[OT] Which IDE / Editor do you use?

[Nick Sabalausky]

On Wed, 18 Sep 2013 06:15:00 -0700
"H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh at quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 18, 2013 at 07:29:24AM +0200, Michael wrote:
> > >
> > >Besides, we aren't on 300 baud serial lines!
> > >
> > 
> > As backup line I have 56k dial-up modem ;)
> > We still trolling each other about IDE ?) Or Win 8.1 UI is the best
> > UI?
> 
> Linux is my IDE. ;-)
> 

That line's been rolling around in my head lately, and although I don't
usually dev on Linux, it's occurred to me - my file manager is my IDE:

I launch my editor from it. I launch my CLI terminal from it. I manage
the project's file/structure with it (naturally). And the reason I've
never had any interest in IDE/VCS integration is because with
Tortoise* it's already integrated into my filemanager, where VCS
integration belongs, IMO.

Linux may yet become my IDE though. I've been wanting to get off
Windows for general everyday stuff (since Vista, each new version has
needed more and more tweaking to become tolerable). To that end, the
other day I was trying out the latest versions of a ton of DE's via
VM'ed Live discs. I was getting really frustrated for awhile, but
then I hit what seems to look really promising: Mint 15 with Xfce
4.10, Dolphin 4.10 and kdesdk-dolphin-plugins[1]. And maybe replace
xfce's WM with kwin if I can ever get that to work (Kwin seems to
work fine under the KDE4-based distros).

Dolphin seems to have fixed it's Vista-like goofiness with the
folder view's horizontal scrolling, and it really is pretty good for the
most part. The terminal panel is a brilliant idea (never noticed
before - maybe it's new since about 4.5ish?). I think there may
still be a few things needing improvement, but it appears fairly
usable so far.

As of the latest version, Xfce seems to be about the only DE that can
handle my side-mounted taskbar worth a darn. Plus it's nice and
lean/fast. A bit unpolished, same as most others, but like those others
still usable.

Mint seems to be the best Debian for a desktop (unless you want a
blatant OSX clone with slightly more straight-jacketing, in which case
Ubuntu's Unity seems surprisingly decent. Or GNOME 3 if you like to drop
acid. I really would recommend Unity for OSX fans that want to try
Linux - maybe with Docky if it works as advertised.) Although, if I ever
end up moving from Debian to Arch, Manjaro really looks worth watching.

[1] kdesdk-dolphin-plugins:
http://sebastian-doerner.de/2011/09/a-git-plugin-for-dolphin/

It's missing a few important features from TortoiseGit, but it's
leaner and a fundamentally better design. TortoiseGit (and to a much
larger extent, TortoiseHg) tends to forget it's supposed to be a
Tortoise* tool.