Do any of you long time vi(m)/emacs users have ever wondered about switching to an ide, or already did? ie. Java: vim/emacs + make + debugger vs eclipse or netbeans I use vim at home, and netbeans at work.

No. I do admit to using NetBeans for GUI editting, though.

Zorx (a Puzzle Bobble clone)
Discontinuity (an animation system for POV-Ray)

You know when you see a computer newbie and when windows (or otherwise) prompts them with a question they just click on yes? Thats what emacs turns me into, I assume vim is more or less the same!

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Original post by csDraco_
Do any of you long time vi(m)/emacs users have ever wondered about switching to an ide, or already did?

ie. Java: vim/emacs + make + debugger vs eclipse or netbeans

I use vim at home, and netbeans at work.

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No. Everytime it has been tried you find the same problem - you give up too much in exchange for less than impressive "features". Typically what happens is you write a macro, script, or automation tool yourself to make all the broiler-plate code, idioms, etc. for you. GUI biased people often do not get this point. So while you hear the arguments that using {g}vi{m}/{x}emacs/$EDITOR waste productivity I can only ask this: How much productivity do you lose searching for a new IDE? Trying countless numbers of them? Finally finding one and then learning it? Then repeating the process for the next software release and/or platform you come across? None of this happens when you know 1) a cross-platform editor 2) the compiler/langauge 3) the platform being programmed for. Simple as that, you either get it or you don''t - it''s not elitism thinking either.

YMMV of course. Obviously if all your going to ever program for is one target, on one OS then this may sound irrelevant. I know that is what I used to think too...I never entertained the possiblity that I would be writing embedded software way back when...

The AP actually does have some points, I actually use Mac OS X as my primary OS, but I use Windows and Linux as well. And I have a decent amount of knowledge of emacs, but like the idea of an IDE, so I have looked at several, and got tired of Xcode, because there are some serious bugs within that program, and I couldn''t get work done because of it, so I am currently trying out Codewarrior for C/C++ and Objective-C programming. Now, I am aware that I possibly could be more productive if I use a Emacs + gcc + gdb as my development environment, but I like the graphical interface, I know that may seem dumb, but I feel if I am more comfortable with my development environment, then I am more productive.

Vim and Emacs are IDEs!

http://www.cis.gsu.edu/~shong/oojokes/

Please forgive me for a long absence, but I was involved in a 6 month project that had to be done in 3 :(
BTW I appreciate you replyes as some good points were made.

For me vim is an excellent editor, as a Java programmer vim makes a nice "ide" to a point, since it's lacking in some nice features that a complete ide (w.r.t. Java development) provides, ie. netbens with it's visual debug mode, where stepping through the code can be made, while at the same time keeping an eye at your call stack and variables, can make a huge difference in the time spent hunting down a bug in a large Java application.

As for an ide I very much dislike them for being memory and cpu hogs, and for their build in editors that are very unlike vim, well I guess I could write a plugin.

As for the purpose of my post ... I was hoping for someone to prove me wrong by telling me that they are using vim at work with 100K+ lines of source code with this great Java debug coammand

~
~
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:set java_debug_mode

I use eclipse, because I find it has improved my efficiency over pure vim/jam (which I did use for quite some time).

I use Eclipse at work now. It highlights typos and compilation errors quite nicely. It also saves a lot of typing with the use of keyboard shortcuts.

I simply couldnt write the same volume of code in the same time using vi/vim.

danne89, I wouldn't consider vim/emacs as an IDE. They're more like a powerful multi purpose text editor. :)