> Smalltalk started the whole IDE idea actually. Yet as opposed to ST, Mesa or Lisp they have to integrate this with files and executables, which makes things

> Smalltalk started the whole IDE idea actually. Yet as opposed to ST, Mesa or Lisp they have to integrate this with files and executables, which makes things a lot more cumbersome. And then you get something like the web, where the moving parts are even further removed from each other. The problem is that IDEs and powerful editing aren't exactly opposites (let's not forget that Emacs is basically a Lisp IDE). But I've yet to see an IDE that comes close, mostly because the lack of a good extension language (plugins are way too heavy), and possibly because the GUI provides a bigger impedance to additions. I really like the trend towards "headless" IDE backends.