[Fifer82]

`I think of code completion and seeing errors right away as crutches that atrophies a developers own skills`

Really? You would rub sticks together for fire rather than use modern tools such as a lighter? I can't see how this reflects being a better programmer. While you are rubbing sticks, I am probably wondering how X can be improved and implementing that.

[ztoben]

Ugh, this point of view is so annoying. Just because you prefer an IDE to something like VIM/Emacs doesn't mean your skills are less in any way. Such an elitist way of thinking.

[terminalcommand]

Debuggers, autocompletion, even syntax highlighting help a great deal. I like to think that they let you program on a higher level.

I usually program in Emacs, but fire up an IDE when I need to debug or want some assistance in navigating the codebase or learning some new library.

I find that the code I write in Emacs is much more succint and cleaner. I think the more layers you remove, the more you can focus. I bet that if I wrote my programs with pen and paper, my programs would be much more beautiful.

But if you need to manage complexity, it is far more feasible to use an IDE.

Choose the right tools for the job. Use editors/pen and paper/whiteboards/IDEs to meet your requirements.

Advocating the use of text editors over IDEs is IMHO the typical example of the "Real programmers use Fortran" syndrome.

[e12e]

Fwiw with a couple of plugins[1], I have very nice code completion in vim with ruby/rails along with useful "go to definition". Perhaps not as challenging as punching cards - but it's not like vim is some kind of bare bones editor...

[1] for a starting point see https://github.com/tpope/gem-ctags/blob/master/README.markdo... I'm on my cell, but as far as I can rember my ruby specific part of vim rc is ~5 lines or so. Coupled with 'guard' to run ctags over changed files...

At a glance, this seems to cover the essentials:

https://chodounsky.net/2016/12/09/using-tags-to-browse-ruby-...