Invert Your Mind

I’ve been working on a decent sized C++ project recently and since the application will be used on a Windows server, I wanted to stay close to that platform. I fired up the latest Visual Studio 2008 version hot off the presses with my MSDN subscription and boy is that thing a piece of junk. It is like working in the stone ages. I mean writing C++ is bad enough and then I have to battle with the worse IDE imaginable?

I think not.

So, I grabbed Eclipse and NetBeans and fired both up. Eclipse, is a beast and I wanted to avoid it at all costs if possible. I’ve never liked Eclipse, no matter the version, and they haven’t improved the issues enough for me to really use it for Java development. However, I found the Eclipse C++ integration decent, but still pretty rough. The Eclipse interface is so clunky that it makes it hard to be productive.

Next I grabbed the latest NetBeans (6.5) and fired it up. I have to say that it started pretty darn fast for a Java IDE. It also has a really decent layout and configuration system. The C++ support, although experimental for on the fly error highlighting, is impressive. After tweaking my colors and battling through keymappings I’m actually productive. NetBeans lacks a number of editor features that are required these days, including multiple clipboards, duplicate lines (has this but no keyboard shortcut), join lines, etc. Besides this problems, I like it.

On the flip side, IntelliJ is still great. 8.0 is just out and it adds a number of new great features and more language support. However, I think that IJ is probably getting close to needing a good chunk rewritten. The configuration system is becoming clunky, the projects difficult to manage, and most aspects of the IDE are beginning to fail.

The speed is horrible, the memory consumption off the charts and the productivity increases that we all used IntelliJ for are is slowly being integrated into the other IDEs. I think IJ is still the best, but their margin is slowing being reduced. If the folks over at JetBrains want to stay competitive they are gonna need more speed, more productivity, more simplicity and more power. These things are all hard to get at the same time, but I’m confident that they will find at way.

For now, I’m gonna give NetBeans the full shake-down, log a ton of bugs and wait for 7.0 to see how many they fix. I’d say my list is pretty short at this point and I could envision a full switch to NetBeans with 5-10 enhancements if IntelliJ continues its slow decline.

Only time will tell.

I made it to the top of the clicks list this week over a DZone for my post on IntelliJ winning. So, in the spirit of IDE debating, I’ll definitely keep those posts coming.

Also be sure to check out my IDE comparison page which compares things based on keyboard only usage. It’s great if you loath the mouse like I do.

Besides my reasons for loving IntelliJ with respect to the keyboard support, I have found a new reason why IntelliJ will always be a better solution and well worth the money.

They actually fix bugs. You buy the product and report a bug, they take it seriously, even if it is something somewhat minor. Here are links to two bugs I’ve filed, one for Eclipse and one for IntelliJ:

http://www.jetbrains.net/jira/browse/IDEADEV-14480?page=all

https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=43625

As you can see if you look at the dates of these, the Eclipse bug, which in my opinion is pretty severe if you use the keyboard as your main form of interaction with the IDE, was opened 4 years ago. Yep. 4 YEARS! And it isn’t even closed yet!

Now if you look at the IntelliJ bug, it was opened 20 HOURS ago and is already closed and back ported! This is just one of many examples of this type of treatment. I’ve opened 10-12 bugs with Eclipse and the turn around is usually a year or two. The most shining example of this horrible lag is the “Default line terminator bug” located here:

https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=3970

This took five years to fix and this is one of the most fundamental settings that ALL text editors have! The ability to change the default line terminator for new files…. I mean come on people! On the flip side, IntelliJ bugs are normally fixed within a day or two and at the longest a few months.

Plus, it must really say something about the engineering of these two products to see how quickly bugs can be fixed. The better the system is engineered and tested, the easier is will be to update and fix. This might be a bit controversial, but I believe it.

So…. IntelliJ will always win until Eclipse figures out that usability and fixing bugs is far more important than adding new features.

Just found this one by accident: ALT-HOME. It pops up a small context window that allows quick navigation within the project using a horizontal tree view. Very slick and takes up very little real-estate.