Ask YC: What is your preferable development environment?

23 points by tzury ↗ HN
Linux with Gnome or KDE. Mac or Windows? Laptop or desktop? In case of Linux, which distro?

66 comments

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Once I really get into the code, I couldn't care less what OS I'm on. I care about OS more for general use.
Macbook Pro + Emacs (aquamacs) = Love.

Anyone else find that they are absolutely bound to emacs and no matter what else you try to use, you find yourself, like a turtle returning to the beach where it was born, going back to emacs?

P.S. I have nothing against vi, but you know, turtles and nature and all of that.

I use the latest Netbeans Ruby IDE dev releases, so OS isn't much of a concern.

Just for the record though, I use linux with Gnome, Ubuntu 7.10.

Your dev environment matters less than having two or more monitors in my opinion, though.

.net vs05(vs08 seems like it needs a service pack) on windows

php coda/code igniter on mas osx(using mamp)

Darren, you a CodeIgniter guy? If you haven't already, I highly recommend getting started with the new ASP.NET MVC framework--it almost makes working with .NET in the day job tolerable (yes, "almost").
Thanks yeah I tried the first release but it would not work on my fresh install of vs08 and .net 3.5

I'll give it a go again.

My preferable development environment would be an IDE I built myself, perfectly tailored to the peculiars of MY workflow. It would also need to feature easy extensibility to make it affordable to extend it, sometimes on a per-project basis. I'd eventually end up working on optimizing my productivity in a quite direct manner, by analysing what the bottlenecks (anything that hampers Flow) are in my different projects and devising solutions.

When you work in Lisp by making DSL's and generally problem-specific extensions, I think the next logical step is to extend the IDE to support it directly (especially if you use the extension in many projects). If for example you make a CSS DSL, it would be great to have full property completion support, syntax highlighting and the other usual suspects.

Two areas I expect to work on a lot is 1. making the operations of my IDE more "semantic" (as in, adapted to what I want to do. If it's easy to think about, it should be easy and quick to carry it out) and 2. Making a system of views that would let me bypass the traditional file-based view of a project. If you program in a mostly functional way, most of the time the load order and segregation into files is much less important than other possible views of the project.

MacBook + TextMate + RoR
Same here, however I've started treating my laptop as a 'thin client'. All my files are hosted on my iMac, which I access over Wi-Fi when at home, or via iDisk/Back to My Mac when elsewhere.
Same + Cocoa Mysql + Unfuddle
12" PowerBook with Carbon Emacs 22 (if you're not using Emacs 22, you definitely should be).

It's as portable as I can get without getting cramps from typing. I am looking to check out the Lenovo U110 when it drops though, in which case I'll run Debian 4.0 with Xmonad.

I was using Emacs 21 but on your advice I installed 22. OMG! I was developing cataracts with 21, it was just so damn ugly. GTK is like corrective eye surgery. Cheers mate.
vim on my MBP (formerly on my Dell laptop running Ubuntu).

I enjoy vim because it rewards me for learning new commands (referencing the "What software makes you happy?" thread).

Desktop + Arch Linux + openbox + gvim

C, Python, Common Lisp

NetBeans (Sometimes TextMate), Mac OS X on a MacBook Pro, with all code in a Subversion repository.

I started using TextMate, but I find a bunch of things like how it jacks up indenting when pasting, and flashes when matching tabs. NetBeans handles both these things much more nicely.

MacBook Pro running OS X 10.5.2, Emacs, Python primarily, with occasional outbursts of TextMate, Lisp, Perl, Ruby and Logo (for teaching mathematical concepts to my son.)
Windows (Office 2007 won me over temporarily from *nix) and nano over SSH. I get yelled at almost daily to switch to emacs. I'm used to it though, I use Word 2007 instead of LaTeX and will never hear the end of it.
Ubuntu Linux with xterm windows, Eclipse, and emacs for those times when you just need some special behavior tied to your F1 key.
xandros (eee pc version) + KDE + emacs windows + eclipse --->had to use for "other" work stuffs fedora + Gnome + emacs ---> fave

Most important : Flash Drive, IPod, and laptop or desktop and I can code wherever and whenever I want.

Currently a Macbook + Textmate
Gentoo + gedit + terminal + scheme/ruby/erlang + Google.
vim, screen, svn...

Don't use lisp(s) enough to enjoy Emacs anymore.

Ubuntu ,NetBeans(for RoR), Eclipse(for Python/Django, Java)
+1. Ubuntu 7.10, NetBeans 6 (Ruby), Git on my 14" laptop. Very rarely using Eclipse (for Java). How is it for Python ? I am thinking about learning Python and Django.
reasonably good with PyDev. Not as good as NB for RoR though
OS X, GNU Emacs, gcc, gdb, MzScheme.
Mac Book Pro (15) with key mappings for home and end "fixed" with a 27.5 inch hanns g monitor (good, cheap and big). Netbeans b/c debugging can be handy.
VS 2k5/2k8 while at work for The Man, emacs on OSX/linux while hacking at home.