

Ask YC: What is your preferable development environment? - tzury

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

~~~
jsmcgd
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.

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Hexstream
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.

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brianloveswords
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.

~~~
PStamatiou
one word: butterflies

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phaedrus
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.

------
eelinow
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.)

------
hs
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

------
aneesh
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.

------
iowahansen
* 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

~~~
apgwoz
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.

~~~
iowahansen
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.

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

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

~~~
suboptimal
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").

~~~
DarrenStuart
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.

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apathy
vim, screen, svn...

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

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hollerith
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.

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

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

------
bootload
_"... 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.

------
watmough
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.

------
jcromartie
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.

------
davidw
Ubuntu + Emacs.

------
pibefision
MacBook + TextMate + RoR

~~~
moog
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.

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kingnothing
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.

------
bkrausz
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.

------
dhimes
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

------
mk
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.

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comatose_kid
Emacs, OS X.

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jawngee
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)

------
urlwolf
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.

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NoBSWebDesign
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 :(

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ovi256
Dell Inspiron + Ubuntu + vim + Python/PyQt/Django/RoR/MySQL

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ericb
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.

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

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

------
amour
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.

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

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

------
tzury
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.

------
jamesbritt
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

------
suboptimal
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).

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

------
kuratkull
Desktop + Arch Linux + openbox + gvim

C, Python, Common Lisp

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

~~~
ropiku
+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.

~~~
neelesh
reasonably good with PyDev. Not as good as NB for RoR though

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

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Xichekolas
Gentoo + gedit + terminal + scheme/ruby/erlang + Google.

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staunch
Linux + gvim + gnome-terminal @ 1920x1200 15" laptop.

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asjo
Debian GNU/Linux, XEmacs, xterms, darcs, theobromin.

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jamiequint
Textmate + OS X

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pinecone
OS X, GNU Emacs, gcc, gdb, MzScheme.

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mrtron
Currently a Macbook + Textmate

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JesseAldridge
Ubuntu + Python + Scite atm

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davo11
Delphi - I'm all alone :-(

~~~
jawngee
I used to Delphi, if that makes you feel any better.

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entelarust
Coda, OSX, some TextMate

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henning
Java or Scala, Linux.

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andr
preferable: a cocktail, a lounge chair, sand, and the Mediterranean + a phone
to call my peon developers and tell them what to do ;)

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arnoooooo
Fedora + KDE + Vim

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muriithi
Emacs 22 on Fedora 8 & SciTE on Windows

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janx
archlinux+wmii+aterm+vim+rails+unfuddle+svn...

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albertcardona
ubuntu+xterm+screen+vim+git and bash/python scripts.

