There are two types of integrated development environments (IDE) in the world.
That is convenient, because there are two types of developer in the world. To
make things even more symmetrical and just super peachy, there are two types
of opinions about IDEs in the world. Those that make grand generalizations and
make everything look nice and binary; and those that do not. The opinion in
this article is in the former camp. There are two types of possible reaction
to this...
...Relax. I was joking. The binary splits stop here. We have enough to be getting
on with. IDEs. Yes. Two types. Yes. The types are: lumberjack IDE and magician
IDE.
Let's take the lumberjack IDE first. This type of IDE provides all sorts of
labor-saving devices to perform typing/processing that you could do but do not
want to do because it is boring, repetitious and/or time consuming. Examples?
Automatically indenting code. Automatically adding end-tags in XML documents.
Automatically knowing where to go in the online manuals to look up information
based on where the cursor is, right now.
Now let's contrast the magician IDE. This type of IDE provides all the above
and more. At the press of a button it will generate big chunks of code for you
that you can compile and run. It is capable of optimizing your code behind the
scenes in all sorts of clever ways. It gives you a visual view of your code
and data so that you don not actually have to know all the details about how
things are stored and inter-related. It is capable of pulling all aspects of
your projects together in one place, freeing you to get on with that task at
hand.
Doesn't the magician IDE sounds great? What's not to like? Well, a lot actually.
If you go this route you may end up not understanding how your own application
is organized "under the hood". You may loose visibility of all the
dependencies your project has because the IDE does it all for you. You may find
that the only way you can talk to your database is through the "wizard
screens" because those screens generated so much magic code, that you can
no longer connect to the database unaided...
The magician IDE comes at a significant price: understanding. The lumberjack
IDE on the other hand, is less flashy but at least you know what it is doing
and could - if required - do it yourself. When choosing an IDE, think real hard
about the sometimes fuzzy line between harmless convenience and harmful disenfranchisement.
Make a point of living outside of your IDE for a day every now and then. You
might be unpleasantly surprised at how much you have come to depend on the magic
to function.
The moral of the story: choose an IDE that does not impede you from truly understanding
what is going on under the hood. Magic is alluring but is ultimately detrimental
to the most important thing a developer can possess: a cogent mental model of
how her application actually works.
