GCC8 the code patching A.I.

I generally leave on-the-fly syntax checking on since it shortens build cycles, but turn off automatic code completion (I invoke it manually every now and then, but I typically limit it to tab-completing long names). It's nice to have an continuous stream of thoughts down to the file, as opposed to having a two-way conversation with your editor, which means you need to keep reacting to what it tells you.

It’s also probably somewhere between horrible and impossible to get them to not get confused by arch-specific definitions, and they generally can’t understand inline assembly at all, so forget that.

So code completion kinda doesn’t work, and you can’t build, oh and the kernel codebase is too large for most IDEs to hold all of it without bogging down.

I miss having syntax checking and code completion, but only moderately.

I also tend - like most kernel developers, I think - to produce relatively few lines of code. (Few but high effort.). That makes the burden of not having such aids much smaller than if you’re writing up whole big chunks of new stuff.

I’m pretty sure my perspective is typical (though not universal...) in the kernel community, based on what I’ve heard and what my coworkers do.