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Escape IntelliJ: Scala and Kotlin LSPs on Emacs Eglot

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Re: Escape IntelliJ: Scala and Kotlin LSPs on Emacs Eglot

#71

Post by pjmlp »

akshaydeshraj wrote: post #37
sajithdilshan wrote: post #13

> But what do you actually get with IntelliJ? A massive, monolithic Java application that frequently hogs 8GB+ of RAM, locks up your system while “indexing pre-built binaries,” and forces you into a closed proprietary ecosystem. This is just exaggeration. I use IntelliJIDEA everyday (on mac) with multiple projects open and tbh they have optimized the IDE a lot to make it faster. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's…

IntelliJ (actually Android Studio based on IntelliJ) was my first real IDE and real programming experience. I was so blown away ! Almost 15 years later, nothing else matches the out of the box experience of IntelliJ, atleast for JVM based languages.

Add in VS for .NET languages and C++ (hot reload, debugging capabilities), and the beloved Delphi/C++ Builder duo as well.

To this day there isn't anything like C++ Builder, if you want the famous VB dev experience, but with C++.

Re: Escape IntelliJ: Scala and Kotlin LSPs on Emacs Eglot

#72

Post by f3408fh »

laszlojamf wrote: post #49

I agree that IntelliJ is a monster of a resource hog, but I have yet to find an editor where code navigation is as good. That's basically all I use it for these days, in the days of LLMs, and I still think it's worth it. VSCode, especially for golang, is terrible. I might be holding it wrong, but I've really tried, and it's just not good enough. Before LLMs, when I still refactored by hand, coworkers who were using v…

Saying that VS Code is terrible for Go is simply false. The Go extension is regularly updated and works extremely well. Sure, it lacks some advanced refactoring features available in IntelliJ, like function parameters reordering, but gopls supports most refactoring you'd need to do day to day..

Re: Escape IntelliJ: Scala and Kotlin LSPs on Emacs Eglot

#73

Post by marginalia_nu »

pjmlp wrote: post #39
marginalia_nu wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just a wrapper for jdtls. I mean it works on some projects, but fails on many gradle builds and is basically just running the Eclipse IDE headlessly. This is probably the one contender: https://github.com/georgewfraser/java-language-server and it kinda works, but it's also a bit lacking.

The problem is using Gradle, for starters.

I do enjoy my 3s build times though, even if it comes at a considerable cost of sanity points whenever anything needs changing or doing in the build.

Re: Escape IntelliJ: Scala and Kotlin LSPs on Emacs Eglot

#74

Post by pjmlp »

minraws wrote: post #67

I wrote an LSP for kotlin and java recently and it's so annoying how tightly coupled all the LSP stuff is in IntelliJ to the IDE itself they have a outside LSP project which seems to be going very slow or nowhere is very sad. Note I tried to use IntelliJ to build it the performance was not nearly as nice as I would have liked still better than a lot of LSPs but still. I know a bunch of folks have tried it but I think…

I will quote the blog post announcing Kotlin as project, so naturally it is tied to InteliJ.

"The next thing is also fairly straightforward: we expect Kotlin to drive the sales of IntelliJ IDEA. We’re working on a new language, but we do not plan to replace the entire ecosystem of libraries that have been built for the JVM. So you’re likely to keep using Spring and Hibernate, or other similar frameworks, in your projects built with Kotlin. And while the development tools for Kotlin itself are going to be free and open-source, the support for the enterprise development frameworks and tools will remain part of IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate, the commercial version of the IDE. And of course the framework support will be fully integrated with Kotlin."

https://blog.jetbrains.com/kotlin/2011/08/why-jetbrains-need...

Re: Escape IntelliJ: Scala and Kotlin LSPs on Emacs Eglot

#75

Post by microflash »

As a very heavy user of IntelliJ and associated family of IDEs, I’d say they are extremely bloated compared to a few years ago. My latest annoyance with IDEA has been extremely slow disk sync. If I edit something outside the IDE, it takes a while to appear in it.

They should cut down the binary size and ship a leaner version without all the bundled plugins. They should improve performance on extremely large projects (both memory and IO).

Although I have let my personal Ultimate subscription expire, I still use it at work because debugger, codenav and autocompletion are still best in class.

Re: Escape IntelliJ: Scala and Kotlin LSPs on Emacs Eglot

#76

Post by pjmlp »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #73
pjmlp wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is using Gradle, for starters.

I do enjoy my 3s build times though, even if it comes at a considerable cost of sanity points whenever anything needs changing or doing in the build.

After how many GB dedicated to keeping the Gradle daemon running with acceptable performance?

Re: Escape IntelliJ: Scala and Kotlin LSPs on Emacs Eglot

#77

Post by WalterGR »

phplovesong wrote: post #52

Same for the jetbrains PHP based IDE (iirc named something in the likes of webstorm, or phpwind etc) is super slow and hogs ram like crazy. Also most devs using it have really, relly poor skills. Its weird i know, but i see it time and time again.

> Also most devs using it have really, relly poor skills. Its weird i know, but i see it time and time again.

Specifically in the PHP community? Legitimately curious...

Re: Escape IntelliJ: Scala and Kotlin LSPs on Emacs Eglot

#78

Post by pjmlp »

phplovesong wrote: post #54
DrProtic wrote: post #45

People will go to great lengths to avoid paying for what is, arguably, an outstanding product from a great company, then think nothing of spending the same amount at Starbucks. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a company scrutinized and nitpicked as much as JetBrains.

Well its a russian company, and took part in the solarwinds hack, that was directly funded by the fsb. So, yeah, it should ve scrutinized, nitpicked and avoided at all costs. Its 2026, there is no need for a proprieraty IDE that is stuck in the early 2000s.

So we get to replace it for a programmer's editor from the early 1980's instead, good call.

Re: Escape IntelliJ: Scala and Kotlin LSPs on Emacs Eglot

#79

Post by jillesvangurp »

pjmlp wrote: post #40
jillesvangurp wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, I've been using their community edition for years for Kotlin development. Works fine for normal day to day development needs. I had a paid subscription for a while that I just let expire because I rely more on agentic coding tools these days and I just don't write a lot of code by hand at this point. The paid version adds a lot of deeper integrations and tools that you may or may not need. Personally, I don'…

I keep finding interesting that some devs refuse to pay for tooling like every other profession, yet they don't take pull requests as salary either.

I don't see the OSS world as transactional. For example, I contribute some modest OSS projects for free without expectation of direct compensation. Lots of other people do similar things. That's what makes OSS work.

Some of that stuff is supported by big corporations that employ the people that work on those things and have a financial interest in making sure those things continue to exist. As a result, I get to stand on the shoulders of giants. That extends to things like Linux, databases and other middleware, frameworks and libraries, and lots and lots of developer tools.

I pay for plenty of SAAS stuff when I need to or when it adds value. Just not for Intellij.

Re: Escape IntelliJ: Scala and Kotlin LSPs on Emacs Eglot

#80

Post by pjmlp »

anthk wrote: post #33

Can Java developers run a GUI builder outside the IDE and then use any other editor for the rest and then compile a project with Maven and the like?

Of course, at least those of us that know Java since 1996, and the only thing we got was the 1.0.2 JDK on a magazine cover CD ROM.
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