Ide on blog.iankulin.com

Visual Studio Code

Fri, 19 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve noticed Visual Studio Code in a few videos, and admired what a clean interface it had, and was impressed how opening a terminal window was automatically in the directory you were working in.

I had a need to write some html/css, and some C++ in the last couple of days, so that seemed like a great excuse to give it a try. I’d have to say my opinion of it has only gone up. Clearly, it is right at home with HTML and CSS - code completion and syntax colouring all working nicely. I followed TechWithTim’s suggestion to install the Live Server extension - which was a completely painless experience.

Same positive experience when I created a .cpp file, and VSC wanted me to take Microsoft’s advice about a bunch of extensions, and correctly suggested I build with Mac’s clang compiler.

So many things just work how you expect them to. Within seconds I was trying out breakpoints, compiling and managing the git commits. I even tried the Swift extension.

I have no intention of leaving Xcode, but with a great tool like this, I will never be a vim guy.

Vim

Wed, 10 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been working through the Missing Semester lectures from MIT, and recently completed the lecture about the Vim editor. Vim is a test editor, called from the command line, and optimised for programming - in the sense that it assumes most of the use of the editor is navigating around a big text file making small changes rather than entering large amount of test.

It uses simple, short key presses (as opposed to mouse movements or using menus or toolbars) to achieve things. This makes it highly efficient for good typists who know all the commands, and slightly incomprehensible to those who do not. An additional level of complexity is the idea of modes. Vim has several modes, the main ones being:

Normal - for navigating around and making those little edits. To get into this mode press the esc key
Insert - for entering text - ie the mode you’d assume you were in when opening an editor and not that you would have to press the letter ‘i’ to make that happen
Command - to run commands - like saving or closing VIM To get into this mode press the ‘:’ key

Apart from this lecture here are many good guides for learning VIM, a couple I’ve looked at are this one from OpenSource.com and this one from Stanford.

Even though I will never invest the time to become a power user of Vim, it’s available most places you’ll be using the command line, so the basics are a requirement for any programmer. Plus if you’re ever hired by a film production company to advise on a computer hacking scene, you’ll need it to scroll though some syntax highlighted Javascript.

Great cheat sheet from https://www.vimcheatsheet.com/

Instant Errors

Sun, 10 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I’m loving how, in XCode and Playgrounds, it’s constantly sort of compiling or interpreting in the background so errors are being flagged as you’re working. I tried to google the proper name for this but it’s clearly so unremarkable as to be un-remarked on. I guess maybe it’s a commonplace feature of modern IDEs, but for someone who literally used to go to make a coffee when compiling a medium size Clipper or even years later Visual Studio C++ project, it’s a revelation.

It’s so built in for me to think of errors as failures, that at first it was a quite unnerving. I was thinking “Hang on, hang on - at least let me finish typing before you judge me!”. But increasingly, I love the little second or so pause when I finish a section and wait for it to clear all the errors.