I do Java programming by day, and I still find the IDE to be a pain in the ass. It offers me a lot of power (enough that I still use it for all my Java code), b

I do Java programming by day, and I still find the IDE to be a pain in the ass. It offers me a lot of power (enough that I still use it for all my Java code), but the configuration is so opaque. It's a GUI, but what a confusing, complicated GUI. In contrast, opening a repl in python/node is super easy, and it was super easy even when I was a beginner. Building a GUI like you said would be hard, (though I did a very simple tkinter gui in my first year), but I think that even for a beginner, opening a repl and starting to muck around is easier without the IDE in the way.