On Digg today there was this AWESOME article about programming languages. While the LISP portion of the article became a tirade about how great LISP can be in the hands of engineers, a point was made that made me stop and think. It’s definately the same opinion I have, something I’ve had for a really long time. It’s the title of this article, a quote straight from his.

How IDE’s in the world of programmers always get SO much in the way of what needs to be done. While not being an Emacs user (I learned VI first, and being in school don’t have the time to learn anything else). But the point remains valid none the less. So many people I’ve worked with in my career seem to spend much of their time worrying about the IDE they are using rather than worrying about programming. I’ve actually heard the excuse that Java is easy to work in if you have a good IDE so many times it literally makes me ill everytime it creeps up again. Who gives a shit about whether I’m using Eclipse or JDeveloper?? I’m not reliant on them to try and take away the fact that Java sucks. That it has many issues which have lingered in the language for YEARS, and Sun has done nothing to address them. Just because Eclipse can help you doesn’t make Java better.

Anyway. The remainder of the article is worth a read, I just thought the quote above was prophetic enough for me to comment on it a bit.