Nigerian today boast that they know how to program they don’t , Myself as an example, am a Java programmer and I got my certificate from NIIT in the year 2011, throughout my course of study, I was never consistent, I skip classes most of the time. Yet they still award me the certificate because I can create software and write programs using IDEs and they thought I am a good programmer whereas I am not. Not until recently, I discover this and I am a bit sad.

Because you can create software, program using IDE doesn’t make you a real programmer, the real professional programmer is someone who can write, build program and software using NOTEPAD and someone who can use Command Prompt CMD very well in the course of computing. I discover that IDEs though make your work faster; it doesn’t give you the efficiency you need and also doesn’t give you the deep knowledge of programming syntax, method and step. Also, it doesn’t give you detail explanation about set of command you pass into your program, that is why some programmers are not employable this days because they don’t really know how things work.

They just know after some gambling, try and error things, they are done. That is why it is easy for us to copy other people work and we fail to work on our own ideas, bring out our own innovative thinking and make it into some that will affect our life locally and internationally. Am not saying that if you can work with IDEs very well mean that you are not a good programmer but what make you a professional is if you can actually write codes from the scratch using notepad or any word processor. Note that all Notepad Programmer can use any IDEs to write comprehensive program but not all IDEs programmer can use Notepad to write same.

That's right.

so are you saying in other words that a carpenter who uses cutlass to cutdown a big tree is better that the one that uses a chain saw?

IMO, it dosent matter. the most importatnt thing is "get the job done faster, and better"

Although i use notepad++, i see it as a personal thing and not a standard. U sound really confused or inexperienced or both.
When did the IDE become more important than the result? or more important than extensibility, security, cross-compatibility, user friendliness, footprint, resource management....?

Note that all Notepad Programmer can use any IDEs to write comprehensive program but not all IDEs programmer can use Notepad to write same.

Guy, get a language reference or cheat-sheet.

How can your yardstick be the IDE being used? No mention of frameworks, architectures, pattern e.t.c?

the real professional programmer is someone who can write, build program and software using NOTEPAD

I laff in Java.

Pls i do not get the essence of this post yeah i know somethings need to be learnt like setting up Java and PHP manually, but it is no yardstick for measuring a good programmer, in the former company where i worked if you are using Dreamweaver or Notepad for PHP Development, you will be cautioned no one is paying you to be the best developer but i do agree that relying too much on IDE is bad, i had that issue till now i work mostly with Sublime its a text editor but nothing wrong with IDE imho.

I believe working with an IDE makes u more productive because an IDE will usually integrate many different tools such as a compiler, an editor, a debugger etc in one place.

The folks that made the IDEs. They knew exactly what they were doing when they were creating those cool things. I also had this notepad mentality in my early days; I coded on Notepad for over 3 years before I worked on Netbeans for the first time. Sounds crazy huh? I know how to maneuver my way around the command-line and how to debug on raw Notepad/CMD. Trust me, you will be better off using an IDE.
If you are a freelance programmer (which means no monthly salary, no allowance from your super-rich parent) and all you have is your programming ability to put food on your table, pay your bills and keep you in the midst of computers with internet access, then you shouldn't be considering the use of Notepad. Also when you get married and start raising your kids, you will want your life to be as easy as possible (not spending 12 hours on the command-line and not having time for your family).
Even for a learner, the Notepad that ships with Windows is a particularly bad idea as it has not line numbering and multiple line-ending style support and that pretty much makes the learning process even more laborious than it ought to be.
Notepad++ may be a better idea for a novice but in production environment, IDEs rule.
If it takes you 2 weeks to figure out (using notepad) what I will do in Eclipse in 4 days (with all required plugins installed). It follows that you will only be able to undertake two projects in a month while I will be able to undertake seven or eight. If a project costs 40k on the average, that means your monthly income would be around 80k while mine will be around 320k. You will still be taking Danfo to ccHub after 3 years while I'll probably have my own office
Its your choice if you want to be called the "geeky guy" or the "rich guy". Steve Jobs once said: "real programmers ship".
Using IDEs, I'll ship more products in a month than you will ship in four months. So asides being called the "rich guy", I will also be called
"the prolific guy" because I ship more products. You'll probably be better than me on the command-line but who cares?
Don Jazzy used to produce for D'Banj, Wande Coal, D Prince, K Switch and Ikechukwu. If the guy was not prolific, there would be significant delays in his production cycle. But using all the tools he can get, he produces a lot of tracks in little time hence he's one of the best producers in the country. Nobody cares about how he makes his beats (if he likes he can use stick and pot and record it with a walkman), the bottom line is that he makes high quality output and he makes it in little time.

#teamNetbeans #teamEclipse #teamVisualStudio #teamMySQL_Workbench #teamDreamweaver

Sayomarvel, nice comment, having a rethink now but notepad still rock anyway.... I did love to be a geek....what required plugin will i need for my esclipe, just wanna check the IDE out.....netbean annoy me sometimes

I taught I was. Why asking again

I wonder what this guy is thinking.This post sounds very naive.The importance of IDE's can never be overemphasized. Its not the use of IDE's that make good programmers.What makes good programmers are beyond the tools we use and take it or leave it,tools such as IDE's increases your efficiency.Why don't you use a computer without OS so that we know that you are a geek.

S/O to SayoMarvel

saemmanuel: Sayomarvel, nice comment, having a rethink now but notepad still rock anyway.... I did love to be a geek....what required plugin will i need for my esclipe, just wanna check the IDE out.....netbean annoy me sometimes

Well as a Google platform enthusiast (maybe developer ), I have the Google AppEngine, GWT and the Android SDKs integrated with my Eclipse as NetBeans is not officially supported.
I have Mecurial integrated too (for version control).
I have a lot of libraries (but these can pretty much be used with any IDE).
The ones I value most right now are
*GData (for integration with Google Apps. It saves me from interacting with raw REST APIs -- which I really don't like)
*Argo (a JSON parser/generator that comes handy when you are writing your own REST APIs)
*Hibernate (an OR/M framework that shields you from low-level database implementation details and makes your "data layer" appear more object-oriented thereby making your design more intuitive)
*C3P0 (a database connection pooling library particularly suited for production environments. This dramatically improves the performance of your enterprise applications since it doesn't create and destroy connections for every database request -- a very resource-expensive process; but rather creates and re-use a pool of connections. I came across this when I wrote a server-side app that after showing it to the clients, the app dies after 8 hours -- bitter experience).
*SLF4J (a logging framework that I found to C3P0 to be dependent on. Funny enough, the author of C3P0 contacted me on StackOverflow and said his library DOES NOT in anyway have any dependency on SLF4J. You can see the thread at http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10695028/hibernate-mysql-connection-timeout).

There are lots of others of course.

I predominantly use NetBeans for non-Google-related projects and I have Git, Mecurial, and a whole lot of plugins there!
Netbeans is my favorite (infact I've written demo apps for the NetBeans platform) but Eclipse has more support so I've been tending towards Eclipse these days.
Now just imagine me doing all these stuffs in Notepad. Notepad may work for small projects but when you are approaching projects with over 10,000 lines of code (even 5,000), it becomes difficult to manage, debug, test and profile (well thats if you value quality and you like your name ). Notepad will definitely not offer you automated unit testing (well, maybe a Notepad from Jupiter will do that).

Bro, IDEs are good. The joy of any programmer is to use his skills to automate boring routine tasks and thats the motivation behind the development of IDEs so you may even take it a step further by writing your own plugins for your favorite IDEs (I discussed with @moderator Fayimora and I think he's planning to write his own extensions for VIM). If you want to go that far, you may consider extending NetBeans; its very modern and highly modular and there are good books out there that reveals its internals so you can easily extend it.

Good luck!

Notepad is just a dumb choice for programming.

It screws up the formatting and display of your text. For a language like Python (for example) where indentation is important, you are screwed. And for almost other language where the way the text is displayed is important, you are also screwed.

Being a good programmer is not about whether you use Notepad or an IDE.

Look, you either understand programming concepts or you don't. If you do, it doesn't matter whether you are coding on a piece of paper, napkin, Notepad, or an IDE.

And if you don't, Notepad won't help you any.

The OP's topic misses the point of programming, imo.

Focus on learning loops, recursion, variables and their scope, data structures and algorithms.

IDE vs. Notepad is irrelevant.

If you even want to make is about a display of "coolness" rather than actually whether you are a good programmer or not, at least use as an example like Vim or Emacs.

That is what programming posers/nerds talk about, not frikkin Notepad.

LMAO.

No! No! Real programmers don't use high-level languages; they program in Assembly Language or even Machine Code!

Using Notepad to program is like using MSWord without spell check. You'll be good with spelling but your output might be less.
However, it makes sense though to use Notepad; you'll definitely be very good, slower at first but your speed will improve with time.
You'll be more vast and more assured in what you do.


I think it's a good advice for a beginner to start with Notepad, gain efficiency and speed with time but it will be a pain in the a.s.s for older programmers.

logica: LMAO.

No! No! Real programmers don't use high-level languages; they program in Assembly Language or even Machine Code!

It is the same people who don't understand recursion and don't understand when to data structure X over data structure Y who will then think they are "cool" because they program in assembler/C/C++ using Vim/Emacs.

Give me the Javascript programmer who understands recursion, understands mergesort, and can implement a linked list from scratch, over the "real programmer" who cannot do these things.

The former guy is obviously bright enough to master new syntax. The latter guy, not too much you can do with him.

I really do not get why certain people in the programming community act like this. It is counter-productive and misses the point.

To any young programmers being confused by some of the nonsense the OP and others are saying, here is my advice:

1) Use whichever text-editing tool you feel most comfortable with. Text editors are simply productivity tools, they are in no way "cheating." If you don't understand Algorithm X, then no text editor on earth will help you understand it.

2) Anyone who tells you that to be a good programmer you need to start off with assembler, C, or C++, they are 100% full of horsesh1t. If you actually read any of these academic papers which introduce a new algorithm, they sketch the algorithm idea in pseudo-code. They don't write it in assembly or C. So clearly, these languages are irrelevant for actually coming up with useful ideas. The idea is what is important, not that the idea was written in language Y.

3) Focus on improving your math skills. A lot of ideas in programming and computer science become trivial if you are solid at math. Recursion is basically just induction, for example.

If I'm not mistaken, I think the OP's concern is how proficient one is with Command Prompts and knowledge of Programming syntax without the help of IDEs.

LMAO ...real programmers build their own TOOL. Guy you build your own Notepad or IDE before you start coding so we go know say u be guru ...mumu!

Syntax is not particularly important.

In C++, a for loop looks like:

for (i=0; i<= N-1; i++){
blahblah
}

In Ruby:
(0...N).each do |i|
blahblah
end

(well, this is one way to do it, there are several.)

Are you really telling me the important thing is to memorize the difference in the syntax between these examples? Rather than the more important thing of understanding the CONCEPT of loops?

Which is more important...fundamental concepts, or syntax?

Let's say I'm working on a project, and want to find where I defined a group of functions for which their names include the text "ekt_bear".

I want to replace all instances of that text with the text "obiagu".

On the Unix command If I want to do this, I can type:

grep -lr "ekt_bear" target_directory | xargs sed -i "s/ekt_bear/obiagu/g"

This will replace all instances of "ekt_bear" with "obiagu" in the folder target_directory.

Does it really matter if an IDE provides the same functionality or not?

It is a tedious task, irrelevant to the actual job of programming. Whether you do it via command line or via IDE, your programming skills have not improved one iota.

It's not necessarily to memorise the differences but being able to detect errors without external help and be certain what you just coded is correct.

If you want to try it out, code with whatever text editor you want and copy it into your IDE, you'll be amazed at things you used to take for granted.

The OP was just concerned about proficiency, that's it.

1. If by "correctness of code", you mean "does this do what I intended", the correct approach for that is writing tests, actually. E.g. unit testing. Or even better, proving correctness of your code.

2. If by "correctness of code", you mean, "finding minor syntax errors"...well, those will be discovered very rapidly, IDE or no. In fact, the compiler or interpreter will reveal this to you.

If you forgot a semi-colon at the end of a line, g++ (for example) will quickly notify you. So there is nothing gained by using a text editor per se.

3. Proficiency is gained via practice and experience. It is better to gain this experience using good tools for the job, not crappy ones.

Bad tools only slow you down.

It's for both really. If you know what you're doing, you don't have to test your code every now and then and you don't have to change variables if you really planned your work well. I don't have to change ekt_bear to Obiagu if I found that I might need ekt_bear somewhere else, it's a sign of poorly planned program.

Doh... well, I am a web developer & i sure can (have) write all my codes in a notepad. I infact i use notepad++ for all my codes!

Okay... bye!

saemmanuel: Nigerian today boast that they know how to program they don’t , Myself as an example, am a Java programmer and I got my certificate from NIIT in the year 2011, throughout my course of study, I was never consistent, I skip classes most of the time. Yet they still award me the certificate because I can create software and write programs using IDEs and they thought I am a good programmer whereas I am not. Not until recently, I discover this and I am a bit sad.

Because you can create software, program using IDE doesn’t make you a real programmer, the real professional programmer is someone who can write, build program and software using NOTEPAD and someone who can use Command Prompt CMD very well in the course of computing. I discover that IDEs though make your work faster; it doesn’t give you the efficiency you need and also doesn’t give you the deep knowledge of programming syntax, method and step. Also, it doesn’t give you detail explanation about set of command you pass into your program, that is why some programmers are not employable this days because they don’t really know how things work.

They just know after some gambling, try and error things, they are done. That is why it is easy for us to copy other people work and we fail to work on our own ideas, bring out our own innovative thinking and make it into some that will affect our life locally and internationally. Am not saying that if you can work with IDEs very well mean that you are not a good programmer but what make you a professional is if you can actually write codes from the scratch using notepad or any word processor. Note that all Notepad Programmer can use any IDEs to write comprehensive program but not all IDEs programmer can use Notepad to write same.

My friend wat are u tryin to say? NIIT didn't train u to be a professional! The professionalism in u, is a thing of choice! It lies on u to build urslf! What thos guys offered wasn't enof to make u a professional programmer! Go an re-prepare ureslf! Join forums, get books, videos etc and retrain urself! I did oracle 10g on the solaris 10OS platform! Neva got all I needed to be a good sysadm! I had to teach myself so many things no one tought! I'm still in the process duo! Cos I like commands and CLI, I like scripting I like seein my creations work! I like customizin env variables and init files to suit me! Nw I switxh b/w linux and unix OS cos I luv 'em! I prefer crackin my back to run Installers from CLI, I prefer being root User I do knw some d I would b that sysadm I dream about!

Heh. The best thing to do is to test your code frequently. The longer a gap between your tests, potentially the more additional work you create for yourself.

That variable change was simply an example. If you think that this doesn't occur in real code, or is a sign of a poorly planned program...

Anyway, my comments stand. Focus on what is important in programming, not the irrelevant

Another one of them.

Notepad++, WAMP, Firefox Browser, my brain.

That's all I use to work and its my choice.

People could use other things and it will be their choice. Use what works for you.

Work smart, not hard.

I love delphi more than any other language
bcus of my profession and Write most of my
code and forms with complete tools placement
with notepad, It only takes knowing what u are doing.

i pity the op sha, it plainly says, 'am inexperienced'.

@dual core; nice quote, work smart, not hard.

@all; abeg oo, whats wrong with dreamweaver for development

Is there a better IDE for php development

another inexperienced somebody giving advice.... IDEs are awesome. Code formatting and syntax highlighting turns code writing into some form art. @op, you can also create another topic and say that "real programmers doesn't need compilers"..