Software Imprinting

I've suffered from this. I use Windows, so Macs and Linux are strange to me. I use Delphi and have started using Visual Studio. The key combos for Visual Studio are just ... wrong. F5 is for breakpoints, not build and run. So far, it's not bad, I'm getting work done, but it's still, off a little.

It's impossible to understand the alternatives when you can't muster the energy to get past your own software imprinting. You can't rationally compare alternatives with no experience in the alternatives, and software imprinting robs you of that vital experience.

There are periodic Usenet group debates about programming editors where various people will proclaim with conviction that their preferred editor is the best. In some of these debates I've asked some of the believers of various editor faiths if they'd ever tried various other alternatives. Well, no. They had never used CodeWright or Visual Slick Edit or Multi-Edit or assorted other editors. Some claimed to have used another editor about 5 or 10 years ago, but not the latest version.