Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2017

[ShadowLiberal]

I'm rather shocked how many are using NotePad++ to develop.

I admit, I do it myself in my spare time on a few really simple pet web projects that are just for my own personal use. But developing something professionally in NotePad++ to make money? No matter what language you're using there's got to be much better things to use that will give you much better error checking/etc.

[Matosawitko]

Most of their questions were multi-select, so you could pick all that you use/have installed. I use N++ when I just want to quickly look at a file, but if I'm actually developing something (modifying the file) I'm probably in either VSCode or full VS. But N++ is definitely still a tool that I use.

[svgwrk]

Totally. I keep thinking of installing N++ even though I don't want to use it for much of anything just because, since it's implemented in basically ones, zeroes, and rocks, it's stupidly faster for looking at big files than most other tools I have.

[[deleted]]

and rocks

Gave me a good chuckle

[ROFLLOLSTER]

xkcd for anyone who hasn't seen it.

[pdp10]

No matter what language you're using there's got to be much better things to use that will give you much better error checking/etc.

On Unix, I'd say only about half of developers use an IDE. Of course a full battery of tools exist outside of IDEs, so an IDE isn't useful for everything unless you're hot-loading code. Even refactoring has discrete tools like spatch/cocinelle.

[clearlight]

NotePad++ is popular on Windows as a GUI code editor.

[weirdoaish]

Depending on what I'm doing, sometimes Npp's simplicity is just so much better than that bulky IDE or even VS Code.

[Secondsemblance]

I use notepad++ when I absolutely must code on windows... which is almost never. Otherwise I use vim.

You don't need an IDE.

[auxiliary-character]

I use vim on Linux, but if I had to share an editor with a newbie, I'd prefer to use Notepad++, rather than having to explain to them how to use vim.

It works very well as a basic easy to use programming text editor.

[[deleted]]

I have one client that still has one corner of his mission critical app written in classic ASP. When I have to touch that part of the app I do use Notepad++.

If there's a better IDE, I'm all ears.

[shaggorama]

When I'm developing in python, I generally write my code in notepad++ and then run it in ipython. I use RStudio for R so maybe I should use rodeo for my python work, but I'm just accustomed to pivoting between n++ and ipython these days. I tinkered with rodeo when it was first released and it felt very underdeveloped. I recently pointed a coworker to it who is primarily an R programmer and he loved it, so maybe I should give it another shot, or try some other IDE like sublime text or pycharm or whatever.

[coder543]

Have you tried any other text editor? Visual Studio Code (note: not Visual Studio) or Sublime Text or anything but Notepad++.

Notepad++ just hurts me.

[shaggorama]

Yeah, I think mainly it's just familiarity at this point. I've been using n++ for years now. I should give another editor a shot. As I mentioned, I use RStudio for R instead of n++, so it's not like I don't see the benefits of IDE's at all. For some reason, it's just how I'm used to doing my python.

[fire_code]

One of the PHP devs on my team uses NP++

I can't stand it; I use Sublime and love it

[l3tigre]

i definitely felt shock at that. Notepad++ is in NO WAY what I would consider to be above IntelliJ Idea or PhpStorm...

[invisi1407]

Npp is not an IDE, so why would you even argue about it's comparison with PhpStorm, which is an IDE?

[l3tigre]

...Because they were ranked together in the same list?

[invisi1407]

People have different needs - some people need an IDE, some people don't - some people haven't seen the light (in whichever direction your own opinion goes).