Question

Hi I mostly do C++, Objective-C programming. And I found Xcode plus an auto completion/macro plugin (Completion Dictionary) quite adequate.

However, all people seem to praise over their pure text editors. I tried Textmate for a bit; liked its simplicity but dislike its files/framework handling.

Am I missing something here? Or, do Vim or Emacs have auto-completion as good as Xcode?

Answer 1

Pull up a chair son, let me speak on this.

Well before the days of Xcode, there was VIM and Emacs. I know it’s hard to imagine, but it’s true.

Many people got accustomed to VIM/Emacs, and thus continue to use it.

Emacs is extremely customizable, and offers pretty much everything you can imagine (including a built in shrink and the towers of hanoi). You can easily call compilers from Emacs, and create your own extensions as needed.

VIM has incredible regex engine (Emacs does as well) and is very handy because (VI) comes with pretty much every Unix OS, and works fantastically if you don’t have arrow keys (yeah yeah, real old school). People are very good with using keys to move around documents, without having to use the mouse.

The same is true with Emacs as well, but for me, I find cursor motion much easier on VIM.

The text editor war is fueled with as much religious zealotry as the Mac vs PC war, and the answer is pick the best that works for you. If you like Xcode, great, continue to use it, however good luck if you’re ever forced to work on a PC or Linux machine. Personally, I use Emacs to code, VIM to manipulate text and Firefox to look at lolcats.