Is Intellij 9 more flaky than Intellij 7

I've been buying intellij for a number of years and been very happy with it, the last full version I had was 7.0.5, and I just moved to 9 Community Edition but had a number of problems with this version that I didnt have before, am I the only one ?

Problems seen:
1. Intellij refusing to let me edit parts of my source files sometimes
2. Intellij on startup taking ages to index my files and not allowing me to do anything until it has done so.
3. Problems with a Maven project with IntelliJ constantly changing the project level from 1.5 to 1.4
4. Having to set options to ensure classes are compiled before they are run.
5. Problems with SVN

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9 comments

The Maia EAPs were not that robust and I experienced some of the memory issues (indexing and reindexing) that you talk about, but had no issues with not being able to edit source files.


Suggestions

  • Get the very latest version - currently 9.0.2 EAP. Many of the indexing problems have been worked out by JetBrains
  • Increase your heap size and max perm size. Search the forums and you'll find out how to do it. If you're still confused just read this post
  • As far as Maven goes, I hope you're using Maven 2 - hopefully v2.2 or above. You'll need to set the compiler level 1.5 or 1.6 in the POM itself. It has nothing to do with IDEA settings.
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paultaylor wrote:

5. Problems with SVN


I often have problems with maven imported projects (especially multimodule ones), where idea identifies the wrong svn root (which is extremely annoying). Go to Settings->Subversion there you can correct the correct svn root.

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Yeah I too have suffered that same problem. It is an easy fix but not very intuitive.

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Actually there is a bug report for this:
http://youtrack.jetbrains.net/issue/IDEA-26840

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I've seen #3 and #4. And I've had a few of my own:

6. IDEA refuses to run some JUnit tests. There's an issue for this, and they claim it was fixed in the latest EAP, but the latest EAP still has the problem.
7. IDEA reshuffles the artifacts in its nifty artifact builder dialog. This MIGHT be a reaction to it refreshing the POMs, but its not clear.
8. The whole artifact building dialog seems flaky. Why are there multiple entries for what appear to be the same items?

I've used IDEA for years. I love it, and have evangelized it to anyone who will sit still long enough to listen. But I'm getting frustrated that stuff that used to Just Work isn't anymore.

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Thanks for keeping this discussion alive, yes my Maven project was a multi module project and it is working ok with the latest IntelliJ release, hopefully the reminaing issues will soon be sorted.

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Quite honestly I am thrilled with the Maven integration in IDEA-9. It keeps getting better. Excellent Maven support is one of the many reasons I use IDEA. Every now and then there is the occasional issue that comes up. For instance, just the other day I added a new JAR to my POM and when I opened the .ipr file (open project), it didn't show the new JAR in the list of libraries that Maven recognized. I got around it by deleting the .ipr file and from the command line I entered $ mvn idea:idea and then re-opened by opening the newly generated .ipr file.


The indexing can be pretty slow sometimes if you are low on RAM and haven't allocated sufficient heap space (max heap size) and max permgen size. As well, 64 bit JVMs can be demanding.  I have an 8GB Linux workstation (64 bit) and am quite happy with IDEAs performance. I haven't used SVN recently but used CVS on my last project and there were no issues. On this project we use Mecurial and I'm still figuring out how to use the 3rd party plugin with IDEA (hg4idea). There are other minor issues that I find when I compare IDEA with some of the good features of Eclipse.

On the whole, I would not consider using any other IDE. The merits far outweigh the demerits. Yes you will find occasional flakiness - in fact expect it - but try Eclipse  or Netbeans from time to time and come back to IDEA and thank your stars that you have a heavy hitting IDE on your side working for you.

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I agree.
I used Intelij versions 6 and currently use version 7 and I was very happy with it, but this version is not being maintained anymore.
I tried version 8 several times, but it was so slow and buggy so I decided not to upgrade.

I've been trying version 9 several times, and currently "using" IntelliJ IDEA 9.0.1.
I put "using" in quotes, because I am actually strugling with new, improved and fast IntelliJ 9.Opening a project results in reindexing of all classes including those in JDK (according to what is snown in the popup box).
9 times out of 10 reindexing  hangs so I have to kill the application and do it again.
I will try 9.0.2 to see if it worth the upgrade, but for now I will use Intellij 7.

Sergey.

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For me it is quite similar: I'm using IDEA since 2001 or 2002 (don't know
any more) and always was an early adopter, reported a lot of bugs. Since
approx. one year I stick with IDEA 8 (.1.4). I've tried IDEA 9 but it
screwed up my project settings. I really would pay for IDEA 8 support fixing
the most important bugs, but I don't have the nerves any more to start with
beta-quality builds with each new release and have to wait a half year or
longer until the IDEA release slowly becomes mediocre stable.

Unfortunately, there is no alternative to IDEA. Eclipse has similar
problems: refactorings can screw up code easily, reported years ago but
still unfixed. Netbeans, after being nearly dead, surprisingly quickly
improves, but is still years behind IDEA, especially regarding small editing
features.

--
Thomas Singer

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