One editor/IDE or multiple?

[chrisbuchholz]

I have been stuck in Vim land for a great many years, but looking around at my coworkers and their setups, I got the cool stuff running everything command line but they got project intelligence, code refactoring, great completion and lots of other great features because they use whatever editor or IDE that fits whatever task at hand because it was created specifically for it.

For a long time, I have been dismissive of their setups because they didn't have a single editor that they had mastered, but used many of which they were only okay at using. Hell, I even disliked programming for Mac and iOS in the beginning because i had to use XCode!

But I have begun to put doubt in my setup. Is it the right choice when it's not perfect at everything?

Do you use a single multi-purpose tool, or do you use different tools for different jobs? What are your thoughts about it, and what do you use and for what?

[adamtaa]

My setup is influenced by my primary language which happens to be c#. This tends to dictate visual studio but to answer your question, I also use webstorm and sublime text. In short I use, and like to use, IDEs with code completion. In addition, I maintain resharper for all of my visual studio versions. Multiple IDEs seem to enhance productivity so I am willing to use whatever IDE helps me be a faster programmer.

[chrisbuchholz]

What I am afraid of is to become crippled by moving around too much, never mastering a single tool. I switch between different languages multiple times a week, but I guess if the features a certain editor/IDE adds are so great, they might add more than me knowing everything about it would.

[adamtaa]

IMHO the reason not to worry about being crippled by moving around too much is that this is about completing the task. In most cases they will add more, and to top it all off, if you learn a few key "most useful" shortcuts/features of the IDEs you end up using, then you strike what I call an acceptable middle ground.

[chrisbuchholz]

Sometimes it is, on my job it is. At home it's more about having fun - seing the code compile/run, but just as much writing and reading the code.

[rnovak]

Well, do you use one programming language for every project? or do you match the tool to the problem at hand? I guess if you'd use the same language for Big Numbers that you would use for Language/Text Processing that you would use for Kernel memory space, then you would only really need one tool set, however I prefer to match what tools I'm using to the problem at hand.

[chrisbuchholz]

Exactly what I am starting to think. I guess Vim has been clouding my mind.