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What features does an IDE give you?

• pjmlp 13y ago
  - Visual representation of the code structure - Ability to select any symbol and find semantic uses of it - For OO code, being able to visuallize the OO graph usage of certain symbols - Refactoring across the whole project with semantic knowledge (no, search/replace does does not cut it) - Navigation in third-party libraries deployed in binary format - Code completion for static/dynamic languages, while showing tooltip documentation - Graphical visualization of data structures on the debugger - Background compilation with static analysis - unit test debugging infrastructure - integration with modelling tools - integration with SCM tooling and being able to interact with them directly from the editor. For example, generating a blame file, with navigation across the file revisions. - integration with continuous integration servers - integration of developer workflow with task management servers As an example of such developer workflows, have the IDE talk to Jira, edit the code, automatically bundle it in a workflow that binds the code changes to the Jira issue being worked on, get a Jenkins notification after the code is checked in and gone through the CI system. Sure you can get part of it in Emacs, after spending a week configuring plugins, with different levels of maturity, and in the end it is still mostly textual.