this is such an amusing question and brings back memories. The place where I used to work, the veterans (those with long beards, a walking stick, bald patch...only joking) would swear that EMACS is all you need.
She works quite cheaply. And she get's along with your mom when she comes over. It's like a play date. Of course I hear all the embarrassing stories. Remember that time you had that embarrassing experience with the doll? *looks around to see if anyone heard.
My paperback notepad. I write the code on a piece of paper( black ink only ), then scan the page into the computer, and determine each character based on the pixels of the page using some software. I just can't seem to figure out why it won't compile most of the time. Still, I use Visual C++ Express 2010 now though.
I kid I kid, My favorite IDE is different on each platform. In linux I almost never take on projects large enough to warrant an IDE so it's usually a combination of gedit or nano and gnu's compiler set. When I need an IDE in windows I use VS2010. And when I need an IDE on OSX it's xcode.
At the moment I don't (other than started tinkering with iOS stuff in XCode).
I might be looking into ARM stuff later in the year. The Raspberry Pi Foundation* are planning to manufacture and distribute an ultra-low-cost computer. This looks like the perfect platform to get back to my robot OS design.
I have had a long term goal to make a Robot (or several). The aim for the OS would be that of a distributed realtime OS geared towards the needs on a robot. Doing things with robotics/embedded systems is still quite expensive in the UK and as a result the project spends most of it's time stalled.
My favorite IDE would have to be a mix of Vim and Cmake (for build system, which coincidentally needs GNU make). Unfortunately though, I find myself on Windows for one reason or another and neither of those play well with Window (mainly since Windows doesn't have any well-featured command shell emulators and Cmake has trouble finding packages).
The last time I looked for a smallish 4WD Chassis to build a garden rover it was over £200. The last SBC I had cost me £250, I was not happy when the smoke got out.
I get the impression that doing robotics/Mechatronics elsewhere in the world is a lot cheaper.