> When people love an IDE product so much that they can't work without it, they have overspecialised to their detriment.

I think you are wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_memory

Being extremely good at something increases the gap between said something and everything else. That doesn't mean being extremely good at the first thing is "over-specialization to detriment". If someone is equally mediocre at everything, they have no such gap, so no "over-specialization to detriment"; but is that really worth desiring? I think not.

> Being extremely good at something increases the gap between said something and everything else.

You're also potentially over-specializing at one level while at the same time neglecting other levels.

Musicians run into this problem when, for example, they rely solely on muscle memory to make it through a performance. Throw enough stress and complicated music at them and they quickly buckle.

Meanwhile, a more seasoned performer remembers the exact fingers they used when drilling the measure after their mistake, what pitch is in the bass, what chord they are playing, what inversion that chord is in, the context of that chord in the greater harmonic progression, what section of the piece that harmonic progression is in, and so forth.

A friend of mine was able to improvise a different chord progression after a small mistake. He could do this because he knew where he was in the piece/section/chord progression and where he needed to go in the next measure.

In short, I'm fairly certain OP is talking about these levels of comprehension in computer programming. It's fine if someone is immensely comfortable in one IDE and grumpy in another. But it's not so fine if changing a shortcut reveals that they don't understand what a header file is.

What if the IDE is a LeapFrog 2-in-1 Educational Laptop

If you make usable products that solve problems for others from that then it’s a great IDE…

Good luck writing Java with notepad.

We did that back in 1996, however the sentiment applies to most languages.

Example Notepad versus Turbo C++ described on the article.

Tons of people did that but with nvi/vim and calling javac by hand.

Was literally a thing in some colleges.

Why is it to their detriment? It's not like they're stuck with it forever. "Can't work without it" is really "won't work without it because they prefer installing it over going without."

As someone that started when only rich people could afford GUIs, I don't understand what is killer app about it.

We used text terminals because that is what we could afford, and I gladly only start a terminal window when I have to.

The killer thing about it is that it is a gateway to the shell, all the command line tooling and the best cross-platform UI.

Xerox PARC, Atari, Amiga and many others had shells, without needing to live on a teletype world.

It is only cross platform as long as it pretends to be a VT100.

It's not about needing to live in a teletype world, it is about how language/text is just a better interface for a general use computer. Computers primary feature is that they are programmable and an interface that allows you to take advantage of that is superior to one that doesn't. The programmable GUIs all failed to gain traction (smalltalk and like), that left the shell (and maybe spreadsheets) as the best UI for this. Though as AIs mature we might see a shift here as they could provide a programmable interface that could rival shell scripting.

The reason why GUIs became so popular so quickly after they were introduced is because text is not "just a better interface for a general use computer".

Like OP, I remember the days when command line was all you had, and even then we used stuff like TUI file managers to mitigate the pain of it.

But GUIs never took off as a UI for a general purpose computer, they became the UI for application on a general purpose computer. For them to be the former requires them to be programmable. Smalltalk is the best/most-famous example of a Graphical UI for a general purpose computer I can think of...

The main point is that for a general purpose computer the UI needs to integrate programming. Programming is how you use a computer. The shell (text) is currently the primary UI that inherently allows programming.

Is a modern phone a general purpose computer?

What kind-of UI does a modern phone present?

A modern phone is not a general purpose computer. They are proprietary, locked down devices. Appliances.

"The PinePhone is a smartphone that empowers users with control over the device. It is capable of running mainline Linux, features hardware privacy switches, and is designed for open-source enthusiasts."

Perhaps I simply failed to see your definition of "a general purpose computer".

Please say what rules must be passed to meet your definition.

CLI is also specific to apps in practice, and I don't see any obvious difference between scripted CLI and scripted (with the likes of Active Scripting or AppleScript, or for that matter Tcl etc) GUI apps.

The difference is that you don't use Active Scripting, AppleScript, TCL, etc. as your primary UI. The shell is a script-able UI.

Great that Microsoft, Apple and Google are on the right path then, with AI voice controlled and gestures OSes.

> I gladly only start a terminal window when I have to.

Exactly so. I am perfectly able to work entirely in a text/CLI world, and did for years. I don't becase I don't have to. I have better, richer alternative tools available to me now.

It was very odd to join Red Hat briefly in 2014 and meet passionate Vi advocates who were born after I tried Vi and discarded it as a horrible primitive editor.