Ask HN: Am I insane if I use only Sublime+Terminal combo for development?

4 points by siddheshgunjal 2 years ago | 8 comments

I'm an ML engineer with almost 6 years of experience in the field and I use only Sublime+Terminal for all my development (ML, Web, Flutter, etc.) Yes, even for flutter I do not use VS code or Android Studio, only Sublime (with LSP)+Terminal.

- The reason is, when I was a newbie in the world of ML, I had a laptop worst than a potato laptop. So, I had to preserve as much resources as I can for actually ML tasks. That forced me to keep things simple & lightweight.

- At that time I tried to use PyCharm, VS Code, etc. but all of them resulted in consuming a lot of resources and very little left for actual model to run.

- Fast forward to today, I now have a decent laptop for coding & a good workstation for my ML related workflows, but I still chose to use only Sublime+Terminal for all my tasks

- To be honest, setting up Conda to work with PyCharm & VS code is sometimes pain in the a*. Some of my students still come to me with problems of conda and other env management tools not working properly with VS code & PyCharm.

- The thing is I like to keep things simple and lightweight. In my experience, Sublime is an excellent code editor with excellent package support. I find running scripts, managing envs, docker, DBs, etc, simpler and quicker directly from Terminal...

- I do not understand why people use VS code or PyCharm if they have to take additional steps to make their tools work with it, let's say Conda (environment management tool). Whereas same task can be done with just Vanilla terminal without any hassle.

So Am I insane for using only Sublime+Terminal in my dev environment while entire world is using various(God knows how many) tools for development. Or is it just a developer inside who got used to keeping everything so optimised at each level, that anything that consumes resources unnecessarily makes my wanna avoid using it...

- I am really curious to know what tools you guys are using in your dev environment? And what's your reason for that setup?

apothegm 2 years ago |

There are plenty of people who still use nothing but a CLI text editor like vim. Nothing wrong with sticking with simpler tools. And as you point out, if you’ve got good keyboard shortcuts, using the terminal for most of the fancy stuff an IDE does is just as quick and often more flexible.

You’ll see more IDE use in the .Net and Java worlds. The startup environment is much more diverse. And honestly, the VSCode bandwagon is pretty new, too. Until 5 years ago, Sublime and its ilk were the default. I for one still find IDEs unergonomic and am sticking with my text editor of choice.

The one downside to a plain text editor is that you wont be able to integrate well with coding assistance features like copilot, or get some of the tools an IDE gives you for minor refactoring and other common tasks.

siddheshgunjal 2 years ago | |

Yup, for most of my work, which is mostly python, js, php Sublime works well with autocomplete. For flutter I use LSP for some refactoring suggestions and other tasks like wrapping a widget, etc.

sgbeal 2 years ago |

Plenty of folks, myself and most of my FOSS colleagues included, develop using only a text editor and a shell. There's no shame in that. (PS: plus makefiles, of course, maintained in that same editor and run in that editor or in the shell.)

heckraiser 2 years ago | |

Yep. 15+ years and counting.

I’ll power up VSCodium from time to time to quickly flip through reams of pages of code, though I’m always annoyed at the faux vi features and end up doing real work in the terminal.

I’m not sure I would be as comfortable without screen.

siddheshgunjal 2 years ago | | |

A long time ago, I tried PyCharm/phpStorm for my projects. I tried really hard, but kept switching back to the terminal myself

interbased 2 years ago |

I code in PyCharm but I don't use most of the features. I mostly appreciate the autocomplete for certain parts of the code and the syntax underlining, but perhaps an LSP would help with that. Besides that, I like using command line for everything. I dig your minimalist approach.

siddheshgunjal 2 years ago | |

I was a PyCharm user myself, but later I found out that for most of my projects, Sublime works well with auto complete (Except Java). For flutter code refactor (like wrap widget, etc.) and suggestions, LSP works very well.

JohnFen 2 years ago |

I think the maxim "if it's stupid but it works, it's not stupid" comes into play here.