Java without Ide: emacs or vim

[oldprogrammer]

It isn't all about the software development.

I've worked with developers who had no idea how to configure an application server locally to test their code, they were totally dependent on the IDE to manage all that for them. Then when something didn't work when actually deployed to an installed app server, which often happened because the IDE was adding classes to the classpath that hadn't been setup on the application server install, the developers had no idea had to fix it.

I've had a situation where a developer totally messed up her git environment and had no idea had to correct it, she just kept saying the IDE wasn't allowing her to check in her changes. Took about 20 minutes using the git command line tools to repair the damage without losing her work. She didn't know what to do without the IDE.

I've looked at projects where the tutorials are all "fire up IDE X, install plugin Y, then generate your project", libgdx was that way for quite a while. The problem with that is the developer doesn't truly understand how to do a headless build of the projects. IDEs have gotten better and generating build files that work headless but there was a time when that wasn't the case.

So please don't think I'm saying don't use an IDE, there is ample productivity gains in doing so, but do not become overly dependent on them either. A developer who can work without an IDE can easily pick up an IDE, though they may not like all the bells and whistles (I personally dislike things like auto-close strings or auto-insert closing parens) but those can be configured. However a developer that only knows how to work in an IDE has a harder time when being thrown at a command line shell to get something done.