[OT] Which IDE / Editor do you use?

[Nick Sabalausky]

On Sat, 14 Sep 2013 03:41:58 -0700
"H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh at quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:

> On Sat, Sep 14, 2013 at 04:59:16AM -0400, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> > On Fri, 13 Sep 2013 23:55:55 -0700
> > "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh at quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:
> > >
> > > But I dunno, IME, when Windows 3.1 came along, it had so many
> > > gratuitous limitations that I said to myself, this sucks! So now I
> > > can't have direct access to hardware in the name of "protection",
> > > and what do I get in return? Nothing but being straitjacketed
> > > into a system that can't even do what I want.
> > 
> > OMG, iOS and Android == Win 3.1! Why did I never notice that before!
> 
> lol...
> 
> I do find Android at least 100 times more usable than iOS, though.
> There's actually a file manager app that lets me *manage my own
> files*, for crying out loud. And I can mount the thing as a USB drive
> and, y'know, transfer files without going through the horror of bad
> GUI design known as iTunes. And I can change the wallpaper without
> jailbreaking the contraption, install an alternate keyboard, choose
> from browsers that don't have to fear retribution from Apple for
> being too similar to Safari, etc.. Not to mention being able to do
> something so basic as using an arbitrary mp3 as a ringtone
> (seriously, *why* does the iPhone require a completely separate
> subsystem and gratuitously obscure file format just for ringtones?
> it's not as though in this day and age we don't have generic
> sound-playing libraries that can handle multiple file formats... and
> don't get me started on the fact that an i*Pod* refuses to receive a
> custom ringtone, 'cos it's not a phone, in spite of the fact that the
> built-in clock chooses from the ringtone catalogue for alarm sounds
> -- the whole thing is straitjacketed beyond belief).
> 

Yea, "straitjacketed" is absolutely the word for it. I had to carry
an iPhone around for much of 2012, and I can't tell you how many times
I had an incredible urge to hurl the stupid thing into the nearest
concrete wall. Or lodge it into Steve Jobs's skull, but I guess I was
about a year late for that :(

> Of course, Android isn't *completely* free of annoyances. A recent one
> is the inability to completely remove preinstalled apps that I don't
> use and don't intend to use, because they're "system" apps. I'm still
> trying to wrap my head around the concept of Facebook being a
> "system" app... Sigh.
> 

Ugh, that's a new one to me. Mine was version 4.0 (and rooted so I could
also swap in and out of 2.3 plus the CyanogenMod versions of both 4.0
and 2.3). It was *definitely* the better of the two, but there were
still plenty of things I hated about Andorid, too:

- Dalvik and Java at the system-level is absurd.

- Battery life was a joke. I'm only speculating here, but I can't help
  wonder if Dalvik was a major reason for that.

- Google clearly hates expandable memory as much as Apple does.

- It's an iOS clone.

- The hardware is an iPhone clone: Capacitive touchscreens and zero
  physical buttons. Bleh, just give me an updated version of Palm's Zire
  71 (with WiFi, PalmOS 6.1+, and for the love of god a
  *user-replaceable* battery)...please! That thing was brilliantly
  designed (aside from the stupid non-replaceable battery which has
  long since rendered my Zire useless). 

- Google pushes their anti-privacy "cloud" syncing/storage/etc far more
  heavily than Apple does. Even though they don't outright ban it, they
  clearly don't want you synching directly to machines *you* own,
  whereas Apple seems perfectly happy to let you suffer through iTunes
  in order to bypass their servers.

- Just like Apple, they retain the ability to remotely delete *your*
  apps just in case they feel like it.

- Just like Apple, you can't really install multiple versions of
  stuff or, in most cases, download older versions. Technically maybe
  you can, but if so it's rather "advanced territory".

- I used it as a WiFi-only, but it kept nagging me to activate it every
  time I rebooted it (which I had to do any time I switched OSes).
  There was *no* existing option or even hack to disable that.

- If there's a newer version of the OS, it will nag you and nag you and
  nag you to update regardless of whether you actually want to.

- The view you get when using it as a USB drive is actually a fairly
  censored, straightjacketed view. Not nearly as bad as Apple, but
  still, it takes rooting, some extra work, and maybe also the
  developer tools to access the *real* filesystem.

- Almost *nothing* uses real words. It's all completely meaningless
  arbitrary symbols, often invented on-the-spot for individual programs.

I'm *almost* more interested in Win Phone 8. Except it's butt-ugly, has
basically no third-party support (by comparison), and has plenty of its
own straitjacketing, too.

That said, Android still makes iOS look like a toy (And I truly do
see iOS devices as little more than toys.) I do kinda want to get an
Android device again, although mainly just because Palm OS 6.1+ devices
don't exist. :(

I'm quite interested in something I've heard Ubuntu was working on: An
installation of full-desktop Ubuntu that runs side-by-side with
Android, sharing the same kernel, and switches to desktop mode when you
connect it to a monitor.

Even before I had heard of them actually *doing* that, I had started to
feel something like that had the potential to become the real future of
personal computing. Because hell, they're already more than powerful
enough. They already connect to HDMI and keyboards/etc. They just need
some (more?) virtual memory and an OS/UI that isn't a toy, and that puts
them a hair away from being laptop/desktop-killers in probably 99% of
use-cases *including* gaming.

Granted, I'm not so enthusiastic about Ubuntu anymore, but still, I
really think something like that is the right way to go.