Unix as IDE
This was how Unix was presented to me when I was first introduced to me. I was told it was like industrial machinery - designed for those who know how to use it, efficient, dangerous if you aren't careful.<p>Which is exactly what a good tool should be.<p>When IDEs (the kind that comes as a GUI'ed bundle of things thought to be the most appropriate for the purpose by committee of someones, somewhere) started becoming popular, I didn't get it, at all. Put aside tool tips (which annoy me far more than is rational); it seemed to me that the idea was to build a toy model workshop on the work bench of a fully outfitted workshop. Why would anyone want to use that? Why bother in the first place?<p>I mean, I do get it. And who knows, maybe if I used one of those long enough to break muscle memory and the conceptual assumptions that don't map, I'd change my mind. But so far, vi + shell + standard utilities + what I build have served me just fine, and if for some reason I were to need "more power", whatever that means, I'd probably move to emacs.<p>And I still maintain that tool tips/balloon help/<i>obscuring the very thing you're pointing at</i> is a stupidly rude anti-pattern. Even worse is not making it possible to turn off.