ThoughtFactory.CreateThought() A random collection of thoughts from an easily bored developer

Perth Alt.Net Talk: Does the world end if you stop using Visual Studio?

After hearing so many developers complain that they wouldn't be able to code without Visual Studio/Resharper/CodeRush/Intellisense/Source Control IDE Integration/WYSIWYG editors/<Insert Random Tool Here /> , I thought it would be useful to find out how dependent I was on similar tooling. Do I honestly need all the features offered by a "modern" IDE? Are these features helping me or are they reducing the quality of the code I write? Would my productivity flat line if I stopped depending on my IDE?

I honestly can't answer any of these questions definitively, so I've decided to strip my coding tool set back to a "text editor on steroids" (Vim in my case) and command line tooling in an attempt to do some "modern" .Net development in an environment that most would consider archaic. In a way I'm regressing to an environment similar to what I used back before I joined the league of Microsoft developers, so it will be interesting to see how much of the allure of a simpler tool set is nostalgia with no substance and how much is based on the promise of actual productivity gains.

The goal is not so much to shift away from an IDE, but rather to figure out which tools actually make me a better developer and which ones encourage sloppy practices or simply slow me down. Even if I do go back to Visual Studio as my main coding environment of choice I'll hopefully have a better understanding of how I should be using the tools to improve the quality of my output.

I'll be presenting on my initial experiences at the Perth Alt.Net Group in July. Details are as follows:

What: Does the world end if you stop using Visual Studio?

When: Wednesday 14th July 2010, 6pm - Whenever they kick us out

Where: 43 Below Bar & Bistro, Corner of Barrack Street and Hay Street (underground across from McDonalds)

Check out the Perth Alt.Net Group's Website for more details.

In addition, I'll also try to formulate my thoughts into something longer than 140 characters (curse you, Twitter!) and post more information about my experiences here over the coming weeks and months.