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Comment by iio7

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Comment by iio7

Before mobile phones where a thing, we used to memorize the phone numbers of every family member and friend and co-worker, etc. The numbers we rarely used, we wrote down or looked up in the phone book. When you got a new number, you maybe wrote it down, then after having dialed it a couple of times, it stuck. This didn't really require any effort, it was just the natural way of doing things.

Then came the mobile phone with the ability to store contacts, today I can't even remember my wife's number.

I have coded for more than 40 years and I hate autocomplete, language servers, etc. I don't use any of it because I have found (after having tried to use it all) that, just like with phone numbers, you don't remember much if you use all of that and you have to make a real effort, but things just don't stick the same way. But if don't use any of that, you only have to look things up in the beginning, then occasionally, then rarely or never again and more things just stick, you get faster in a natural way and you understand your code better. You also think deeper about how to structure your code and how to organize everything.

If you always use a crutch to help you walk, you will never walk by yourself. The crutch will look like it is helping you, but that's only in the beginning, eventually it will hinder you and hold you back.

That's my 2 cents.

Replies iio7 · 2024-12-24
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