I use emacs or sublime for java coding 90% of the time. Of course it is vital to have large screen real estate/extra monitors so I can keep the various docs op

I use emacs or sublime for java coding 90% of the time. Of course it is vital to have large screen real estate/extra monitors so I can keep the various docs open for reference. I prefer this approach because I learn more about the particular apis I'm using rather than just autocomplete and go. That said, I have occasionally needed an IDE for java projects but in hindsight that seems to be because those projects were so needlessly large and convoluted that it didn't make sense to try to understand to the entire project in my head. That sounds bad, but that's how I see it. Some projects aren't worth understanding fully, and a good IDE is required for them. Long story short, I can see the need for a java ide sometimes, but I won't call it a necessity.