So I was talking to Jason last night about DevCampus, and we were just chatting away about different crap, including this interview on 15Seconds with the founder of CafePress.

In the interview, Fred says that they don't like VS.NET, they use notepad. He says it is cumbersome and slow, and that it really drains productivity.

What the shit is that?

Personally, and you can call me a bad programmer if you want, I can't live without my VS.Net, and specifically without Intellisense. As Jason and I chatted, we mused what it would be like without Intellisense. For me, I ctrl+space more than any human alive I think. I like to make really descriptive names for objects and methods, and I like to never type them again. I like that when I type SqlCommand cmd = new that SqlCommand is already there waiting for me to just hit ();. Imagine how much carpal tunnel I would have if I didn't have Intellisense. I mean, as it is, I type well over 20,000 keystrokes per day on a standard day where I go to meetings more than I code...and probably half of that is some combination of ctrl+space, tab, and ();.

Not only that, but if I had to type System.Web.UI.WebControls.BlahBlah yadda; every time I made a new server object on an ASP.Net page, I would hang myself with the laptop cord. I personally like to switch to design mode that one time and have all that crap created for me. To me, declaring that stuff isn't programming...that's bitch work. Might as well have the IDE do my bitch work so I can write the meat of the program. Maybe it's just me.

As to "Intellisense Spelunking", to my knowledge I coined the term last night. Patent pending unless someone can show me some prior art. Intellisense Spelunking is an invaluable tool. I'm not that bright, and therefore I don't have the whole .Net class library memorized and indexed in my head. Now if I know that I need to say...do some socket programming...that I can just type in System.Net and explore what comes up in Intellisense until I find what I'm looking for. To me...that's more productive than searching the documentation for something where I already know what I'm doing but just don't know the right classes, or the right properties. So I Intellisense Spelunk, complete with little hardhat and forehead light, and I find what I need. I know for a fact I'm not the only one.

I think if the dude writing CafePress' asp.net pages prefers to do it all in Notepad that he's smoking rock. At least use Notepad2...