How people react when they see me work.

what? gedit is awesome. it has good code highlighting and thats what we need right?

I coded several of my early mobile app releases entirely in gedit. Good times.

I sometimes forget how good we have it now. I wrote those apps around 2012 and the DX for the platforms was basically non-existent. Virtually every platform had shit documentation, shit version management, a shit IDE with minimal refactoring features, a shitty debugging experience, and everything felt like it was being botched together by 3 guys in their spare time.

It's incredible now that we have things like hot reloading. You can literally save a change and BAM it's on the screen seconds later. On native platforms no less. Astounding.

And then there is a colleague who programs in Notepad++ directly on the test server and then just copies his code to prod.

(yes, he works alone on that project)

if you've never used ed(1) technically it's illegal for you to say "it's a UNIX system, i know this"

I've used ed.

Ctrl+Alt+F3 htop /ed F9 Enter
The irony being that scene had a GUI and ed is, well...

?
- obligatory FSN links
  
  https://web.archive.org/web/19991009154641/http://www.sgi.com/fun/freeware/3d_navigator.html SGI webpage archive from 1999
  
  https://github.com/DX94-Quas/3d-file-system-navigator - SGI fsn binaries here, for IRIX versions 5.3 and below
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_System_Visualizer - 1999 free software rewrite in C
  
  https://github.com/mcuelenaere/fsv - fork of 1999 version, updated 2018
  
  https://github.com/jtsiomb/fsnav - 2009 C++ free software rewrite, updated 2021

I do it in nano over ssh. The shortcuts suck but it gets the job done.

I recommend "micro" which is like Nano but uses modern shortcuts. Making it a terminal editor which feels more like using notepad than something esoteric.
I used to copy code into nano over ssh. Then I randomly tried pasting the server address in my file browser and it connected over SFTP. This was ages ago. I was using Crunchbang Linux, maybe around 2011 or so.
You can enable modernbindings in nano to get standard shortcuts like ctrl-s for save.
- Did not know this. Will certainly look into it because my nano over ssh days aren't over yet haha.

I genuinely do a lot of coding in Kate, the standard KDE editor. It's enough to do a lot of things, has highlighting, and is more than enough when you just need a quick fix.

I am also still using nano when editing stuff in the terminal. Please, don't judge me.

To be fair, Kate isn't just a text editor, it actually is an IDE. The text editor version would be kwrite, which would be horrible to program in.
- Wow, you're right of course. I completely forgot kwrite still existed, tbh.
We're almost like coding siblings lol
Yep, I came here to say that Kate is really nice. Even though I'm an emacs user and won't use it.

Nano, on the other hand, can't do almost anything, so I can't recommend that people make heavy use of it. It's ok for random small edits, but that's it. (By the way, YSK that you can set your terminal to use Kate as the default editor by setting the $EDITOR variable.)
KWrite is the standard text editor. Kate is the advanced one. The name actually literally stands for "KDE Advanced Text Editor"
- I'm not aware of distros preinstalling KWrite, though...?
Geany is a nice GUI option. It's a bit more capable but still lean.

It's probably time for me to re-evaluate the host of coding editors out there. For the most part I just use good text editors. Though I do love Spyder, I only use it for a certain subset of tasks.
Me too. I'm still not sure what the problem is and I'm kind of afraid to ask.

I do have the plugin for multi-line editing set up, I guess.
- All the cool kids use vim, so using nano makes you uncool, I guess. But I use Mint, so I'm uncool anyway.

doesn't vim come with the Ubuntu installation?

"Me who codes with the text editor that came with Ubuntu"...

So VIM?

More like gedit
- I think gedit is a great text editor.
Doesn't it ship with nano these days?
- Both, last I checked.
Don't you have to install that? I thought Ubuntu came with vi and nano.
- vi in base Ubuntu isn't really vi. It's vim-minimal.

What about people, who just burn the machine code directly onto a CD with a laser?

Pff, real programmers use butterflies. We open our hands and let the delicate wings flap once. The disturbance ripples outward, changing the flow of the eddy currents in the upper atmosphere. These cause momentary pockets of higher-pressure air to form, which acts as lenses that deflect incoming cosmic rays, focusing them to strike the drive platter and flip the desired bit.

Vim and emacs are text editors.

Vs code is a code editor (but really it's also just a text editor)

Maybe they mean IDEs like visual studio?

I've never really heard it called a coding GUI before.

I see you've never used emacs.
- "it's a bit limited for an operating system"
I never quite understood the massive hard-on programmers have for splitting hairs.
So an IDE is a code editor that ships with an LSP server, not just an LSP interface? (Doesn't have to be LSP as such but "stuff that an LSP server does").
- My understanding has always been:
  
  Text Editor: just writes text, no formatting (other than line endings)
  
  Code Editor: A family Text Editors that have additional capabilities such as syntax highlighting. And optionally a plugin or extension ecosystem. (VSCode, vim family, Emacs, even gedit )
  
  IDE: An application that includes Code Editor functionality, but also includes tools for a building on given tech stack. This comes out of the box, are a "part of" the application, are peers to the code editor, and cannot be removed, but can optionally be extended through plugins or extensions.
- I would say that an IDE is something that includes build/run tools integrated into it. Everything else is just a text editor. (But that's just my opinion of course)
  
  To expand on my point, I don't think it makes sense to call vs code an integrated development environment if it doesn't actually have the environment integrated.
  
  Visual studio and idea would be examples of IDEs, they actually have all of the tools and frameworks needed to run the languages they were built for out of the box.
  
  You can't run node or python out of the box with just vs code for example, without their respective tooling, all vscode can do is edit the code and editing code is not functionally different from editing any other text.
  
  So I maintain that both vim and vscode are text editors and not IDEs
- For me a web app IDE includes a DB manger, HTML previewer, etc.
  
  A text editor edits text, an IDE is an Environment that Integrates Development tools.
Vim (and NeoVim) are as much coding environments as VS or JetBrains. The difference is in the defaults.
Vim and emacs usually run in the terminal and require keyboard commands to complete actions.

A GUI IDE like vscode or pycharm has mouse driven menus and buttons, although of course it's possible to use keyboard commands.

That to me is the difference. Personally, I use vim mod with pycharm and some messy hybrid combination of vim commands and ctrl + ?
- Vim and emacs usually run in the terminal and require keyboard commands to complete actions.
  
  It is most certainly not usual to run Emacs in the terminal.
  
  although of course it's possible to use keyboard commands.
  
  And you can use Emacs with a mouse.
- Vs code has no integrated environment though, it's just a text editor that supports plugins, you still need to install python or node or .net or Java or gcc, etc.
  
  As far as vim requiring keyboard commands, that's really only the case if you leave mouse mode off
  
  set mouse=a
  
  And of course, to muddy the water further, we have tools like https://helix-editor.com/ which, more closely approximate vs code, while happening to live in a terminal.
  
  I maintain that in order to qualify as an IDE and not a glorified text editor, you must be able to, out of the box, without external dependencies, run and build the code it was built for (idea/visual studio) otherwise it's not very integrated, and I don't think you need to have nice graphics for that qualification.

I code using grep's search and replace.

I code using a telegraph machine in morse code.
- I code using punch cards hand cutting each hole with a xacto knife

If you're not writing it all down on paper and then punching holes in cards, you're doing it all wrong

All you need is a magnetised needle and a steady hand. Or butterflies.
Real programmers code with TTL chips.

i've programmed in edlin. so there.

NANO is life.

https://www.nano-editor.org/

Nano is love.
Nano is fine. But Micro is a worthwhile upgrade: https://micro-editor.github.io/
- I started with Pico. ;)

The person that codes in MS paint

This feels a little bit like Brainfuck tbh.

For what it’s worth, I can think of one thing that would make brainfuck even worse: Instead of using 8 arbitrary characters (it only uses > < + - . , ] and [ for every instruction) for the coding, use the 8 most common letters of the alphabet. Since it ignores all other characters, all of your comments would need to be done without those 8 letters.

For example, “Hello World” in brainfuck is the following:

++++++++[>++++[>++>+++>+++>+<<<<-]>+>+>->>+[<]<-]>>.>---.+++++++..+++.>>.<-.<.+++.------.--------.>>+.>++.

If we instead transposed those 8 instructions onto the 8 most common letters of the alphabet, it would look more like this:

eeeeeeeeaneeeeaneeneeeneeenesssstonenentnneasostonnIntttIeeeeeeeIIeeeInnIstIsIeeeIttttttIttttttttInneIneeI
This is such a waste of time to the point where it infuriates me. I know the standard answer is "why not?", but it's just cringe to, like you are trying too hard to purposely be stupid, whereas with standard text editor you can say already they cba'ed to install anything so it was a case of initial setup vs. long term productivity.
- I can see exactly one use case: context-aware OCR of code.

Man I just use Notepad or IDLE most of the time, I feel you man

Learned C++ by using gedit on the Sun machines in my college's computer lab in 2007. They were decommissioned shortly after I graduated.

At uni I did a lot of my Java coursework in notepad, then I’d have to take it into a computer lab on a floppy, tar it and upload it to a unix terminal so it could be emailed to the professor. Java syntax with only the command line compiler is not fun.

As long as you don't use Microsoft Word we can be friends

What about the libre office version?
- Bonus points if you're saving it as an .odt and still producing a validly executable file of some kind

text editor application that came with Ubuntu

nano

shivers

I'm probably in the minority but I think it's fantastic! No extra baggage, super quick to work with, and it does syntax highlighting pretty well!
- There are dozens of us!
- Nah man, I'm with you, nano is no nonsense get shit done editor. It might not have advanced features but I'm not an advanced man.
- I also love it. It was my go-to back when I had to walk inexperienced sysadmins through configuring stuff, in my tech support days. I really appreciate all the commands being listed at the bottom.
- Just wait until you try Micro
- It's also self explanatory, which is great if you're new.
  
  Ed and Vim are basically arcane by comparison.
I doubt they mean nano
- Probably this
  
  https://apps.gnome.org/TextEditor/

At one of my jobs around 2010 there was a dev in the office who wrote all his code in Notepad. When I joined the staff they were still using Classic ASP. My job was to help them (finally) migrate to ASP.Net. He intended to develop .Net apps in Notepad rather than learn how to use VS. I got laid off due to cutbacks and never found out what kind of luck he had wit dat.

I write all my code on paper and use OCR to convert it. It almost works sometimes.

One word: ed

?
- Ed is the most user unfriendly text editor ever created.
ED! ED IS THE STANDARD!
Oh, I remember ed! He's the talking horse from that old black and white show, right?
- No one can code with a horse, of course. That is of course, unless the horse is the famous mr Ed.

That boy is gonna be a murderer

Gedit was my main text editor for years. I also used it for work. It has all the basic features that you need for coding. For everything else I use the terminal.

Gedit is all one needs in life

Yep. Fancy devs watching me coding some Rakulang in nano 😂

I used Notepad++ for virtually all coding I did (Python, JS, various Markup Languages, Action Script back in the day, etc) for a couple decades. The only reason I use VSCode now is because I inherited a nightmare of a legacy spaghetti bowl and needed the function tracing to attempt to figure out anything. I still prefer N++ for most small projects.

I'm currently working with some code that partly was written in the punch card era.
Yeah, if you had really bad locality of reference I imagine that would be very helpful.

Code in MS Word because it handles tabs correctly, unlike all code editors.

Tab means "move to the next tabstop", not "advance a fixed amount".

(I don't do it, I'm not THAT insane)

Me: hits return.

Word: "Sure, here, a new line. I already indented it for you, same as the one before. Like a good IDE."

Me: "That's nice of you, Word, but I want this one to be indented one tab stop less than the line before." Hits delete.

Word: "Delete, you say? Sure, back to the line before."

Me: "No, no! Just delete one tab! Maybe, if I select the line and hit dele..."

Word: "Why of course!"

Me: "Shit, it's gone. Undo! Hmm... Move the thingy here on top?"

Word: "Move all the lines you say? No problem!"

Me: "Nvm, I'll just indent everything by hand with spaces."

I like SublimeText for everything unless a quick edit at the CLI with Vim.

helix ftw 🧬

Sublime! There are DOZENS of us! Dozens!

I'm doing my part

...dude codes in ed

Every self-respecting vi user should know enough ex to get by with ed.

notepad.exe

wine notepad.exe
- literally me.

Winks in Notepad ;)

A fireable offense.

Notepad.exe has been my daily driver for anything that doesn't need a compiler for decades.

You mean the one that didn't even do proper line endings until recently?
- And would save in non-UTF8 format by default. No idea, if they changed that by now.
- Yep. There are simple command line utilities that will convert the line breaks if necessary.

Vi came with Ubuntu.

Pe is the true way.

Elementary os has a great code editor, zed is nice, even gnome builder.