IDEA teamware hates laptops
or more precisely, it hates intermittent network connections. The incoming changes poller for subversion (which triggered this note), the TeamCity plugin, the IDETalk plugin, and the error reporter all behave quite annoyingly in response to transient network outages. Moreover, each of them behaves differently! The only component that gets it right is the plugin manager (and how's that for irony!)
Laptop sales now exceed desktop sales. Thanks to some very sweet offerings from Apple and Lenovo, more and more development is being done on laptops, particularly in the US market. Because of this, all network activity from IDEA needs to be built to support intermittent connectivity. At very least, things that require connections need to silently and cleanly reconnect, without repeatedly asking for authentication. At best, there should be functionality to intentionally defer actions until connectivity returns, "Commit change list next time I'm connected" for instance.
Sorry if this came off as too harsh. I've just seen too many RCODs recently from the incoming changes poller and had focus stolen by the IDETalk login panel too many times. This is a small thing, but it has way too much potential to break one's sense of flow.
--Dave Griffith
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Hello Dave,
As for the incoming changes, it's too early to criticize. The usual workflow
is "create the functionality first, figure out a proper error handling strategy
later", and we haven't yet reached phase 2. :)
--
Dmitry Jemerov
Software Developer
JetBrains, Inc.
http://www.jetbrains.com/
"Develop with Pleasure!"
Along those lines, IDEA hates low bandwidth connections and samba mounts, 2 things more common with laptops. Here's an issue asking for some help on that front:
http://www.jetbrains.net/jira/browse/IDEA-12717
It would be great if IDEA could learn to love laptops.
I haven't personally had any problems but your headline was sufficiently funny to brighten an otherwise annoying day. Thanks . :)
Another issue is that when a remote mount with your files is unavailable before IDEA starts or while IDEA is running (but IDEA's files are available: iml, ipr, iws), sometimes IDEA corrupts its own files.