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One annoyance with Java(and Kotlin too) is that it's pretty much the only language left that you really ought to use a specialized IDE with while pretty much ev

One annoyance with Java(and Kotlin too) is that it's pretty much the only language left that you really ought to use a specialized IDE with while pretty much every other language(including C#) you can get adequate support in VS Code or Emacs.

bloomthrowaway 8y ago
VS Code support for Java ain't bad
pjmlp 8y ago
The annoyance is the lack of productivity when going back to the 80's style of programming. Using IDEs since mid-90's, and I used to know XEmacs quite well.
inertiatic 8y ago
VS Code isn't that bad from my experience. I tried working on a small project with VS Code (as opposed to working with Intellij as I usually do for my job) and I didn't miss that much. Might be that as complexity grows you need more and more IDE features to deal with it, but that's a symptom of older codebases being in Java more than it's a fault of the language itself, right?
sydd 8y ago
I think its the other way, there are only a few languages with as superb IDE support as Java. AFAIK its just C++, Java and C#. You can get shitty support with just syntax coloring for anything and anywhere of course.
- cm2187 8y ago
  Couldn't agree more. A powerful IDE with rich, intuitive, self-discoverable, user friendly design tools, debugging and refactorisation is as important to me than the language itself. And I'd say a third thing that matters as much as IDE and syntax is the wealth of libraries. Not just common things like consuming a rest API. But also specialised things like dealing with spreadsheets, music, whatever your domain cares about.
- acdha 8y ago
  That gap is closing – e.g. VS Code has refactoring, definition lookup, linting, etc. support for Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Rust, etc. It’s still not what the top IDEs can provide but it’s way more than syntax highlighting and since everything is open source it’s improving a lot faster than the commercial market.

bloomthrowaway 8y ago

VS Code support for Java ain't bad

pjmlp 8y ago

The annoyance is the lack of productivity when going back to the 80's style of programming. Using IDEs since mid-90's, and I used to know XEmacs quite well.

inertiatic 8y ago

VS Code isn't that bad from my experience. I tried working on a small project with VS Code (as opposed to working with Intellij as I usually do for my job) and I didn't miss that much. Might be that as complexity grows you need more and more IDE features to deal with it, but that's a symptom of older codebases being in Java more than it's a fault of the language itself, right?

sydd 8y ago

I think its the other way, there are only a few languages with as superb IDE support as Java. AFAIK its just C++, Java and C#. You can get shitty support with just syntax coloring for anything and anywhere of course.

cm2187 8y ago
Couldn't agree more. A powerful IDE with rich, intuitive, self-discoverable, user friendly design tools, debugging and refactorisation is as important to me than the language itself. And I'd say a third thing that matters as much as IDE and syntax is the wealth of libraries. Not just common things like consuming a rest API. But also specialised things like dealing with spreadsheets, music, whatever your domain cares about.
acdha 8y ago
That gap is closing – e.g. VS Code has refactoring, definition lookup, linting, etc. support for Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Rust, etc. It’s still not what the top IDEs can provide but it’s way more than syntax highlighting and since everything is open source it’s improving a lot faster than the commercial market.