The reasons make IDEA a better IDE other than JBuilder, NetBeans, ...?
I have been using IDEA since 2.5 and missed other IDEs like JBuilder, NetBeans, etc. for one or two versions. One day when I try to introduce IDEA to my friends with its nice features like refactoring power, highly keyboard-controlled interface, and lots of options like colors and code styles for you to customize ..., my friends just tell me: "I don't have to switch. I CAN WAIT!". It's true that refactoring has been continuously added to JBuilder and NetBeans now and human interfaces are not technical problems. Then, what is the critical part that makes IDEA a better IDE? I think it's to have a strong user community that can working on some "functional extensions" and full of treasures to realize your thoughts(ideas!) on what an IDE should do to help you programming YOUR STUFFs, with little or none affords
. Yeah now we do have www.intellij.org and some plugins there. But when I try to write a plugin these days I found few documents to show me how to do that. This may be because the limited company resources of IntelliJ. Since they are currently working on these things they think minor now, I wish the future aspect of IDEA will bring us an especially well-designed OpenAPI to make the functions of IDE itself customizable, VERY EASILY.
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We don't think Open API is a minor point, it's a very major point! IDEA 3.0
is the first version where
Open API is introduced. So it has lack of functionality and is not
well-documented. We plan to significantly extend Open API for the next
version (Aurora) and also provide much more samples/documentation etc.
--
Valentin Kipiatkov
JetBrains, Inc
http://www.intellij.com
"Develop with pleasure!"
"Chung-Kai Chen" <ckchen@pllab.cs.nthu.edu.tw> wrote in message
news:5891807.1039830235149.JavaMail.javamailuser@localhost...
NetBeans, etc. for one or two versions. One day when I try to introduce IDEA
to my friends with its nice features like refactoring power, highly
keyboard-controlled interface, and lots of options like colors and code
styles for you to customize ..., my friends just tell me: "I don't have to
switch. I CAN WAIT!". It's true that refactoring has been continuously added
to JBuilder and NetBeans now and human interfaces are not technical
problems. Then, what is the critical part that makes IDEA a better IDE? I
think it's to have a strong user community that can working on some
"functional extensions" and full of treasures to realize your
thoughts(ideas!) on what an IDE should do to help you programming YOUR
STUFFs, with little or none affords
try to write a plugin these days I found few documents to show me how to do
that. This may be because the limited company resources of IntelliJ. Since
they are currently working on these things they think minor now, I wish the
future aspect of IDEA will bring us an especially well-designed OpenAPI to
make the functions of IDE itself customizable, VERY EASILY.
Hello Chen,
Glad to learn there is another IDEA user in Taiwan. :)
I tried JBuilder and NetBeans before I actually started using IDEA since version 2.5. I think the most likely reason is just as IntelliJ's slogan says "Develop with pleasure!". IDEA makes me feel comfortable when doing programming. I think most people may specify technical points why IDEA wins over the other two you mentioned. However, it is nothing like what something can do this while the other cannot. Hehehe... It's more like what makes Mac better than Windows (no offense here). Programming should be fun and IDEA does provide me a fun environment to work with.
On the other hand, I wonder if your friends really do refactoring a lot? The most powerful feature IDEA provides is the refactoring. I lead a team working on a banking system and we do lots of refactoring after the stable version is done. I found most of programmers were reluctant to do refactoring before using IDEA, especially writing test cases is a requisite. I am interested in knowing what your friends are waiting for. :)
Regards,
Richard Chuo
===
Looking forwards to the day Apple releases its 1.4.1 VM. Until then I may enjoy the full pleasure of using IDEA 3.
So by now will JetBrains release more documents and examples for IDEA 3.0 OpenAPI or wait until the revised OpenAPI in 4.0? The community do need these information now since many of those requested features posted here can be achieved via plugins.
Chung-Kai Chen <ckchen@pllab.cs.nthu.edu.tw> wrote:
Sure, they can wait. But if switching to IDEA only produces a moderate 5%
increase in development velocity, how much more software could they have
written if they switched today instead of waiting for 1 month? 3 months? 6
months?
It sounds to me like first, they don't understand how IDEA's features
really help the developer get into a faster coding flow, and second, that
it's really a pretty small learning curve to get to the point where some
noticeable velocity increase happens (only a few days or week in my
experience). That's your challenge -- to show them these things, not just
tell them about feature lists.
Paul
It's not about the speed (or not all about the speed). It's about "developing with
pleasure" :)
When I develop with IDEA I feel much better than with JBuilder/NetBeans/Eclipse/you name it.
When I feel better I generate better decisions and do better design and eventually the quality
of my life is better.
IMHO this is all about this.
--
Dmitry Skavish
-
Boston, MA, USA
tel. +1 781 370-6909
http://www.jzox.com
http://www.flashgap.com
Yeah and I'll to this that when I'm thinking and I want to start typing I NEVER EVER in the back of my mind think about the IDE and what it will do. I did with JBuilder and NetBeans... everytime I turned to the keyboard the first thing I thought of is ok so how do I do this in this IDE, or if I started typing the IDE invariably did something to distract me and take focus away from what I'm trying to do... WRITE SOME FREAKING CODE WITHOUT BEING BOTHERED BY SOMETHING THE IDE DOESN'T LIKE!
Develop with pleasure, without any extra measure! :)
R
Dmitry Skavish <dmitry@jzox.com> wrote:
I hear what you're saying, but most development managers (the ones who
approves the purchasing) don't really care if I'm developing with pleasure.
But if I show them that using IDE saves 8 hours per month (I think it's
really more than that), that translates to about enough to pay for the
license in monetary terms. In time terms, I get another day's worth of
work done, or deliver a feature a day earlier, however you want to look at
it. Plus, I can show via metrics that developing with IDEA's dynamic
syntax checking and auto complete and all helps eliminate bugs and rework.
Multiply that by a team size of 5 to 10. Now that will get the manager's
attention and get them on your side.
The developer's are easy once you get them to at least try it. It's always
great when I hear a new IDEA user constantly saying "Cool!" every time they
discover a new IDEA feature or have the IDE do something smart for them. I
only know one person that tried IDE and switched to Eclipse, and I think
it's more that they were just an open source zealot who just wouldn't pay
for anything. If the developers just won't try it, maybe once the manager
is convinced, he'll force them to try it! ;)
Paul
(who also develops with pleasure :)