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Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

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Re: Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

#111

Post by mythz »

herdcall wrote: post #87
mythz wrote: post #30

I used to think VS Code was going to be a threat to JetBrains IDEs considering how fast its iterative development was (thanks in large part to the productivity of JS + Web renderer) but its never seems to quite be able to reach the feature-set, polish & intelligence of JetBrains IDEs. Every IDE function appears to be better implemented in JetBrains, whether it's Code Analysis, Refactoring, Navigation, Running/Debuggi…

Not sure how many devs code in a single language these days. I go back/forth between Go, Dart, and C++ every day, so using one IDE like VSCode (with the familiar features from extensions to shortcuts to snippets) is a big help.

I do have to maintain libraries in several languages, basically every JetBrains IDE has built-in first-class support for JS/TypeScript + all popular Web file formats irrespective of whatever backend language you're developing in.

For C#, F# & VB I use Rider.

For Dart, Java & Kotlin I use Android Studio, but if I need to do a lot of development with Java/Kotlin I'll bounce to IDEA.

For TypeScript/JS npm projects I use VS Code for small changes, but bounce to WebStorm for longer sessions.

For the Swift package I use Xcode for development & VS Code for git, update docs & run publish scripts. Unfortunately ran into issues trying to build my project with AppCode.

For all other languages (used to develop project templates & packages for https://gist.cafe) I'll use VS Code, but that's mainly because I don't have the IDE installed. If I had to spend more than a couple of days working on a language that JetBrains offers a dedicated IDE for I'll most likely be installing & trying that out, before falling back to VS Code (JetBrains All Products Pack + Unified Toolbox Updates makes this effortless & feasible).

Re: Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

#112

Post by webstrand »

stewbrew wrote: post #101

404? Not having read the article, I think the main difference is that IDEA as a traditional IDE is a monolith, while VSCode interestingly and somewhat unexpectedly integrates a lot of different tools. With LSP, the VSCode team created something quite interesting. And the most interesting aspect is that an LSP server can be accessed from many other editors. I personally have grown to like VSCode. While I previously sw…

Found it here: https://archive.vn/nNdT1

Re: Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

#114

Post by arcturus17 »

tharkun__ wrote: post #98
dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what Microsoft does. Their #1 thing is being in the market even if the product is bad. They’re delegating now, but wait until they’ve established their foothold, leveled up the core framework. Then they’re going to stop delegating one language after another.

Embrace: put out an open source code editor. Extend: have a plugin system that everyone can contribute to (sounds like eclipse or IntelliJ CE) and even make money off of. Plugins don't have to be free. Extinguish: make your own plugins with full refactoring support etc. for the languages you see most actively used (everyone uses it for Go and Python now? Make a good enough plugin for that. Nobody uses it for Erlang a…

It remains to be seen whether they will find this economical when they are not making any direct revenue on the product.

I understand that VSCode is part of a grand strategic plan that goes beyond revenue, but I seriously doubt that they'd be willing to internally maintain the absolute truckload of code that would ensue from getting to feature parity with Jetbrains on languages like Java or Python. I'd wager at some point the quality would derail, or someone would pull the plug altogether on such a cost sink.

And that's one of the things I love about Jetbrains products. I'm actually delighted to pay for a product that I use every day for ~8 hours and which I think is extremely well-designed, knowing that the money is going to a company of craftsmen who do that, and only that.

Re: Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

#115

Post by david422 »

I found IntelliJ IDEA about 7 years ago. Before that, I had used a number of different editors/IDE's for polyglot development.

I honestly really started to enjoy developing again. Intellij let's me focus on the problems I'm trying to solve. It does a ton to help remove the boilerplate of programming. The things that I really use it most for:

  - 1. quick fixes. Automatically adds imports and cleans up code with a key command
  - 2. reformatting. I just reflexively reformat everything as I go
  - 3. show parameters. Cmd P shows me what I need to call functions
  - 4. find usages. Jumping through code is so fast and easy
  - 5. syntax highlighting. So many options. But the ones I use most are showing issues as I type, and clicking on a variable and it highlights its usages
There are probably more that I'm forgetting I use.

But I also bought the pro license for myself and happily renew every year. A lot of the features and upgrades I don't even use - they are for languages that other people use. But I am happy to support the product and get features that I do use.

Re: Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

#116

Post by patrickmcnamara »

meddlepal wrote: post #25
matwood wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I have used IntelliJ for Java for as long as I can remember and can't imagine using anything else. For JS and Go I use VSCode. I wonder if it's just what I started with and am used to. I've tried to use Intellij a couple of times for Go, but end up back on VSCode.

I dont know how you’re productive with VS Code and Go... I watch my coworkers live code with it sometimes and they are struggling. The lang server crashes constantly and stuff like autoimports or code complete barely works. I sometimes want to scream while watching them struggle.

I think only recently did the gopls become turned on by default for the Go plugin for VS Code. I've been using it for years and have never had any major issues.

Re: Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

#117

Post by tlb »

webstrand wrote: post #112
stewbrew wrote: post #101

404? Not having read the article, I think the main difference is that IDEA as a traditional IDE is a monolith, while VSCode interestingly and somewhat unexpectedly integrates a lot of different tools. With LSP, the VSCode team created something quite interesting. And the most interesting aspect is that an LSP server can be accessed from many other editors. I personally have grown to like VSCode. While I previously sw…

Found it here: https://archive.vn/nNdT1

Temporarily updated the main URL to this. Original was https://gist.github.com/rambingthoughts/c28fc8caa07733443c77... . Thanks

Re: Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

#118

Post by The_rationalist »

GrayShade wrote: post #81
The_rationalist wrote: post #37

Critique of the post: The belief that LSP are implemented in the compiler is mostly plain wrong. They might or might not be maintained by the same team as the language team but are almost always a separate library that interface through the compiler through APIs. Yes compiler have became much more queryable. Intellij has had a technology similar to LSP (and much more complete) a decade before it's "invention" and do…

> Actually intellij IDEs are quite fast nowadays and it improve regularly. I want what you're having. I've been actually trying DataGrip these past weeks and even though I only used it lightly and I'm on a pretty decent computer, it's terribly sluggish. Is there a magic option to make it run faster?

Don't know about datagrip, I was speaking for Idea and webstorm anyway they are mostly the same codebase.

You can increase the available ram to intellij in the settings (under the help section if I remember correctly) My old thinkpad was really slow with Idea because my RAM would easily overflow and therefore spam swap usage. The secret sauce is to go for 16GB of ram, any developer deserve it.

Also if you feel adventurous, by going to the EAP release channel you will get optimization earlier (at the cost of some rare additional bugs) Also always be up to date by using the jetbrains Toolbox and checking download update automatically.

If you turn mitigation=off on your Linux you will get better perf in general at the price of enabling an extremely hard and slow security threat.

Re: Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

#119

Post by perrylaj »

cutler wrote: post #89
brightball wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sums it up for me. For languages with a dedicated Jetbrains IDE (Java, Ruby, Python, etc) Jetbrains will be better experience hands down. For everything that doesn’t have the premium experience, I find that just using plugins isn’t as effective. For example, the experience of using IDEA with the Elixir plugin hasn’t been great despite a lot of development. It seems like it constantly loses the proper SDK if I ju…

Why the assumption that a separate editor needs to be released? IntelliJ with language plugins is better.

I agree. Intellij ultimate is the best polyglot work environment I've ever used. The primary project I work on has Java, kotlin, groovy, python, typescript, js, shell scripts, dockerfiles, various configuration files, etc. Intellij Ultimate handles them all equally well as the more specific language flavors in my experience.

Re: Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

#120

Post by dsissitka »

maple3142 wrote: post #27

In my opinion, one killer feature of VSCode is the ability to connect to WSL, remote server and Docker container. As someone mainly developing on WSL2, I use this feature everyday. I only use Idea when I need to use Java or Kotlin, because its language support is really good.

It looks like JetBrains' Projector went 1.0 last month.
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