Transition From Text Editor to IDE

For a decade I have pushed back on switching to an IDE for coding Python.  My preference has always been to use the minimal editor possible to help force a level of consciousness in my code and avoid the complacency that can come from having tools that are just too powerful.  Auto-complete is awesome, but if you lean on it too much it can prevent you from actually caring enough to retain information.

When the answer to a question is easy to find – your brain opts to avoid the effort required to push that knowledge into longterm memories in favour of just asking the question again.  Why bother remembering APIs when the IDE will just finish the typing for you.

Perhaps some of my distaste for IDEs came from having to use Eclipse to write Java.  A slow clunky editor that even after years of programming left me feeling inadequate at writing Java code.  It pushed me back to Vim for a long time in an effort to actually feel attached to my craft again.

Over the last couple weeks I have been exploring using PyCharm to write python code.  This was driven by being required to dig into some incredibly convoluted code written by other developers where a simple text editor just didn’t provide enough help with understanding how things worked together.

This experience has opened my eyes.  A good IDE really can connect a lot of dots.  I still think there is incredible value in learning a language, frameworks, and libraries as well as possible by actually typing them out in a dumb editor.  It takes a while to develop the knowledge to really be considered an expert.

Once you have the expertise an IDE can provide a lot of leverage.  I will probably never give up the simple text editor (vim is always a requirement for remote development) but will continue to lean on PyCharm for when development speed is critical.  Especially with a dynamic language like Python the insight from an IDE can sometimes be a lifesaver.