Why using IDE's to develop a website?

Question

All my life, as a programmer (40+ years experience), I always started with some form of IDE.
I remember Turbo C IDE. After a while, I had to abandon it and go for plain text editor, then the compile command with my own parameters and the link line!
When the web came into life, I tried some wysiwyg and gave up after just after hours: I found it simpler to code than to learn how to go through a "management system" that did NOT do what I wanted!
So, WHY do people still use IDEs? Can't they LEARN how to code? Does it REALLY short cut development time?
(If so, give me examples of any kind of complex interactive website!)

Answer 1

I agree, I generally write HTML by hand. Though maybe were both looking at it from a programmer perspective.



You already understand what a computer is and how it works, you are happy working with abstract descriptions. People who don't program will find the mental leap from code to browser harder. Besides, most people only care about how their site looks, not how it works.



The only thing I have to add is that you might try looking at things like PHP (if you haven't already). Its a scripting language for making web pages with code rather than HTML. It's used by a lot professional sites.

Answer 2

I program for a living and have worked both with and without IDEs and WYSIWYG designers and I find that these tools in most cases make me much more efficient. For example when I am building a web page I find it much faster to do the bulk of the work in WYSIWYG mode and then drop down to the code level if I need to do any manual fine tuning.



As for IDE's for code development they make me more efficient because the put all the tools in one place. I develop with Microsoft Visual Studio and it's great to be able to write some code, then hit one key to compile and run it. For source code control, I just right click on a file and click Check In. For automated unit testing, again right click and and select Test to run the tests.



You also can't beat the help capabilities that are built into a lot of IDEs. In the Microsoft .NET environment there are 10's of thousands of API function, no way to remember the parameters each one takes. In Visual Studio I start typing the function name and I get a list of all the function name to pick from. Once I type the full name it shows me what the parameters are. Makes my life so much easier.



As programmers we spend all our time making software that allows people to do their jobs more efficiently, why shouldn't we take advantage of these type of tools to make our own jobs more efficient.

Answer 3

What do you mean by 'learning to code'?

Programming anything is not about the details of one language, programming refers to programming logic, algorithms, the logical and functional structure of a program (script, page etc).



An IDE takes away the burdain of getting bogged dwown by the details of ONE language. Why would I allow myself to be slowed down by the detail of having to search and learn the syntax for the string replacement function in PHP for example? That's a detail I can happily leave to the IDE because it's not related to the programming itself, I can think and write the correct methods and with the help of the IDE I can make the script/program/routine run in ANY language my IDE supports.



Learning by heart all the syntax of all the functions of a language is nice but it's not 'learning to code'. One can easily memorize all this stuff, but if one lacks the ability to think in algorithms and have a mind for efficient programming, all that memory serves for nothing.



On the other hand, if one is free from the stress of memorizing all those details, then one can focus more on the actual creative programming work.