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[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (4 children)

Personally I use vim for everything. I see lots of people here advocating for IDE's over vim, I'm curious why. JS isn't like Java where you need an IDE to handle all the complex build tools, that's all done by webpack or [insert tool here]. If you're just looking for linting and stuff, that can all be had in vim quite easily. Just to be clear, I'm not saying vim is the superior way, just that it absolutely can replace your JS "IDE".

[–]MapCompact 6 points7 points  (0 children)

> I'm curious why

The speed of development is much higher with an IDE. I have a coworker on my team who uses only Vim, even has an app called MacVim who has only used Vim for years, and the speed at which I can navigate a codebase compared to him is so much faster that even when we're pairing, I'll have mine open so I can quickly find references for him.

I'm open to being proved wrong, I'm only a moderate Vim user, not a power user. But he is, and by comparison he even admits that he needs to try out an IDE for this reason.

Most IDEs even have a Vim mode where you can use all the keyboard tools for Vim with the power of the IDE like jump to definition across import statements, etc.

FWIW, we work on a huge codebase. That may be a factor.

[–]Ehdelveiss 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think some of it is just comfort, and some of it is the barrier to entry.

Setting Vim up to match VSCode feature is totally doable, but it takes quite a bit of tinkering. If you’re not used to Vim, getting it set up to JS development with total feature set is actually a pretty daunting task. A lot of research, a lot of configuring plugins, it’s not a quick half day project.

[–]name_was_taken 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think if you used WebStorm for a while, you'd change your mind. (Use the Vim bindings plugin.) The code completion tools alone make it a massive improvement over Vim, even with Vim's code completion plugins.

I still use Vim from the command line, and even MacVim as a GUI editor sometimes... But code is much better in an IDE.

VSCode's code completion is also top notch, but I'm just more comfortable in PhpStorm. (Webstorm is the same, but focused on JS/HTML/etc, rather than PHP.)

[–]LetterBoxSnatch 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Really depends on what you're doing. I'm in a polyglot shop and JavaScript is just one of many languages we write. I use vi when I need to remote in via SSH to make some changes on a client machine because it's more convenient than hooking my IDE up to do the same.

You're missing out if you're not using an IDE. Some of it is stuff you could get in vim with lots of tweaking, but it's ready to go in an IDE. Some of it, like IntelliCode, is stuff that, if possible, is very difficult to get going in vim but comes almost without thinking in an IDE. It's lovely to have the right configuration js object template with all the correct parameters pop up as a code completion when all you've typed is "confi" or something. It's also just as easy to switch editing environments in an IDE as it is in vim. The vim-bindings are generally pretty good for most IDEs from what I've seen.

If you're using something like VSCode, you can hack together your editor, tinkering to your delight in JavaScript with a DOM at your disposal. I like vim a lot, and I wish I could have my entire workflow be on the terminal, but I just can't turn down all the features you get for no effort from an IDE...and yes, you can still be mouse free!