4 ms·

I'm an outsider fan. I've attempted to use IntelliJ on multiple occasions, but it just can't really compete with Eclipse as far as my requirements are concerned

by hugi 7y ago

I'm an outsider fan. I've attempted to use IntelliJ on multiple occasions, but it just can't really compete with Eclipse as far as my requirements are concerned. But the competition from and innovation in IntelliJ has no doubt made Eclipse better (and modern Eclipse is kind of awesome and just keeps getting better).

chris_j 7y ago
What is it about your requirements that means that IntelliJ can't compete with Eclipse?
- itronitron 7y ago
  being able to organize things into separate projects in Eclipse, in the same window, is very nice
  - ivan_gammel 7y ago
    Eclipse project = IntelliJ module Eclipse workspace = IntelliJ project
  - Majestic121 7y ago
    That's possible with intelliJ as well (at least in the pro version)
- hugi 7y ago
  I'm a contractor working on many projects. Using Eclipse, I can keep my entire universe of all projects I have deployed (about 30 of them), as well as their dependent libraries, as well as every open source project I use and contribute to, open at all times. I almost never close a project and I never open a project. It's just all there. If I need to use or modify a piece of code, written by me or someone else, it's all accessible to me at all times with a single keystroke. No project switching. Close to no context switching. IntelliJ doesn't even come close to this kind of power.
  - shagie 7y ago
    I believe you're seeing a conceptual mismatch between workspace and project from how Eclipse and IntelliJ model working. Try creating an empty project in IntelliJ and then add each of your Eclipse projects as a module to the IntelliJ empty project.
    - hugi 7y ago
      Yeah, tried that. Multiple times. IntelliJ just doesn't handle it performance wise, and it feels awkward because IntelliJ just isn't designed as well for working on multiple projects simultaneously. It's probably great for people working on a single project with some dependencies (modules). IntelliJ really wants you to open a project, work on it, then you close it and open the next project. That doesn't fit me. Doesn't mean IntelliJ is bad, it's just a bit limited in that regard. My dozens of projects are not a single project with "modules". I have a universe of code in multitudes of interrelated projects, closed source and open source. I want to refactor openly, not having to care how I'm moving code between projects. Eclipse works perfectly for this. IntelliJ does not.
      - AnthonBerg 7y ago
        IntelliJ really wants you to open a project, work on it, then you close it and open the next project. That doesn't fit me. This does not match my experience at all, fwiw. I keep all manner of projects open simultaneously.
      - Aeolun 7y ago
        I think it’s interesting that this issue was exactly why I switched away from Eclipse years ago. The performance was atrocious. I guess that pushed them to improve ;)
        hugi 7y ago
        Yeah, "modern Eclipse" is a very different beast from "several years ago Eclipse", that also goes for performance. As I said in a parent, I'm very certain the competition from IntelliJ got them off their asses :).
jillesvangurp 7y ago
I switched from Eclipse to Intellij only three years ago because it actually used to be pretty good but just fell behind too much. Gradle & Spring Boot were the reason I gave up on Eclipse. I just couldn't get a project imported correctly without running into a lot of bugs. So, when a new project came up I just switched over and started using Intellij. Before that, for doing vanilla maven + Java projects Eclipse was awesome and generally running circles around intellij in terms of performance, which is still something that is off by order of magnitudes in Intellij and something I miss a lot. Intellij users are always surprised when I bring that up and say it is fine on their machine. And then I point out that 5-20 seconds to run a unit test after a 1 letter code change is obscenely slow compared to Eclipse because it finishes incremental compilation a few ms after you lift your finger and is ready to run your test. Intellij attempted to integrate the Eclipse incremental compiler but it is not used by default and generally not that well integrated. Their compilation strategy depends on a lot of caching, which is hard and frequently gets in an inconsistent state (i.e. your IDE lies to you about things compiling or not compiling), which is why people routinely rebuild their whole project, or worse invalidate caches and restart (a top level menu option because it needs to be).
- aedron 7y ago
  There are, despite the often very aggressive IntelliJ proponents, many areas where Eclipse beats IntelliJ, and incremental compilation is indeed one of the most important. It is also possibly the most important feature in a Java IDE. Ctrl+s and you know the whole codebase is compiled. Go to another file and any code change is available in the code completion (like new or changed methods signatures). Any errors from the change you just saved is shown immediately from across the entire codebase. I just can't live without a core thing like this missing, and compounded with a number of other things that Eclipse does better, I stay on Eclipse. Unfortunately many younger developers think IntelliJ is all there is.
  - dathanb82 7y ago
    When's the last time you checked out IntelliJ? It does incremental compilation these days, plus auto-save-and-compile whenever you switch tabs (not just when you save the current tab, which bit me many times in Eclipse; though I haven't used Eclipse in at least four years now), so code completion is immediately updated. I'm pretty sure this has been the case for a few years now.
pharaohgeek 7y ago
There is a single Eclipse plugin that keeps me married to that IDE: log4e (http://log4e.de http://log4e.de). It makes it a breeze to add logging statements to your code. One click puts start/end statements on all methods. One click lets you log a particular variable. And all the statements are templatized, making it dead simple to ensure your logging adheres to your company's logging standards. I WISH this plugin (or something comparable) was available for IntelliJ or even NetBeans. I'd drop Eclipse in a heartbeat.

by hugi 7y ago

chris_j 7y ago

What is it about your requirements that means that IntelliJ can't compete with Eclipse?

itronitron 7y ago
being able to organize things into separate projects in Eclipse, in the same window, is very nice
- ivan_gammel 7y ago
  Eclipse project = IntelliJ module Eclipse workspace = IntelliJ project
- Majestic121 7y ago
  That's possible with intelliJ as well (at least in the pro version)
hugi 7y ago
I'm a contractor working on many projects. Using Eclipse, I can keep my entire universe of all projects I have deployed (about 30 of them), as well as their dependent libraries, as well as every open source project I use and contribute to, open at all times. I almost never close a project and I never open a project. It's just all there. If I need to use or modify a piece of code, written by me or someone else, it's all accessible to me at all times with a single keystroke. No project switching. Close to no context switching. IntelliJ doesn't even come close to this kind of power.
- shagie 7y ago
  I believe you're seeing a conceptual mismatch between workspace and project from how Eclipse and IntelliJ model working. Try creating an empty project in IntelliJ and then add each of your Eclipse projects as a module to the IntelliJ empty project.
  - hugi 7y ago
    Yeah, tried that. Multiple times. IntelliJ just doesn't handle it performance wise, and it feels awkward because IntelliJ just isn't designed as well for working on multiple projects simultaneously. It's probably great for people working on a single project with some dependencies (modules). IntelliJ really wants you to open a project, work on it, then you close it and open the next project. That doesn't fit me. Doesn't mean IntelliJ is bad, it's just a bit limited in that regard. My dozens of projects are not a single project with "modules". I have a universe of code in multitudes of interrelated projects, closed source and open source. I want to refactor openly, not having to care how I'm moving code between projects. Eclipse works perfectly for this. IntelliJ does not.
    - AnthonBerg 7y ago
      IntelliJ really wants you to open a project, work on it, then you close it and open the next project. That doesn't fit me. This does not match my experience at all, fwiw. I keep all manner of projects open simultaneously.
    - Aeolun 7y ago
      I think it’s interesting that this issue was exactly why I switched away from Eclipse years ago. The performance was atrocious. I guess that pushed them to improve ;)
      - hugi 7y ago
        Yeah, "modern Eclipse" is a very different beast from "several years ago Eclipse", that also goes for performance. As I said in a parent, I'm very certain the competition from IntelliJ got them off their asses :).

jillesvangurp 7y ago

I switched from Eclipse to Intellij only three years ago because it actually used to be pretty good but just fell behind too much. Gradle & Spring Boot were the reason I gave up on Eclipse. I just couldn't get a project imported correctly without running into a lot of bugs. So, when a new project came up I just switched over and started using Intellij. Before that, for doing vanilla maven + Java projects Eclipse was awesome and generally running circles around intellij in terms of performance, which is still something that is off by order of magnitudes in Intellij and something I miss a lot. Intellij users are always surprised when I bring that up and say it is fine on their machine. And then I point out that 5-20 seconds to run a unit test after a 1 letter code change is obscenely slow compared to Eclipse because it finishes incremental compilation a few ms after you lift your finger and is ready to run your test. Intellij attempted to integrate the Eclipse incremental compiler but it is not used by default and generally not that well integrated. Their compilation strategy depends on a lot of caching, which is hard and frequently gets in an inconsistent state (i.e. your IDE lies to you about things compiling or not compiling), which is why people routinely rebuild their whole project, or worse invalidate caches and restart (a top level menu option because it needs to be).

aedron 7y ago
There are, despite the often very aggressive IntelliJ proponents, many areas where Eclipse beats IntelliJ, and incremental compilation is indeed one of the most important. It is also possibly the most important feature in a Java IDE. Ctrl+s and you know the whole codebase is compiled. Go to another file and any code change is available in the code completion (like new or changed methods signatures). Any errors from the change you just saved is shown immediately from across the entire codebase. I just can't live without a core thing like this missing, and compounded with a number of other things that Eclipse does better, I stay on Eclipse. Unfortunately many younger developers think IntelliJ is all there is.
- dathanb82 7y ago
  When's the last time you checked out IntelliJ? It does incremental compilation these days, plus auto-save-and-compile whenever you switch tabs (not just when you save the current tab, which bit me many times in Eclipse; though I haven't used Eclipse in at least four years now), so code completion is immediately updated. I'm pretty sure this has been the case for a few years now.

pharaohgeek 7y ago

There is a single Eclipse plugin that keeps me married to that IDE: log4e (http://log4e.de http://log4e.de). It makes it a breeze to add logging statements to your code. One click puts start/end statements on all methods. One click lets you log a particular variable. And all the statements are templatized, making it dead simple to ensure your logging adheres to your company's logging standards. I WISH this plugin (or something comparable) was available for IntelliJ or even NetBeans. I'd drop Eclipse in a heartbeat.