July 8th, 2024

In Praise of Low Tech DevEx

The article explores Low-Tech DevEx (LTD) in developer tools, favoring text-based options like vim and make for portability, speed, and user-centric design. It promotes Unix principles for improved developer productivity.

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In Praise of Low Tech DevEx

The article discusses the concept of Low-Tech DevEx (LTD) in the context of developer tools and experiences. The author reflects on their journey of preferring low-tech tools like vim, make, and shell over GUI-based options. They highlight the benefits of LTD tools such as portability, speed, power, composability, and user-centric design. The article emphasizes the longevity, maintainability, and sustainability of LTD tools compared to newer, trendier options. Examples of LTD tools mentioned include vim, make, Docker, tmux, git, curl, and cloud shell. The author also provides insights into using Makefiles for project management and onboarding new team members efficiently. Overall, the article advocates for the use of battle-tested, text-based tools that align with Unix principles for enhanced developer productivity and satisfaction.

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Link Icon 3 comments
By @rekabis - 3 months
There are only three major features (aside from things like syntax highlighting and indent guides) that make me reach for an IDE:

  1. Intellisense
  2. Linters
  3. Code analysis
All three of which help me improve my own skills, as I don’t just use them blindly. I consciously analyze why they were triggered so as to determine if their suggestions are valid in that use case, and to become familiar with what they are suggesting to remember it in the future.

It’s not that I hate steep learning curves. I just don’t like counterproductively difficult steep learning curves. Send me up the side of a metaphorical mountain, and I will be fine with that so long as I have the metaphorical ropes and carabiners and pitons and a harness and all the basic safety gear with which to gain experience with climbing rock faces. Imma not gonna free solo a cliff face the first time I go rock climbing.

Honestly, if something a lot simpler like Notepad++ came with these three tools, I would be very happy.

By @gkhartman - 3 months
I miss this workflow sometimes. I started out as a c++ dev with a light weight vim + make workflow. I didn't really want an ide. I didn't have to configure much and I knew the libraries well enough that auto-completions didn't really interest me.

After getting a few full stack web projects made me jump to vscode. There's too many libraries and languages to juggle. Going without a smarter editor starts feeling like leaving time (aka money) on the table.

By @rzzzwilson - 3 months
YES! I've been programming for 55 years, so far, and have never used an IDE except for one year playing with Turbo Pascal and Turbo C. I've always answered questions over on /r/learnpython like this:

    Q: I want to learn python, what IDE should I install?
    A: Why learn both python _and_ an IDE? Just learn python on the commandline.
Though I'm happy in my curmudgeonly rut, it's nice to meet a fellow minimalist aesthete.