On 01/20/2017 01:35 PM, Steven Toth wrote:
Why is an IDE needed or even useful for this process?
A lot of people go the IDE route because that's what they're told to do as beginners...frequently by other beginners. "Here, this is how you write software." People can't really be faulted for that approach if they have no way of knowing of the existence of any other approach.
I've worked in development environments for 20+ years. All kinds of industries, all kinds of operating systems and platforms, embedded, server, desktop, all the way up the stack from hardware. I've seen great code, I've seen ugly code, I've written my share of both. I've written and maintained extremely large projects with and without IDEs, many languages.
If you are trying to learn a language and can barely get two lines together - or if you want to write a 20 line program you don't need an IDE, but its helpful. You'll need books, web.
If you're writing a large software stack, need to integrate with other frameworks or libraries, an IDE is the way to go.
That's personal preference, not "the way to go". I do all of the above, daily, ~35 years, and don't use an IDE. Our experience base seems very similar, close to identical in fact, but our development methodologies are different. And that's ok. I'm willing to bet that YOU, with your base of experience, know how to do things like tell the compiler to generate separate object sections for link-time removal of uncalled functions. Most IDE users can and do write code all their lives and not even know what that sentence means. (and generate huge binaries as a result!)
Don't discount using an IDE. They're a great accelerator.
You didn't read what else I typed. ;) When used as a tool, they can be very useful, and at that point it boils down to personal preference. When used as a crutch ("Where do I click to make a program?"), the result is, all too frequently, a mess to be cleaned up by people like you and I. -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA