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Emacs vs. WebStorm for Node.js Development

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Re: Emacs vs. WebStorm for Node.js Development

#11

Post by disease »

aikah wrote: post #7

I personally moved to visual studio code (from WebStorm ) which has a good debugger for Nodejs and a few features that are really handy ( support for .d.ts definitions for node modules ... ). I usually don't use MS products but they did an impressive job with that IDE, no question.

Don't forget integrated git support too! And yeah the type definition files are awesome since you get intellisense with documentation in it! I wonder if the author of the article has given Code a good look because it would seem to meet most of his needs.

My only pain point with VS Code right now is the lack of any kind of core REPL support. I'd love to be able to sling stuff back and forth between source code and a REPL like you can in emacs. And yeah I know about Command-C - I just want to do everything in the IDE.

Re: Emacs vs. WebStorm for Node.js Development

#12

Post by scottaj2 »

aikah wrote: post #7

I personally moved to visual studio code (from WebStorm ) which has a good debugger for Nodejs and a few features that are really handy ( support for .d.ts definitions for node modules ... ). I usually don't use MS products but they did an impressive job with that IDE, no question.

Author here, I haven't tried Visual Studio Code but i'll be sure to check it out.

As a side note, WebStorm also supports TypeScript definitions. It has an menu to download and add them to your project from definitely typed under "Preferences->Languages & Frameworks->JavaScript>Libraries"

Re: Emacs vs. WebStorm for Node.js Development

#13

Post by scottaj2 »

tuananh wrote: post #2

tl;dr: (everybody already know this) webstorm is better at debugging

The debugger is huge to be sure. But a bigger thing for me personally is the TDD workflow. Being able to have it sit there and autorun a subset of relevant mocha tests as I am working is huge for me.

Re: Emacs vs. WebStorm for Node.js Development

#14

Post by scottaj2 »

DigitalJack wrote: post #5
pmontra wrote: post #3

Partially offtopic. The author is doing > "complex edits [in Emacs] using Vim macros" This is a big surprise. I left vi for emacs in the early '90s when vi's macros were crippled, to say the least. I'm using vim for quick edits, mainly on servers or configuration files (sudo vi /etc/something). Did vim macros really become better than Emacs' ones?

Vim's macros are super easy to record and play back, repeatedly. It's the one thing I'll still use evil mode for. Emacs isn't that much worse, vim is just faster and easier.

Exactly this. I have the muscle memory built so I can just bang out the macro really fast, and evil lets it contain a mix of vim or emacs commands.

Re: Emacs vs. WebStorm for Node.js Development

#15

Post by emidln »

Illniyar wrote: post #9
tuananh wrote: post #2

tl;dr: (everybody already know this) webstorm is better at debugging

Actually for me, this is much more important: "Symbol and definition lookup is another great feature of WebStorm. While Emacs can find symbols and definitions in a single file via Tern, WebStorm can actually inspect your whole project and find a definition, or at least give you a very pruned list of candidates to choose from." not being able to Ctrl-click a variable or function really reduces my efficency (especially…

I'm not sure how other emacs users do this, but I use `projectile-grep` to grep for symbols in a project all the time. In the spacemacs this is bound to `SPC g s p`.

Re: Emacs vs. WebStorm for Node.js Development

#16

Post by softawre »

scottaj2 wrote: post #12
aikah wrote: post #7

I personally moved to visual studio code (from WebStorm ) which has a good debugger for Nodejs and a few features that are really handy ( support for .d.ts definitions for node modules ... ). I usually don't use MS products but they did an impressive job with that IDE, no question.

Author here, I haven't tried Visual Studio Code but i'll be sure to check it out. As a side note, WebStorm also supports TypeScript definitions. It has an menu to download and add them to your project from definitely typed under "Preferences->Languages & Frameworks->JavaScript>Libraries"

I also switched to VS Code after using WebStorm forever. Try it out.

Re: Emacs vs. WebStorm for Node.js Development

#17

Post by vfc1 »

The new Webstorm version coming up is several times faster, its amazing. On a Mac its so fast its literally like using Sublime.

This is due among other things due to their upgrade to Java 8.

This is the link to the early access program https://confluence.jetbrains.com/display/WI/WebStorm+EAP

Re: Emacs vs. WebStorm for Node.js Development

#18

Post by ludwigvan »

Here are some helper commands I use to resolve JavaScript modules within emacs.

The basic idea is to extract the string inside the require or import call, then ask a node subprocess to locate that file (using require.resolve), and use emacs to open that file.

I'm sure someone more experienced with elisp can take it to the next level.

See the interactive commands section towards the end of the file.

https://github.com/ustun/emacs-helpers-for-js/blob/master/uo...

Re: Emacs vs. WebStorm for Node.js Development

#19

Post by michaelwww »

aikah wrote: post #7

I personally moved to visual studio code (from WebStorm ) which has a good debugger for Nodejs and a few features that are really handy ( support for .d.ts definitions for node modules ... ). I usually don't use MS products but they did an impressive job with that IDE, no question.

VS Code has become the editor I find myself using most often because it usually does things that I do with a little more elegance and ease than other editors. One thing I see people complain about, as I used to, is that it doesn't have a file tab interface and it only puts files you have changed in the "working files" area, meaning if you open a file to view it you can lose track of it. However, I discovered clicking on the file name of the open file reveals a drop down of most recent files. After using it for awhile, I no longer miss having multiple files open in tabs.
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