> it breaks up flow much much less than having to go to the documentation all the time to look up minor naming variations (is it "start" or "begin"?).

I read OP's position as: If you don't use aurocomplete you'll remember the naming variations better, and won't have to look them up all the time.

I still think aurocomplete might be faster for libraries you haven't used much before, but it doesn't sound at all unbelievable to me that the brain works as stated.

I never used autocomplete until my fourth programming language. By that point, trying to write anything was an exercise in frustration as I constantly mixed keywords, namespaces and functions from the other languages.

Nowadays, I just leave autocomplete on for minimal flow break no matter what language I'm using at the moment. I don't want language-specific names and structures interrupting the flow of models and ideas from my head.

OP's position doesn't work very well the more you generalize. I had OP's philosophy when all I was doing was low level C code. It doesn't work very well when you are switching between yaml, python, c++, c#, typescript all with different libraries, coding standards, and naming conventions. By the time you no longer need the reference to remember, the reference changes.

For me, it works with 5+ languages I write (production) code in at least every month...

I don't know how it is for others.

Also, I really try to minimize complexity and not ending up in the javascript npm dependency spaghetti..

Good code is simple and obvious....

> I still think aurocomplete might be faster for libraries you haven't used much before, but it doesn't sound at all unbelievable to me that the brain works as stated.

Possibly, but I still need to read the librarys documentation carefully, where I plan my code anyways...

I have seen so many "auto coders" write 100+ lines of extra code because they missed reading the manual carefully and doing it correctly/efficiently...

If lines of code is your metric, that is great, if not, not...

FWIW, I didn’t say that I don’t make mistakes. Perhaps you misread my comment.

And why would one need an excuse for setting their development environment up the way that works best for them?

> Perhaps you misread my comment.

Which comment are you referring to you? IshKebab (the user you are replying to) was replying to svennek (not you).

IshKebab said:

> This and the sibling "I don't make mistakes" comment just seem like excuses to me.

At the time of IshKebab’s comment I was the only sibling comment.

You literally said

> I’ve learned not to make the mistakes

Yes. Perhaps you're just skipping over the word "the" when reading that sentence? In the context it has a pretty important meaning, so it pays to read all the words, not just the ones that support your preconception.

I have learned not to make the specific mistakes that the linter used to tell me off for making, so it doesn't tell me off any more. That's a very different thing from "I don't make mistakes", which is what you incorrectly claimed that I said (even with quote marks around it, implying a direct quote!)

I think it depends on whether you type, or your fingers type (without brain involvement).

I didn't say, that I don't make mistakes. It is rare that I make it a quarter of an hour before fucking up... luckily I am good at fixing it :)

But again, if you like your IDE, use it.

I have (almost) one decade of using IDE vs. two of not using an IDE and I strongly prefer the freethinking of the latter...