▲ 23 points

Ask YC: What is your preferable development environment?

by tzury·18y ago·66 comments·view on hn ↗

Linux with Gnome or KDE. Mac or Windows? Laptop or desktop? In case of Linux, which distro?

66 comments

12" PowerBook with Carbon Emacs 22 (if you're not using Emacs 22, you definitely should be).

It's as portable as I can get without getting cramps from typing. I am looking to check out the Lenovo U110 when it drops though, in which case I'll run Debian 4.0 with Xmonad.

I was using Emacs 21 but on your advice I installed 22. OMG! I was developing cataracts with 21, it was just so damn ugly. GTK is like corrective eye surgery. Cheers mate.

My preferable development environment would be an IDE I built myself, perfectly tailored to the peculiars of MY workflow. It would also need to feature easy extensibility to make it affordable to extend it, sometimes on a per-project basis. I'd eventually end up working on optimizing my productivity in a quite direct manner, by analysing what the bottlenecks (anything that hampers Flow) are in my different projects and devising solutions.

When you work in Lisp by making DSL's and generally problem-specific extensions, I think the next logical step is to extend the IDE to support it directly (especially if you use the extension in many projects). If for example you make a CSS DSL, it would be great to have full property completion support, syntax highlighting and the other usual suspects.

Two areas I expect to work on a lot is 1. making the operations of my IDE more "semantic" (as in, adapted to what I want to do. If it's easy to think about, it should be easy and quick to carry it out) and 2. Making a system of views that would let me bypass the traditional file-based view of a project. If you program in a mostly functional way, most of the time the load order and segregation into files is much less important than other possible views of the project.

Macbook Pro + Emacs (aquamacs) = Love.

Anyone else find that they are absolutely bound to emacs and no matter what else you try to use, you find yourself, like a turtle returning to the beach where it was born, going back to emacs?

P.S. I have nothing against vi, but you know, turtles and nature and all of that.

one word: butterflies

My evolution (doing C++ development on Linux):

1. First I tried Eclipse. And tried it again, and again. I couldn't figure out how to do the simplest darn things in Eclipse, hated the interface, and it just seemed too complicated to me.

2. Switched to vim + commandline. Invoking gcc directly.

3. Tried emacs - decided I felt the same way about it is I did about Eclipse. Too complicated and I can't figure out simple things.

4. Switched to GEdit + makefiles; still doing a lot on the command line.

5. Looked for a good visual IDE; discovered Anjuta. Was really impressed and happy for about 2 hours. After 2 days and Anjuta crashed for the 1000th time in a row, I wanted to strangle the programmers who wrote Anjuta.

6. Discovered KDevelop. KDevelop is a pleasure to use. Feature complete, very productive, no problems. Got to first milestone in project faster than expected, primarily because KDevelop was so good to work in.

MacBook Pro running OS X 10.5.2, Emacs, Python primarily, with occasional outbursts of TextMate, Lisp, Perl, Ruby and Logo (for teaching mathematical concepts to my son.)

small underpowered laptop, openbsd, dwm, newlisp, vim, javascript, jquery-ui, flot, lighttpd, hg, ssh, cron ubuntu+ff+ie4linux+opera+kazehakaze+jquery for testing mini+leopard+safari for testing deprecated:freebsd,python,php,sqlite,mysqlite,darcs,matlab,R

my mini and desktop are far more powerful than my 450mhz 128mb fujitsu laptop; i might get an eeepc tho, only iff openbsd can run all the hardwares

my iBookG4 broke last year, it's weird but i didn't miss her that much

Once I really get into the code, I couldn't care less what OS I'm on. I care about OS more for general use.

* 15" Macbook Pro, 4GB, 10.4.8 (waiting for 10.5.3 before upgrading). * Quicksilver (one of the big reasons I switched to Mac in the first place) * IntelliJ IDEA for Java backend stuff (imho, the best code virtuoso tool out there bar none; once you get used to leveraging all the functionality, you will feel crippled in any other environment). * iTerm for terminal needs * Journler (perfect for note taking and keeping interesting reference web pages locally searchable) * VMware Fusion for Windows development stuff * NetNewsWire to consume my daily news fix efficiently

Why the wait til 10.5.3?

I use Quicksilver on my Powerbook (running Tiger), but Spotlight is fast enough on the Intel iMac, running Leopard, I use at work that I removed Quicksilver from the system completely.

I used to be bleeding edge, always upgrading to the latest version of anything that came out, but as a consequence ran into occasions where things broke that were working perfectly before (and ended up wasting time getting things back to normal again).

My guess is that with 10.5.3 the majority of the rough spots have been smoothed out and all my favorite applications had time to make the Leopard transition.

.net vs05(vs08 seems like it needs a service pack) on windows

php coda/code igniter on mas osx(using mamp)

Darren, you a CodeIgniter guy? If you haven't already, I highly recommend getting started with the new ASP.NET MVC framework--it almost makes working with .NET in the day job tolerable (yes, "almost").

Thanks yeah I tried the first release but it would not work on my fresh install of vs08 and .net 3.5

I'll give it a go again.

vim, screen, svn...

Don't use lisp(s) enough to enjoy Emacs anymore.

Note: all the software I have developed so far has been for personal use.

I use a desktop computer with a Microsoft Natural keyboard, Arch Linux, Emacs, Emacs Lisp, the shell rc.

The elements I am most pleased with are the keyboard and the shell rc. I am also pretty happy with Emacs Lisp, especially its manual and commands like C-h c C-h w and C-h f. Too many administration hassles with Arch Linux though. To reduce hassles, I would buy OS X if I were not very low income.

MacBook + Cinema Display 23" + emacs + vmware fusion + safari + coffee + ikea furniture + http://last.fm/user/egimenez

Ubuntu Laptop, vim, caps-lock-as-additional-ctrl, windows-key bound to new-terminal-window, C, Python, Lisp, Python, Lua, Python. Mercurial.

"... What is your preferable development environment? ..."

Normal gnu setup ...

- ubuntu64, gnome, vim, bash, xterm, & git

- various langs - python, perl, Js, sql, c & basic LAMP stack.

- browser with firebug, dom inspector, html validator, js debugger, noscript

- commodity desktop hardware + 22" + good speakers.

NetBeans (Sometimes TextMate), Mac OS X on a MacBook Pro, with all code in a Subversion repository.

I started using TextMate, but I find a bunch of things like how it jacks up indenting when pasting, and flashes when matching tabs. NetBeans handles both these things much more nicely.

OS X, laptop, Textmate, and Emacs.

Textmate is just more approachable when it comes to extending the editor, though, so I usually use it for odds and ends over Emacs. Emacs is great for well structured projects in well supported languages.

Ubuntu + Emacs.

MacBook + TextMate + RoR

Same here, however I've started treating my laptop as a 'thin client'. All my files are hosted on my iMac, which I access over Wi-Fi when at home, or via iDisk/Back to My Mac when elsewhere.

Same + Cocoa Mysql + Unfuddle

I use the latest Netbeans Ruby IDE dev releases, so OS isn't much of a concern.

Just for the record though, I use linux with Gnome, Ubuntu 7.10.

Your dev environment matters less than having two or more monitors in my opinion, though.

Windows (Office 2007 won me over temporarily from *nix) and nano over SSH. I get yelled at almost daily to switch to emacs. I'm used to it though, I use Word 2007 instead of LaTeX and will never hear the end of it.

For web work: fedora 8, vim php

For desktop app work: netbeans, java (!) either winxp or fedora 8

For mathematical work: Mathematica + win xp

For fooling around learning new stuff: fedora 8 + python

At the day job: Ubuntu with Gnome, vim.

At home working on startup/contract work: Macbook running OS X 10.5.whatever the latest, vim, sometimes emacs or aquamacs if I'm messing around with scheme.

Emacs, OS X.

Eclipse (PDT/Flex Builder) + Text Mate + Aqua Data Studio + PostgresqlMaestro + nano (eat it vi! shove your c-h-ch-x-f-u-ch-k-sh-i-t emacs!) + iTerm + SubEthaEdit (for pair programming)

Netbeans for RoR, gvim for everything else (perl, R, autohotkey, actionscript, C). Mercurial. 1920 x 1200 laptop in portrait position with an external IBM keyboard.

Ubuntu with decked out Gedit, desktop with two monitors.

I also have a tablet with XP. My favorite editor for Rails is RoRed, but it only works for Windows :(

Dell Inspiron + Ubuntu + vim + Python/PyQt/Django/RoR/MySQL

Mac Book Pro (15) with key mappings for home and end "fixed" with a 27.5 inch hanns g monitor (good, cheap and big). Netbeans b/c debugging can be handy.

Ubuntu Linux with xterm windows, Eclipse, and emacs for those times when you just need some special behavior tied to your F1 key.

Windows: VS 2005.NET, ActiveState (Python and Ruby), notepad++ Ubuntu: Gnome, gedit, RoR, Spidermonkey

xandros (eee pc version) + KDE + emacs windows + eclipse --->had to use for "other" work stuffs fedora + Gnome + emacs ---> fave

Most important : Flash Drive, IPod, and laptop or desktop and I can code wherever and whenever I want.

Mac Book, OSX 10.5 , textmate (ruby,python,...) , eclipse (Lisp - cups, Java, C++)

VS 2k5/2k8 while at work for The Man, emacs on OSX/linux while hacking at home.

here is mine: Ubuntu, Scite, nano, ssh, LightTPD, Python, gcc, gcl and Firebug. Virtual Box with FreeBSD and Windows Server 2003, Windows XP SP2 (for pre deployment testing) Thank you all for sharing.

vim, kubuntu on a Dell D830, Mercurial

Lately doing Ruby (Ramaze apps) and JRuby (building Swing GUI apps using Monkeybars).

I use Netbeans for some of the JRuby stuff, but do most code editing in vim

vim on my MBP (formerly on my Dell laptop running Ubuntu).

I enjoy vim because it rewards me for learning new commands (referencing the "What software makes you happy?" thread).

Arch Linux + KDEmod + VIM & Code::Blocks (PHP, Ruby and C++)

Desktop + Arch Linux + openbox + gvim

C, Python, Common Lisp

Ubuntu ,NetBeans(for RoR), Eclipse(for Python/Django, Java)

+1. Ubuntu 7.10, NetBeans 6 (Ruby), Git on my 14" laptop. Very rarely using Eclipse (for Java). How is it for Python ? I am thinking about learning Python and Django.

OS X, Firebug, TextMate, Git. JavaScript, Python, Io, Arc.