Do we have to do it all in a text editor?

August 24th, 2007

Many programmers believe that what makes them good is the ability to start working from a blank sheet in a text editor. I was one of those once. There are just so many tools that help us write less code.

For instance, MXML is written quickly in FlexBuilder and is translated into ActionScript without sacrificing quality or flexibility. Of course, it is fun to create your own custom components throughout the night, but life is just too short and going to bed as the sun rises is not good for morale.

Dreamweaver allows me to create stunning web pages in a flash. It used to spit out cumbersome code, but now with the automatic IE workarounds for CSS, I just love it. And it's less work to clean it up with regex in case you're really not satisfied. I now spend much less time on a better page design, knowing that it works on all browsers.

Various PHP and JavaScript frameworks allow me to concentrate on the business logic instead of the form validation routine, among others.

It's not laziness! It's called not reinventing the wheel every single project. I don't say that those who still use a text editor for everything are not good programmers: you may simply better spend your valuable time if you took routine stuff out of the equation. Don't start from scratch, or you'll have to make your own copper wires for that USB connector! (if you get my logic).

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