Ask HN: State of Free IDEs

#1

Post by dfrey1 » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 11:28 AM UTC

I recently got a new Mac Pro, and I'm setting it up. Which free IDE/setup would you recommend? In general, I'm a fan of JetBrain IDEs, but I don't want to pay for a license.

I have never been fully satisfied with my VSCode setup (and I occasionally found it pretty slow).

So tell me, HN hive-brain - what should I use?

Re: Ask HN: State of Free IDEs

#2

Post by andrewfromx » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 12:19 PM UTC

A free option for java/kotlin is always https://developer.android.com/studio which is based on (correct me if I'm wrong) https://www.eclipse.org/downloads/ right?

But c'mon, we all know vim is all you need.

Re: Ask HN: State of Free IDEs

#3

Post by mattbrewsbytes » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 12:49 PM UTC

Code editing and workflow are really personal choices and subjective. I moved from IDE's to Sublime Text because of IDE slowness and annoyances. I made this move back when I did Java stuff and used Eclipse. I've tried VS Code a few times and just can't get into a flow, it feels slow. I find code suggestion popups to be annoying and usually never what I was going to type anyhow.

So I'd say try out text editors rather than IDES: Sublime (free to try out), vim, emacs, etc. They have enough options and plugins, etc. to make them really powerful.

Kinda funny that you have really good hardware and still found VS Code was slow at times. I imagine JetBrains costly subscription options are similar.

Re: Ask HN: State of Free IDEs

#4

Post by asicsp » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 1:01 PM UTC

I use GVim, so can't personally recommend an IDE. You mention not wanting to pay for Jetbrain, but don't they have free versions with less features?

Also, check out https://www.kdevelop.org/

Re: Ask HN: State of Free IDEs

#5

Post by syncbehind » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 1:05 PM UTC

andrewfromx wrote: post #2

A free option for java/kotlin is always https://developer.android.com/studio which is based on (correct me if I'm wrong) https://www.eclipse.org/downloads/ right? But c'mon, we all know vim is all you need.

>But c'mon, we all know vim is all you need.

That's a funny way to spell emacs.

But who am I kidding, I don't code. I could, but then who would waste all of my time reading HN?

Re: Ask HN: State of Free IDEs

#6

Post by throwawaysalome » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 1:37 PM UTC

andrewfromx wrote: post #2

A free option for java/kotlin is always https://developer.android.com/studio which is based on (correct me if I'm wrong) https://www.eclipse.org/downloads/ right? But c'mon, we all know vim is all you need.

(correct me if I'm wrong)

A free option for java/kotlin is Jetbrains IDEA Community Edition, more commonly know as "IntelliJ" to the millions of developers who view paying for software as an injustice. Android Studio is merely a re-skin of it, with lots of Android-specific extensions.

Re: Ask HN: State of Free IDEs

#7

Post by foobarbaz33 » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 1:51 PM UTC

Emacs and LSP servers work pretty well for some languages. Works great for Go. ripgrep and/or ctags cover any weird languages.

    brew tap d12frosted/emacs-plus
    brew install emacs-plus

Re: Ask HN: State of Free IDEs

#8

Post by throwaway019254 » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 2:14 PM UTC

IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition + install plugins you need. Done.

Re: Ask HN: State of Free IDEs

#9

Post by danielbraun » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 2:20 PM UTC

what a cheapskate...

Re: Ask HN: State of Free IDEs

#10

Post by schwartzworld » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 2:47 PM UTC

throwaway019254 wrote: post #8

IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition + install plugins you need. Done.

The upside of using intellij is that when you get a job you can probably get your work to pay for a license and then you are already used to the tooling.