4 ms·

"Vendor of a product afraid of competing, free product." Come on, IntelliJ. You are still THE standard in Java development and it's on you to keep that first p

"Vendor of a product afraid of competing, free product." Come on, IntelliJ. You are still THE standard in Java development and it's on you to keep that first place. Those "opinins" on Visual Studio Code are ridiculous... This really makes me want to try out Visual Studio Code for Java.

pjmlp 6y ago
Visual Studio Code for Java is developed by Microsoft alongside Red-Hat, you should have a look.
- saiya-jin 6y ago
  are there any benefits using it compared to open source eclipse with plugins?
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    Depends on the workflow, it is more tailored to Web APIs and headless/CLI coding, as it doesn't support graphical tooling.
  - snazz 6y ago
    VS Code has far more sensible defaults than Eclipse, in my opinion. If you enjoy using Eclipse, then by all means continue.
  - xtracto 6y ago
    I havent used Eclipse in like 8 years, but if it is as slow and clunky as it was before then for sure VSCode is better. I remember trying both Netbeans and Eclipse. Both were nice but very slow. Nowadays I sometimes use programs based on eclipse (birt or xmind) and God they make me happy that I'm not doing java dec on Eclipse.
    - marcosdumay 6y ago
      It's not slow anymore, it's mostly as heavyweight as it always was, what means it's a lightish application nowadays. Clunky can mean several things, and I don't think Eclipse changed in any of them since early 00's. If you consider it an specialized IDE (that means you'll download a full one for each kind of development, prepackaged), and disposable (non-upgradable, you'll download the next version and delete the current one), Eclipse is quite ok for many kinds of development (even some you do with Java).
MaxBarraclough 6y ago
> IntelliJ. You are still THE standard in Java development I figured Eclipse was the most popular, followed by IntelliJ, followed by NetBeans. Is this mistaken? (I couldn't find a definitive answer with a quick google.)
- Traubenfuchs 6y ago
  It's literally in the linked IntelliJ blog post: IntelliJ: 72% Eclipse: 13% Netbeans: 3% Who knows how realistic it is though... I personally enjoyed working with Eclipse. It simply suffers from a reputation problem because people developed monoliths with hundred thousands of lines in a single maven project in it...
  - throwaway8941 6y ago
    These numbers are probably very much inflated, they are taken from JetBrains' own survey. One could put a similar survey on eclipse.org and claim that 72% percent of Java developers use Eclipse.
- SamuelAdams 6y ago
  Every enterprise I have worked at used IntelliJ.
- jcadam 6y ago
  The only time I've ever used Eclipse was when it was mandated by my employer. That happened to me twice. I didn't stay long at either place - for some reason both companies were horrible places to work. I have noticed a lot of new grads come out of College knowing Eclipse (and only Eclipse). Which is probably why it persists - and I still have to deal with it when I have to help junior devs figure out what's wrong with their eclipse config. Occasionally I can get one to convert to IntelliJ - the rest won't try a new IDE and that's a pretty good indicator of what kind of engineer they're going to be :)
  - touisteur 6y ago
    What if I tried both and find eclipse far more efficient, more to the point, and I have built muscle memory and feel intellij slows me down... Am I that 'kind of engineer'? The tool is fine and works. Especially the barebones 'just plain java please no fucking plugins I'll handle git in terminal and C/C++ in Vim THANKS'. I understand the annoyance with not being able to fix one's setup and that's on them. But it seems very strange to fixate on what other people use as tools... Especially when both propositions are on the same productivity level. It's not like your colleagues are coding java in vim (and even then if productive AF, why does it bother anyone?).
Constellarise 6y ago
The software world is driven by hype, not by objective quality. See Go, Git (vs Mercurial), every project put out then subsequently abandoned by $PUPPYKILLER_CO after being depended on.
- snazz 6y ago
  Go's mediocrity is a feature, since it's supposed to allow larger teams to get more work done. That seems to have worked fairly well in practice. The authors hypothesized that a inexpressive language might actually be superior for the types of things that Google used to do in C++ (in terms of development time including onboarding and defect rate [especially with regards to concurrency]). Git's implementation is stronger and more useful for larger projects than Mercurial's, even if the user interface is less logical. It's not that the software world is driven by hype but that the software world is driven by what the giants do. Often, what Google does isn't right for a small project.
  - jcadam 6y ago
    > Go's mediocrity is a feature, since it's supposed to allow larger teams to get more work done. I get it. Most software is boring, doesn't break new ground, and Go is well suited for those kinds of projects. But I'm becoming an old, cranky developer who wants to work on problems where Go's mediocrity is more hindrance than advantage.
  - Constellarise 6y ago
    > Go's mediocrity is a feature Removing complexity from the language just moves it onto the developer and end-user code, it doesn't eliminate it. Go's mediocrity is a ticking timebomb.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    Same was told of Java (blue collar language) and here we are 25 later where Go people consider Java a PhD level language, while the eco-system is trying to steer a battle cruise to learn new tricks that should have been part of Java 1.0. Guess how Go will look like at 25?
  - 6y ago
hocuspocus 6y ago
The biggest competitor to IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate is their own Community Edition; I don't think they're seriously afraid of VS Code in the JVM languages space (JS is another story obviously).
0xy 6y ago
As a JetBrains customer of their full product suite for many years, I actually agree with this sentiment. In fact, I think VSCode is one of the best things to ever happen to JetBrains. In particular, Live Share forced them to finally respond with their equivalent product Code With Me (several years too late, but at least it's here). Without VSC, I don't think JetBrains would be responding nearly as well. It's baffling they consider themselves a full-feature IDE product while having an inferior alpha live share that was rushed through only in response to competition. It's been suggested for years.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  Looking forward to when they finally catch up with Eclipse and Netbeans, and finally allow for mixed mode debugging with native code.
- Traubenfuchs 6y ago
  IntelliJ is so big and complex and needs to support lots of plugins, it's probably not much fun to work on it.

pjmlp 6y ago

Visual Studio Code for Java is developed by Microsoft alongside Red-Hat, you should have a look.

saiya-jin 6y ago
are there any benefits using it compared to open source eclipse with plugins?
- pjmlp 6y ago
  Depends on the workflow, it is more tailored to Web APIs and headless/CLI coding, as it doesn't support graphical tooling.
- snazz 6y ago
  VS Code has far more sensible defaults than Eclipse, in my opinion. If you enjoy using Eclipse, then by all means continue.
- xtracto 6y ago
  I havent used Eclipse in like 8 years, but if it is as slow and clunky as it was before then for sure VSCode is better. I remember trying both Netbeans and Eclipse. Both were nice but very slow. Nowadays I sometimes use programs based on eclipse (birt or xmind) and God they make me happy that I'm not doing java dec on Eclipse.
  - marcosdumay 6y ago
    It's not slow anymore, it's mostly as heavyweight as it always was, what means it's a lightish application nowadays. Clunky can mean several things, and I don't think Eclipse changed in any of them since early 00's. If you consider it an specialized IDE (that means you'll download a full one for each kind of development, prepackaged), and disposable (non-upgradable, you'll download the next version and delete the current one), Eclipse is quite ok for many kinds of development (even some you do with Java).

MaxBarraclough 6y ago

> IntelliJ. You are still THE standard in Java development I figured Eclipse was the most popular, followed by IntelliJ, followed by NetBeans. Is this mistaken? (I couldn't find a definitive answer with a quick google.)

Traubenfuchs 6y ago
It's literally in the linked IntelliJ blog post: IntelliJ: 72% Eclipse: 13% Netbeans: 3% Who knows how realistic it is though... I personally enjoyed working with Eclipse. It simply suffers from a reputation problem because people developed monoliths with hundred thousands of lines in a single maven project in it...
- throwaway8941 6y ago
  These numbers are probably very much inflated, they are taken from JetBrains' own survey. One could put a similar survey on eclipse.org and claim that 72% percent of Java developers use Eclipse.
SamuelAdams 6y ago
Every enterprise I have worked at used IntelliJ.
jcadam 6y ago
The only time I've ever used Eclipse was when it was mandated by my employer. That happened to me twice. I didn't stay long at either place - for some reason both companies were horrible places to work. I have noticed a lot of new grads come out of College knowing Eclipse (and only Eclipse). Which is probably why it persists - and I still have to deal with it when I have to help junior devs figure out what's wrong with their eclipse config. Occasionally I can get one to convert to IntelliJ - the rest won't try a new IDE and that's a pretty good indicator of what kind of engineer they're going to be :)
- touisteur 6y ago
  What if I tried both and find eclipse far more efficient, more to the point, and I have built muscle memory and feel intellij slows me down... Am I that 'kind of engineer'? The tool is fine and works. Especially the barebones 'just plain java please no fucking plugins I'll handle git in terminal and C/C++ in Vim THANKS'. I understand the annoyance with not being able to fix one's setup and that's on them. But it seems very strange to fixate on what other people use as tools... Especially when both propositions are on the same productivity level. It's not like your colleagues are coding java in vim (and even then if productive AF, why does it bother anyone?).

Constellarise 6y ago

The software world is driven by hype, not by objective quality. See Go, Git (vs Mercurial), every project put out then subsequently abandoned by $PUPPYKILLER_CO after being depended on.

snazz 6y ago
Go's mediocrity is a feature, since it's supposed to allow larger teams to get more work done. That seems to have worked fairly well in practice. The authors hypothesized that a inexpressive language might actually be superior for the types of things that Google used to do in C++ (in terms of development time including onboarding and defect rate [especially with regards to concurrency]). Git's implementation is stronger and more useful for larger projects than Mercurial's, even if the user interface is less logical. It's not that the software world is driven by hype but that the software world is driven by what the giants do. Often, what Google does isn't right for a small project.
- jcadam 6y ago
  > Go's mediocrity is a feature, since it's supposed to allow larger teams to get more work done. I get it. Most software is boring, doesn't break new ground, and Go is well suited for those kinds of projects. But I'm becoming an old, cranky developer who wants to work on problems where Go's mediocrity is more hindrance than advantage.
- Constellarise 6y ago
  > Go's mediocrity is a feature Removing complexity from the language just moves it onto the developer and end-user code, it doesn't eliminate it. Go's mediocrity is a ticking timebomb.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  Same was told of Java (blue collar language) and here we are 25 later where Go people consider Java a PhD level language, while the eco-system is trying to steer a battle cruise to learn new tricks that should have been part of Java 1.0. Guess how Go will look like at 25?
- 6y ago

hocuspocus 6y ago

The biggest competitor to IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate is their own Community Edition; I don't think they're seriously afraid of VS Code in the JVM languages space (JS is another story obviously).

0xy 6y ago

As a JetBrains customer of their full product suite for many years, I actually agree with this sentiment. In fact, I think VSCode is one of the best things to ever happen to JetBrains. In particular, Live Share forced them to finally respond with their equivalent product Code With Me (several years too late, but at least it's here). Without VSC, I don't think JetBrains would be responding nearly as well. It's baffling they consider themselves a full-feature IDE product while having an inferior alpha live share that was rushed through only in response to competition. It's been suggested for years.

pjmlp 6y ago
Looking forward to when they finally catch up with Eclipse and Netbeans, and finally allow for mixed mode debugging with native code.
Traubenfuchs 6y ago
IntelliJ is so big and complex and needs to support lots of plugins, it's probably not much fun to work on it.