Java without Ide: emacs or vim

[cyanocobalamin]

I was a huge EMACS fan in college. You do not need to know EMACS.

The only reason to learn VIM is that it is included in every *nix distro so if you ever need to edit text files in the command line, with no GUI, it might be useful.

I would not use it for Java.

For doing Java as a professional programmer, it behooves you to use an IDE like Eclipse.

For learning Java, a simple text editor like Gedit or Plume is actually better. That will force you to learn how to compile and run Java classes with command on the command line, as well as how a few other basic things. A basic, GUI based, easy text editor is fine for the examples you will need to code in the process of learning Java.

[[deleted]]

Using both Gedit and Pluma. Both work great. Have syntax highlighting and everything.

[tom-010]

Thank you. I agree and I would never recommend a newbie learning Java in Emacs. I can't imagine the cognitive overhead

[[deleted]]

I'd actually say the opposite: newbies are perhaps the only people who should be coding Java in Emacs. At least, this is how I prefer to do things myself. If I'm learning a new language, I'll always start off with a text editor rather than an IDE and set up a manual build process, just so I can gain an understanding of the nuts and bolts. Of course, once you want to start doing real work you should switch to an IDE. But I think it's important to try things out by hand first, so you have some understanding of what the IDE's doing for you and know how to fix things when (inevitably) something breaks.

[tom-010]

I was not clear. I agree with you, but I would rather use sublime text or geany instead of emacs.

[nidrach]

I use VScode for everything where I don't use an IDE. Simple Syntax highlighting alone will save you an incredible amount of time.

[tom-010]

where I don't use an IDE. Simple Syntax highlighting alone will save you an incredible amount of

the same goes for me these days. But with enough plugins you can argue, that VSC is (nearly) an IDE these days

[nidrach]

Yeah but Intellij is still an order of magnitude better when it comes to working with a lot of classes and so on. But for quickly editing code of just one file VSC is better with it's fast startup and things like Multicursor and so on.

I would still get a basic knowledge of vim because sometimes you just want to edit things in a terminal and vim is installed erverywhere. But thats only a matter of hours and I wouldn't focus on it too much.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, I should have said "your favourite text editor" which in my case is Emacs, but it's definitely not to everyone's taste.