As a tangential example, back when OSX market share started climbing a ~decade ago, it was a safe bet to say that the average OS X user was savvier than the average Windows user. This was true at a baseline regardless of what you think the "savvy" choice for an OS is: the simple fact that the sample of Windows users includes the large chunk of the population that didn't give any thought to their choice of computer (a sub-population that naturally is less savvy). This dynamic would hold true whether you think that savvy users would prefer Windows or OS X: by dint of being the default, the Windows-using population had its average savviness dragged down, a fact that has no bearing on the suitability of the OS for computer-literate users.

There could easily be a similar dynamic at play here: beginner developers are going to be more likely to be on a big GUI IDE, which would drag down the measured average quality of Eclipse users. This is entirely consistent with high-quality developers preferring Eclipse to Vim, or being split 50/50 between the two, etc etc. As you point out, confounders like age and experience are also likely contributors.

> It is possible that developers who code with vim and emacs are forced to focus on low-level details like method names while developers using IDE's can focus on getting stuff done.

FWIW, using Vim doesn't mean using raw Vim with no plugins. I used vim my entire time at Google and I was the most productive dev on most teams I was on. I'm pretty sure this would've been impossible without plugins at least including auto-complete, jumping to definitions, etc.

The data gives PyCharm and Visual Studio an "advantage", suggesting this isn't the case. Or are you suggesting that only Eclipse is used by beginners?

> I was the most productive dev on most teams I was on. I'm pretty sure this would've been impossible without plugins at least including auto-complete, jumping to definitions, etc.

Pretty sure this was unrelated to the editor you were using. All sane editors have these features you've listed, and I'm sure you would do equally as well with them, especially since being a productive developer doesn't mean you write the most code (usually).

I was just using a hypothetical example of how data can be confounded by factors that have nothing to do with the central implication that "better developers use vim/emacs". You're right that my particular example is weakened by the fact you describe, but there could be _further_ confounders: in my anecdotal experience, Eclipse is a lot more common as a beginner's IDE than any of the Jetbrains IDEs (everyone I know in college used Eclipse, while my first exposure to a Jetbrains IDE was a few years into my career, while at Google. FWIW, I prefer JB IDEs to Eclipse (and prefer vim to both!)).

> Pretty sure this was unrelated to the editor you were using. All sane editors have these features you've listed, and I'm sure you would do equally as well with them, especially since being a productive developer doesn't mean you write the most code (usually).

I think you've completely misunderstood my comment. I didn't say these things were related to the editor I was using. I said that the parent comment's implication that you can only be productive with a big IDE (as opposed to vim) is based on a misunderstanding of what vim is capable of. Obviously every sane editor has these features: they're pretty much table stakes for development IMO (which is the whole reason why I augmented my vim with them).