[catlover76]

I have not used IntelliJ; I've used a couple of the others, mostly PyCharm (which I still have on my computer and opened the other day).

I think the question still stands though; what's the point of continuing to do this? I guess there must just be a subset of IDE-users who want things tailored extra to their specific language, even if they could get all the same functionality in a broader IDE like IntelliJ?

Genuinely curious what people like about something like PyCharm professional enough to pay for it, and whether they also use other IDEs or basically use it like IntelliJ (I assume you can get plenty of plugins for other things you need, like JavaScript/TypeScript).

[snuxoll]

As somebody with a JetBrains All Products subscription, I do frequently use the language-specific IDE’s because the IntelliJ module system (read: project structure) can be a chore to deal with when I’m just doing something in Python or Javascript. Having a simplified and focused UI layout and assumptions about internal project structure makes less headache.

Additionally, not ALL of the language-specific IDEs have matching plugins for IDEA (or may be missing some features compared to the standalone build); Rider, CLion, GoLand, and now RustRover simply do not have any way to be installed as a plug-in into IDEA.

[EdwardDiego]

> the IntelliJ module system (read: project structure) can be a chore to deal with when I’m just doing something in Python or Javascript.

Bingo. That's the most fiddly difference.

On the plugins though, I've successfully used the Go plugin in IDEA, but haven't compared it to Goland to know what I'm missing out on.

[kylecazar]

Are you sure about being unable to install RR as a plugin for Ultimate? (Also, I think the Go plugin for Ultimate is everything in GoLand):

From the official JB blog:

"Like many of our IDEs, the functionality of RustRover can be installed as a plugin in IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate."

[snuxoll]

I may be mistaken on that one, but it looks like it may be available as a CLion plugin after based on their FAQ but certainly not for IntelliJ IDEA. I hadn't paid attention and noticed that they made the Go plugin available for IDEA, but for certain CLion and Rider are only available standalone.

[kylecazar]

Gotcha. Mine was an honest question too, because this RR stuff hit literally as I'm trying to find out which license I should I buy for myself :)

The official jetbrains announcement makes it more clear than this news article, though.

[EdwardDiego]

PyCharm is cheaper than Ultimate, and more focused on Python dev. It's far easier, in my experience to set up PyCharm or GoLand for a Python or Go project than Ultimate.

And yep, can run ancillary plugins to an extent, I don't think you can run, say, the Go plugin in PyCharm, for example, but JS/TS is out of the box IIRC.

Another thing I've noticed is that the IDEA Ultimate plugins tend to lag the features introduced in language specific IDEs for a bit.

JetBrains offer a multi-IDE licence that costs slightly more than Ultimate, worth looking into for polyglot development. But I went for Ultimate for our Python codebase because we're using a lot of FOSS JVM products, and super easy navigation around large JVM codebases to read code to understand some observed behaviour is very much worth it.