navigating in the code in a simple text editor     In a good IDE  that time goes down if the IDE supports jumping to functions  to previous editing position to variables    Also  a good IDE reduces the time to experiment with different language features and projects  as the start-up time can be small

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IDEs are basically    Editor w code completion  refactoring and documentation Debugger Filesystem explorer SCMS client Build tool   all in a single package   You can have all this  and some more  using separate tools or just a great programmable editor and extra tools  like Emacs  Vim as well but has a little less IDEbility IMO    If you find yourself switching a lot between one utility and the next that could be integrated in the environment or if you are missing some of the abilities listed here  and more completely in other posts   maybe it s time to move to an IDE  or to improve the IDEbility of your environment by adding macros or what not   If you have built yourself an  IDE   in the sense I mention above  using more than one program  then there s no need to move to an actual IDE

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An IDE handles grunt work that saves you time   It keeps all associated project files together which makes it easy to collaborate   You can usually integrate your source control into your IDE saving more grunt work and further enhancing collaboration   If it has auto complete features  it can help you explore your language of choice and also save some typing   Basically  an IDE reduces non-programming work for the programmer

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It s really VERY simple  But this answer is a bit of a paradox in that I am discussing something only EMBEDDED level developers ever encounter  The reason this is an odd view is that frankly when I was doing embedded work  the brief time I was making any real money  an IDE would be down right STRANGE and most of your coworkers would wonder why you can t remember enough about SNMP ASN 1 or whatever protocol you were dealing with to just  do your job   BUT you can NOT  as far as I know  do a graphical simulation of what your microcontroller is doing in something like  real time  without an  IDE

[vim] Why should I use an IDE?

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