Re: Do you suggest me using IDE when I'm learning JAVA

From:
Tom Anderson <twic@urchin.earth.li>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.java.programmer
Date:
Wed, 5 May 2010 00:40:36 +0100
Message-ID:
<alpine.DEB.1.10.1005050033050.3711@urchin.earth.li>
On Mon, 3 May 2010, Arne Vajh?j wrote:

On 03-05-2010 07:08, Arved Sandstrom wrote:

Arne Vajh?j wrote:

But please don't use the term software ENGINEERING about a
process that spends 50-75% of the time in the IDE.


I think it would depend on the role of the developer and the particular
methodology in use - 50%+ time spent in the IDE might not be indicative
of a low state of software process, or it might be.

And after all, IDE does mean _Integrated_ Development _Environment_. In
theory a developer could be knocking out everything from requirements
analysis through design and coding to running/analyzing tests in one of
those puppies.


Sure - but no matter if he is creating UML, Java LOC's or running JUnit
tests, then I would expect thinking to dominate over typing. And
thinking is a process that unfortunatetly does not benefit from better
tools.


No, this is rubbish. Programmers don't spend ages sitting there thinking,
and then do a bit of typing. This is pure fiction. We think as we type -
we think *by* typing, by putting our ideas down, working through the
details, trying things out, seeing what works and what doesn't. Masses of
thinking goes on, but it's not like some caricature of a mathematician,
staring at a ceiling for days on end and then jotting down a complete
theorem at the end of it. To do the thinking, you have to work through it
- and better tools let you work through it faster. If by the use of
autocomplete and type inference and whatnot i can flesh out a for-loop
over the entries of a map in which i filter the keys with such-and-such a
test and transform the corresponding values with this-or-that function in
thirty seconds rather than three minutes, then that's two minutes and
thirty seconds less that's taken me to learn if my idea for the loop works
or not. That's the kind of thing i spend my time doing when i program, and
an IDE does help me to do that faster.

tom

--
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