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PDE: A different take on editing code

TJ DeVries · talk · Watch on YouTube

Testing, debugging & developer tools

What it is

TJ DeVries coins the term PDE (Personalized Development Environment) to describe editors like Neovim that you shape to your own workflow. He contrasts this with out-of-the-box IDEs and discusses why customizable tools appeal to developers.

Why Hacker News recommends it

It is the cited origin of the 'PDE' term, which HN uses when discussing vim, Neovim and Emacs as personally customized environments.

  • 2 people recommended it
  • 2 different months
  • 0 strong recommendations
  • first 2022, last 2025

What HN commenters said

  1. “For anyone not understanding why (neo)vim exists, or why some developers prefer it to IDEs, I suggest watching”

    Explains why developers prefer neovim over IDEs.

    ts0000, 2023-01 · Recommendation · in “Vim is touch-typing on steroids”

  2. “Great talk on this topic by TJ: Personal Development Environment”

    Talk on customized editor setups.

    ivanjermakov, 2025-01 · Recommendation · in “Trying out Zed after more than a decade of Vim/Neovim”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: neovim, pde, editors, customization, vim

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