Post by SteveLike I wrote, I already have a better IDE ( Visual Slickedit ) than
Eclipse.
I'll have to check out Visual Slickedit...
Post by SteveI am learning Eclipse because it is defacto "industry standard" and I
think knowing it well could help me fit in at different shops. Many
tutorials on the web are also videos or screenshots of eclipse, so I see
value in myself becoming personally familiar with it.
No harm in being familiar with what "everyone uses". As long as you
don't use it only for that reason. Use it because you personally find
value of using it over alternatives. *Some* of that value will come
from "everyone uses it", but not all.
Post by SteveI've read a lot of people recommending IntelliJ. I might just try it
out someday, but I doubt if I would use it. It is about $200 for a
personal license.
Yup. I've paid for my own when my company wouldn't, but now my company
pays for it. They also have good "upgrade" licenses which reduces the
TCO over time.
Post by SteveI've been using Visual Slickedit for about 14 years, paying $300 each
time I get a new version. If I completely migrate to another IDE, my
bias would toward one that is free or much lower in cost. That is a
big If. IntelliJ is written in Java, which will make it slower than
Visual Slickedit, which I believe is written in C and compiled.
Being written in C and compiled does not guarantee being faster than
being in Java. Granted, Java (and IntelliJ) do sometimes have
GC/swapping issues, but that is more about the memory model than the
compiled code.
Post by SteveVisual
Slickedit boots fast enough to use it as a text editor for quick notes.
IntelliJ would have to have several MUST HAVE features that VSE does
not. The VSE company is always soliciting suggestions to keep up so it
probably wouldn't be long before VSE had it too.
The big features in IntelliJ I like is its automatic code completion.
It is extremely smart about types and scope, it also is camel-case
aware. For example, if there is a method MyFoo findMyFoo(), and I want
the following code written: MyFoo foo = findMyFoo(); The keystrokes I
need are:
M-F (command-space) foo = (command-space); if there are other "MyFoo"
values (other variables or methods), then I need to differentiate
between them. It will provide a drop-down to show the ambiguity, but I
can type "fmf" or "fMF" to narrow it down to findMyFoo".
This might seem like a small gain, but I use it extensively. It's even
helpful when exploring a new API. It also has quick pop-up JavaDoc
viewing which helps for that purpose as well.
Next best feature: Automated Refactoring. Introduce
(constant/variable/method) are incredible. They will even automatically
find duplicate code which can be replaced by the newly created entity.
Extract Superclass/Interface are also awesome, but need a little more
oversight. Push members down/pull members up help with larger
refactoring tasks.
Post by SteveAll of which is my excessively verbose way of saying that I don't need a
better IDE, I'm learning Eclipse to fit in better as a Java programmer
and since IntelliJ is expensive it would have eons better than Slickedit
for me to migrate to it.
IntelliJ has free versions now too. The expensive version provides a few
nice-to-haves in enterprise level development (better XML folding,
Spring support, webapp support). While I use those features, they
aren't what sold me the product.
Post by StevePost by Daniel PittsI have nothing against eclipse, other than I haven't really used it.
I haven't used it in a while. Years probably. I recall it being slow,
and buggy. I might have just had a bad version.
I realize I sound like I'm in IntelliJ sales :-). I just like the
product, but I could care less if anyone else uses it. Unless jetbrains
starts paying me for testimonials ;-)
Anyway, good luck with Eclipse and its slow bugger plugins that almost
do what you want ;-)