I don't understand the blind loyalty people have towards emacs

[beer]

So, I woke in a company where we write very complex, very intricate kernel mode code for a particular device that ships millions of units a month. It goes into many laptops, phones, media centers, access points that you all buy by the millions. We have 50ish kernel-mode developers. We're all build the codebase the same way, but we are free to develop in any IDE or mode we choose, provided it doesn't screw with line endings in our checkins. As such, we all program is true C (C89 spec) with every strict compiler option possible. We are the anti-wussie developers....no C++ for us.

I use visual studio C express with different projects for each tagged release and the majority of files that I would ever work on/search through in as projects. So, I edit in visual studio, searching/looking for symbol defs/etc and then build in the appropriate environment (and debug with windbg or ddd, depending on the platform).

I work with a bunch of people who are emacs or vi fanatics. I can't understand why emacs or vi is so suprior. It requires hours of configuration to work properly, it requires memorization of dozens of key commands, and it's written in non-native libraries that look awful. Quite frankly I can't figure out why these humungously complicated text editors are used over simpler apps.

WHY!?!?!?!?!?! I'm sick of being criticized over my selection of IDE. I have such a sense of shame that I want to run into a corner and curl into a fetal position.

 

[Nothinman]

Once you get accustomed to an editor, any editor, it will always be faster for you than anything else. And emacs and vi have the added advantage of being extremely extensible and in most cases easy to extend. When I had to use Outlook for email at my last job I would constantly hit esc to get out of insert mode or add :wq at the end of an email just because they've become habit. Oh how I wish I could find plugins to put vi key-bindings into every text box on my system.

 

[porcorosso]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Once you get accustomed to an editor, any editor, it will always be faster for you than anything else. And emacs and vi have the added advantage of being extremely extensible and in most cases easy to extend. When I had to use Outlook for email at my last job I would constantly hit esc to get out of insert mode or add :wq at the end of an email just because they've become habit. Oh how I wish I could find plugins to put vi key-bindings into every text box on my system.

Bwa-ha-ha-ha! You're hopeless! But I do sympathize. For me the crushing loss came when I could no longer use PC Write (the old one, not the thing that they call PC Write nowadays). Once you get past the learning curve of any powerful text editor it becomes your special buddy, maybe even your spouse. Divorce is PAINFUL!

:brokenheart:

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: beer
We are the anti-wussie developers....no C++ for us.

It seems that some coders at your company are more 'anti-wussie' than others, no? Anyone there coding in pure ASM without any of those 'wussie' IDEs? That's hardcore anti-wussie, bro!

 

[Nothinman]

We are the anti-wussie developers....no C++ for us.

And I just figured I'd mention how ironic that comment is in the middle of your "blind loyalty to editors" post when you seem to be showing blind loyalty to C. Crying about someone making fun of your editor choice is just as bad as making fun of someone for their language choice.

It seems that some coders at your company are more 'anti-wussie' than others, no? Anyone there coding in pure ASM without any of those 'wussie' IDEs? That's hardcore anti-wussie, bro!

It's also hardcore anti-portability. Anyone that codes in pure asm should only be writing something extremely low level like a boot loader. But then I'm sure all of the .Net developers who love C# probably feel the same way about C.

 

[beer]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

We are the anti-wussie developers....no C++ for us.

And I just figured I'd mention how ironic that comment is in the middle of your "blind loyalty to editors" post when you seem to be showing blind loyalty to C. Crying about someone making fun of your editor choice is just as bad as making fun of someone for their language choice.

Nothinman - you can't write drivers for linux/vx/windows with anything else.

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

It seems that some coders at your company are more 'anti-wussie' than others, no? Anyone there coding in pure ASM without any of those 'wussie' IDEs? That's hardcore anti-wussie, bro!

It's also hardcore anti-portability. Anyone that codes in pure asm should only be writing something extremely low level like a boot loader.

True, but then we may well be talking about an embedded boot-loader, driver, library/socket, memory manager, or some combination thereof...

"We write...kernel mode code for a particular device that...goes into many laptops, phones, media centers, access points that you all buy by the millions."

50-ish coders for a single device used in such a wide range of embedded applications seems like an awful lot if they were not uniquely supporting more than one architecture and/or platform.

 

[Nothinman]

Nothinman - you can't write drivers for linux/vx/windows with anything else.

Of course you can, 99% of Linux drivers are pure C and C++ in the Windows case. Have you even looked at the Linux source code?

50-ish coders for a single device used in such a wide range of embedded applications seems like an awful lot if they were not uniquely supporting more than one architecture and/or platform.

Well IMO 50-ish coders for one device seems ludicrous no matter how many architectures they're supporting...

 

[beer]

sigh, I want to reply and give details, but I can't because it would give away too much.....

sigh

I'll just have to be content with letting you all think we're idiots.

 

[Nothinman]

I'll just have to be content with letting you all think we're idiots.

I don't think you're idiots, but I do think you're being hypocritical complaining about being made fun of for using VS and then turning around and calling C++ developers wussies. =)

 

[nismotigerwvu]

Ha...and i felt hardcore in my high school robotics class when we wrote in some C derivative for the handyboards that ran the damn things...and before you ask...I'm a pharmacy major...kinda funny how that worked out huh

 

[Nothinman]

Ha...and i felt hardcore in my high school robotics class when we wrote in some C derivative for the handyboards that ran the damn things...and before you ask...I'm a pharmacy major...kinda funny how that worked out huh

Drivers are hardcore no matter what language they're in.