[perceptronas]

This IDE doesn't seem to differ from CLion with Rust plugin. I guess, its only about making Rust plugin paid from their side – which makes sense from their side. I hope they can deliver quality.

On the other hand, they are notoriously slow to develop their IDEs. Features are super slow to be delivered, IDEs themselves are not really improved as well. They are focusing on things most don't care: Spaces, new UI project, etc. Barely any performance improvements, customisation is hard, Ruby, Scala and other plugins are lacking as well. Scala showing red squiggly lines where its not supposed to (on their compiler), Ruby lacking ergonomics in refactoring department (refactoring too large scope and etc.) or tooling support.

I still pay Jetbrains and while 2015 they were above everything else – its no longer the case. I grew up with them as developer, I hope they can up their game.

[cyberax]

> On the other hand, they are notoriously slow to develop their IDEs.

I found that IntelliJ IDEs for me are almost at the perfection level. I don't really need any new changes, except for simple incremental ones like supporting new languages.

I've been using IntelliJ since 2003, and it's amazing how little my main workflows have changed since then.

[raincole]

My worst nightmare is JetBrains gets IPO (or acquired by a public traded corp).

[pulse7]

Which may happen when the founders decide to retire...

[boxed]

They do break stuff they used to have and then it doesn't get fixed for years.

For example this https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/PY-39449/Deleting-param... has been broken for 4 years.

[windock]

And every release they break my Split-view workflow. It is just random thing, every time something different. The latest thing - when the current file is split vertically, new split has viewport moved to something like 20 lines below. And yes, every time it takes years to actually fix those.

[maccard]

All software has bugs. THis is no different to emacs [0] or vscode [1]

[0] https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=2940 [1] https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/30874

[boxed]

The problem is that they create features, and then those features BREAK later. Then in some cases they fix them and then they break AGAIN later.

They seem to be pretty bad at writing regression tests.

[lenkite]

Its looks like Jetbrains is migrating to an N IDE's for N languages approach - bloat up memory and disk so they can be paid more.

No point in buying Intellij Ultimate and installing language plugins. As is clear from this post, the language plugins will no longer see new features.

Now you need to purchase and start the IDE's for Rust, Go, C++, Python, etc. So if you are working in multiple language projects, you need $$$ purchase power. And then 64 GB RAM and several terabytes of hard disk space.

What a mess.

[highwaylights]

This is my biggest problem with the JetBrains world. It should be one IDEA and a bunch of plugins (of which Java should be one). I don't know why I need X copies of the same tool with different config files.

[wink]

Waiting 5-10 minutes for a moderately sized project to be indexed until you can do anything useful is perfection? Ouch :P

[pjerem]

Those IDEs are clearly made for big projects you work on for months/years.

Indexing is far less than 5 mins (more 1 min for a big project) and is cached. It only happens the first time you load a project.

Maybe you are of bad faith on this one.

[wink]

Mine indexes every time I boot it up, per project, so sometimes several times per week, fortunately not every day.

No, no bad faith, it's simply my number one pain point.

Imagine there are people who work on different repos/projects. Just quickly opening another up during a call? Maybe wait 5 minutes. This is decent hardware on an SSD. We're not talking about 10 year old 2m LOC mammoths, but also not "I expect it to start up in 3s like an editor and not an IDE".

[martypitt]

I suffered that exact same issue for a very long time with IntelliJ.

If you haven't tried upgrading yet, I'd recommend it. They did a huge amount of work to address the issue, and from my experience, it's significantly better in 2023.2.

[TylerE]

That's how all their IDEs work. It's all the same software with different sets of allowed plugins.

I would also argue that their IDEs are largely mature, feature-complete software. I'm quite happy they haven't succumbed to the modern trend of reorganize all the menus every 6 months.

[kuhsaft]

Not all their IDEs. Jetbrains Rider has specific modifications that are integrated into the IDE for .NET software development that aren't available in even in IntelliJ Idea Ultimate. The same goes for CLion, the C/C++ features are not available in any other of their IDEs. Though, I think those are the only two IDEs where the the features provided are not available as plugins.

[wink]

I wonder when this started, I was under the impression that Ultimate had it all, but maybe that was either never true, or only when I last had to petition for the team to get it (10 years ago). Not even sure either Rider or CLion did exist back then.

[LelouBil]

For Rider, it's because they built ReSharper (a Visual Studio extension) before Rider, and then built Rider to make it use ReSharper as a back end without Visual Studio, while still using the IntelliJ platform.

[gjvc]

That's how all their IDEs work. It's all the same software with different sets of allowed plugins.

From where did you get this idea -- basic use? It most certainly is not this to as great a degree as you might like to think. Source: JB employee.

[notpushkin]

Could you get into more detail please? From my (brief) experience with your products I think the differences are indeed mostly in the plugins, apart from cosmetic / UX ones, like different keyboard shortcuts (which by the way never made sense to me).

There's nothing wrong with selling sets of plugins by the way. I don't really get why it must be different IDEs though.

[gjvc]

There's nothing wrong with selling sets of plugins by the way. I don't really get why it must be different IDEs though.

This was exactly the line of questioning I had for my JB friend, some time ago.

[bornfreddy]

So... Did you get some answers? :)

[gjvc]

Only insofar is that there is less of a grand framework for the language analysis and manipulation, refactoring, and syntax and error highlighting than one might think. (I still find this hard to believe, but perhaps this was due to an impedance mismatch between me and my JB interlocutor.)

I was under my own (pretty pedestrian) assumption that the secret sauce of JB IDES is/was the MPS system in which they are/were able to create libraries for source code analysis and manipulation on a language-by-language basis. I further assumed that this per-language library plus some language-specific GUI tooling, plus the language-independent GUI libraries and processing (local history, VCS integration, side-by-side textual (not semantic) diffing tools, and so on)

The response I got, which was quite a while ago (2019 or before) was that the individual language IDEs did not use MPS-generated libraries in perhaps the extensive way I've alluded to above, and this surprised and disillusioned me somewhat. I was hoping to get as much of an answer from my JB friend as, presumably, you were from me in this thread. :-)

Yes of course, there must be massive code reuse between projects, and yes, this was an entirely hand-waving set of assumptions, and no, I haven't researched the composition of any given JB IDE to find out the proportions of language-independent vs language-specific code volume.

I'm surprised someone at JB hasn't given a talk on this sort of thing over the years.

[0x457]

> There's nothing wrong with selling sets of plugins by the way. I don't really get why it must be different IDEs though.

Uhm, I've tried using Ultimate for Java and Rust. It wasn't pleasant at all. Different IDEs make total sense to me.

[notpushkin]

What difficulties did you run into?

[mroche]

In my relatively limited experience with PyCharm and GoLand (with a hint of CLion/IDEA), the individual IDE's make working with a language much simpler and straightforward. Using the language plugins within another IDE adds a few layers of friction with trying to find settings, panels, etc, whereas the IDEs offer workflows OOTB designed for that particular language.

Sorry I can't provide specifics, it's been a hot minute since I've used a JB product but I did enjoy my time with them.

[0x457]

Well, Ultimate is very java specific out of the box. Doesn't help that I use it for java as well. I could possibly have multiple profiles for different use cases, but why? All Product bundle after 3 years is cheap enough that paying for it isn't noticeable at all.

[gjvc]

BTW, to avoid ambiguity.... I am not a JB employee, my source is/was a JB employee.

[OtomotO]

> I'm quite happy they haven't succumbed to the modern trend of reorganize all the menus every 6 months.

Same, so they do it every 2 years instead.

But the upside is the Shift+Shift Menu of "Find anything in this Project or what the IDE can do for you"... I wish more software had this :)

[notpushkin]

VSCodium has that too: Ctrl/Cmd-P for “find anything”, Ctrl/Cmd-Shift-P (or F1) for “what the IDE can do for you”. Two different modes instead of one for both, but either way it's pretty neat, I agree.

I think the only other piece of software I've seen this function in was some open source CAD software (can't remember from the top of my head), which had it mapped to the spacebar. Perhaps that should work for stuff like graphic or video editors, too.

[threeseed]

> largely mature, feature-complete software

Depends on the language.

I use mostly Scala and Rust and both have significant issues still with incorrect syntax highlighting, refactoring being limited and slowness with larger projects.

[wiseowise]

And both are offered as a free plug-in, not a dedicated IDE or Idea Ultimate offering.

[TylerE]

I guess it's just that I have a hard time reading a statement like "Features are super slow to be delivered" and even trying to understand where that person is coming from. Like, what general, non-language specific features does he think IntelliJ lacks at this point? Is he upset he can't use it to mail a check to his utility company?

[fomine3]

VS Code Remote development equivalent? I know similar features available but VSCode is superior for overall when I've last checked.

[perceptronas]

I didn't say its non-language specific only. I also listed few language specific ones and non-language ones. Not sure I can add more to be clear

[EdwardDiego]

Scala and Rust are both very complex languages.

I mean, how's rustfmt going?

[kaba0]

Also, Scala sort of recently became completely revamped and I have only had a not too positive experience with the new version - which does make sense that it won’t instantly be as feature-complete.

[EdwardDiego]

Yeah, Scala3, has a special name IIRC.

[OtomotO]

Dotty? Was it still the name later?

http://dotty.epfl.ch/

[delta_p_delta_x]

> I'm quite happy they haven't succumbed to the modern trend of reorganize all the menus every 6 months

https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/new-ui.html

[OtomotO]

Yes, but it's not every 6 months, but instead every 2 years or so :X

[badrequest]

When Goland launched it wasn't that much different from IntelliJ IDEA with the Go plugin. In the intervening years it has come to feel like a significantly better product than that combination.

[anuraaga]

This is why I am happy to see RustRover - it's very likely the significantly better product is actually similar for the Go plugin. Once they release an IDE, it seems development picks up and things get a lot better quicker.

I have used clion with rust plugin and while it's better than nothing, it's generally been pretty spotty on all the features, completion, marking errors, refactoring. I'm looking forward to RustRover "pulling a GoLand" by bringing a proper IDE experience to rust.

[bsdnoob]

I'm curious to hear what really is the difference between GoLand and IDEA Ultimate with go plugin other than flashy startup banner.

[user432678]

Not much actually, but for me it’s default settings of Goland vs “you need to setup some small things, plugins and shortcuts in Intellij IDEA Ultimate to work with Go effectively”. Ultimate is also a bit slower if you don’t disable a ton of Java plugins. But if you don’t need Java and disable it anyway, why not to use more streamlined and lightweight Goland?

[compsciphd]

the go plugin that existed at the time of goland creation and what exists today are very very different things.

the go plugin back then was very simple. The fact that you get most of the goland experience in idea ultmate today is because they are investing into the go ecosystem as an independent profit making endeavor in and of itself, not simply a small value add.

[doctorpangloss]

> new UI project

It’s incredible to me how many people choose VS Code because of its aesthetics, so it is by all means the right thing to focus on.

[raincole]

> It’s incredible to me how many people choose VS Code because of its aesthetics

No. VS code is popular because it's

1. Free and open source

2. Come with a lot of official extension [1]

3. Backed by MS which has the incentive to commondize code editors

It's quite similar to Chrome.

[1]: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/publishers/Microsoft

[RadiozRadioz]

Technically it's not Free (libre) or Open Source. The "VSCode" that people use is a proprietary telemetry-laiden application that cannot be reproducibly built from available source. You're probably wanting: https://vscodium.com/

[da39a3ee]

Telemetry is orthogonal to the concepts of Free/Open source. You sound like someone who just has an ideological objection to companies making money and producing text editors, and to proprietary software. However, many of the people here on HN work on proprietary software.

[wokwokwok]

Jetbrains has plenty of extensions (1st party, high quality plugins that are far better than some of the 1st party Microsoft plugins) and no one cares if it's by Microsoft (what does "commondize code editors" even mean? Do you really think any vscode users care?).

Honestly, I doubt most people even care it's kind-of open source (1).

> 1. Free

This is the reason most people use vscode.

That's it.

It's free, and it's pretty good.

It's not better. It's just free.

Nothing wrong with liking free stuff; free stuff is great; but don't confuse 'it didn't cost me anything' with 'it's good'.

There's a difference between value (ie. for what you paid, you got something that was worth significantly more than you paid, which in this case is zero) and quality (independent of cost, the thing is just plain old good).

vscode may be more valuable to people than jetbrains products, but it isn't a higher quality product.

There's a massive difference between those two things.

[1] - It's not open source 'technically'. https://ruky.me/2022/06/11/im-switching-form-vs-code-to-vs-c...

[raincole]

> Honestly, I doubt most people even care it's kind-of open source (1).

Average users might not care. But extension authors do. Yes, of course you can write extensions for close source projects, but it'd take longer to do "hacky" things since you'll need to read decompiled code / memory stack to understand its internals. I remember a very popular extension used a private field (and later broke because VSCode changed its internal implementation).

I personally constantly check Blender's source code here and there during the development for our internal Python tools, so I suppose people who write VSCode extension sometimes do.

> (what does "commondize code editors" even mean? Do you really think any vscode users care?).

It means VScode benefits MS indirectly and they can keep it free indefinitely while being a for-profit company.

[mike_hearn]

Note that IntelliJ Platform itself is open source.

[johnnyanmac]

>Nothing wrong with liking free stuff; free stuff is great; but don't confuse 'it didn't cost me anything' with 'it's good'.

I paid for Sublime Text 3 back in the day and still pay for Rider. I prefer VS Code to Sublime Text 3 as it's more extensible for the kinds of environments I work in, and has some decent built-in amenities like version control and debuggers.

It's not better than Rider objectively (and it's not better by design. MSFT doesn't want to cannabalize Visual Studio), but for smaller scripting and editing it runs circles around Rider. I prefer using it when I know I'm not going to be coding something complex nor for hours on end. A great complimentary tool to have on end.

But if you have a "good" alternative as this lightweight c#/c++ editor, let me know. Someone recommended Zed but that is Mac only.

[dist-epoch]

There's also a free edition of Intellij - Community Edition. Why don't people use that?

[simon_void]

I did for years and it was perfectly fine. But then I got hooked on the additional Spring configuration support that comes with the Ultimate edition But yes, IntelliJ Community edition feels very complete for a lot of programming tasks (my experience is mostly Java/Kotlin projects with a bit of web frontend & Rust on the side). It comes with debugging but not with a profiler (which I still haven't used ) So try the community edition and see if you miss anything! Chances are you won't.

[rob74]

There's something to be said for a "pre-packaged" IDE where you don't have to first install the "bare-bones" IDE and then find and install various plugins (of which there may be several with overlapping functionality, where you have to first find out which one works better for you, where you never know if there might be conflicts etc. etc.). Turns out there are even people willing to pay money for something that works "out of the box", like the JetBrains IDEs.

And VS Code is not only similar to Chrome, it is Chrome pretending to be an IDE, and that always leaves a nagging feeling of inefficiency in the back of my mind. The JetBrains IDEs, being Java-based (although they hide it really really well, installing their own OpenJDK-based runtime automatically), are also resource intensive, but still better than Electron...

[johnnyanmac]

IDEs in general tend to be resource intensive. Not necessarily because they need all those resources, but that cost of tech bloat was probably necessarily in order to let them ship to begin with. It's why back many programmers kept a text editor for smaller scripting or quick editing and only whipped up Eclipse/VS/IntelliJ when absolutely needed (ignoring the vim/emacs wizards who have dozens of plugins and get the best o both worlds).

VS Code is nice in that it strikes a good balance between a Text Editor and full blown IDE. Far from replacing the latter, but I can and have worked on medium sized projects exclusively in VS Code.

[p0w3n3d]

I tried to develop some C in VSCode and failed. The configuration of the build process is far from straightforward. There is no possibility to run without debug, etc.

[tirpen]

Yes that too of course.

But I have personally heard people more than one person completely dismiss JetBrain's IDEs because they didn't like how they looked.

[pxc]

That's really interesting. What makes VSCode's aesthetic so distinctive and appealing? As an infrequent user of it, I don't really see how it stands out. (The main things that stand out about it to me as an Emacs user is that it has pop-ups/nags/splash tabs that I have to dismiss whenever I open it.)

[laurencerowe]

Not the person you were replying to but I've found VS Code treads the right line for me between editor and IDE. It feels like a text editor first and the UI is pretty similar to SumblimeText and TextMate which I used before, neither of which had much in the way of IDE features.

But I think the reason VS Code has become so popular is that along with its editor centric UI it has Emacs like extensibility. Plugins are easily written in JavaScript and it originated the Language Server Protocol which makes it possible to write language integrations in the target language.

I've not used the newer version of IntelliJ since the redesign, but I always found it somewhat overwhelming, with all this stuff which prevented me from focussing on the code I was writing. The old version had pretty poor UI performance too, whereas the VS Code UI is fast enough that I rarely notice any UI slowdown.

Nevertheless IntelliJ is pretty indispensable for Java/Kotlin development. It's code sense features are excellent and there are a lot of projects out there that don't really build except through IntelliJ's automatic Gradle setup.

FWIW the only pop-up like things I see with VS Code are extension suggestions when I open a file with a new language extension and the monthly update change logs.

[mcluck]

I agree completely. I switch between VS Code and IntelliJ at work so I'm comfortable with both but I would also call the UI in IntelliJ overwhelming. It's covered in buttons, panels coming out in all directions, the Git UI doesn't integrate with the normal file view which makes everything feel cramped when I access it, I've got a variety of pop-ups coming up for all sorts of things, etc.

In VS Code, I usually see a file explorer, the files I have open, the Problems panel and a terminal panel. All of the other stuff is hidden behind sections that, when clicked, simply replace the file explorer. Far less visual clutter

[pacifika]

It takes not a lot of time to disable the toolbar or activate zen / distraction free mode.

[hyperman1]

But that's not the default, and you will need to spend some time finding your way in the product again.

[pxc]

> I've not used the newer version of IntelliJ since the redesign, but I always found it somewhat overwhelming

Complicated GUIs (most GUIs targeting 'advanced' users, IME) likewise cause sensory/attentional overload for me, as well. If an escape from that kind of design is part of what drives people to VSCode, I totally get it! For me, keybindings and a command palette (or similar) are a much more natural way to include lots of cuntionality in an app without making it overwhelming to navigate visually.

[dromtrund]

It's not obvious if you come from emacs, but the keyboard centric navigation is very different from traditional IDEs, that usually come with a wide array of buttons with weird icons at the top.

A few other aspects: - dark mode by default - web tech UI, not terminal - decent looking widgets and decorations

I don't think these are the main selling points for vscode, but they do all of this better than their competitors.

[da39a3ee]

You can configure it to have an extremely minimal UI. I remove the side bar and menu bar and work in Zen mode full screen. People often ask me what editor i'm using.

[bowsamic]

Yep I only recently started to using CLion bc I find the new UI to be much more comfortable

[kuhsaft]

> They are focusing on things most don't care

Different product teams work on different plugins/IDEs. Though, it's apparent that the more popular languages (Python/Java/JS/.NET/Go) get more enhancements. Makes sense for Jetbrains though because those languages provide them more revenue with a larger user base.

> Spaces, new UI project

Jetbrains Spaces is Jetbrains branching out into SaaS. The new UI work has been going on since as long as I remember. They're always tweaking the UI, but that's the norm in the industry.

[dinckelman]

That's pretty much how it's always been. If you want a Jetbrains IDE, IDEA Ultimate is the best choice, because it offers all of the exact same features. The only issue is that, let's say, if you're developing in Python, it will still give you a Javascript-centered UI, and it's really frustrating

[jpgvm]

I think you mean Java-centered UI. The Javascript IDE is WebStorm not IDEA Ultimate.

[troupo]

IDEA Ultimate has all WebStorm has to offer, and more

[madeofpalk]

On the other other hand, I switched from Visual Studio to Rider and it's embarrasing just how much better Rider is as a .net/C# IDE than the first party IDE. They're already so far ahead of Microsoft that "super slow" still has them doing laps about them.

[isanjay]

As someone who uses Visual Studio in day job and Rider on Linux at night I agree

[phendrenad2]

JetBrains IDEs _usually_ do start off that way, CLion itself started off looking like the existing C++ plugin for IntelliJ.

[mdaniel]

You are misremembering, unless you happen to have a link to the marketplace for any such alleged C++ plugin

[phendrenad2]

There was no C++ plugin for IntelliJ?

[dncornholio]

> Notoriously slow to develop their IDE

Slow means stable. I don't understand how people rate software on this. Lot's of updates to a product means to me that the product is faulty.

[gilcot]

People aren't seeking for stability but for constant eye catching buzz.

[pkulak]

Neovim plus the Rust treesitter thing is really good. Intellij has work to do before they are worth paying for. Which is great! I love competition. Kotlin is probably my favorite language to program in, but I hate how it locks you in to a single IDE.

[hobofan]

IMHO Clion with Rust plugin is already the best Rust IDE available and I gladly pay for it.

[pkulak]

Yeah, but sometimes I do want to search a project within 5 minutes of opening it. IntelliJ and it’s indexing, even when you had the project open 30 minutes ago, drives me crazy. Alternatives are good.

[0x457]

All slow indexing in CLion for rust were solved for me by locking toolchain to a specific version.

[p0w3n3d]

for me CLion was the revelation, and really I couldn't deliver my project if I didn't obtain it (sadly from my pocket, due to some strange software request process). It both sped up and improved my work, delivering thorough analysis of code through the lint.

However they already told in plain text that the Rust plugin will be stopped at this point of time, so this is another quite expensive (for me) tool to buy if you'd like to develop home projects or learn at home

[lostmsu]

Hopefully separate paid IDE will mean better quality integration. I for one just need trait calls, in particular Debug trait, in debugger expression evaluation and they can have my money.

[reaperman]

The only thing I think I’d even want changed with PyCharm is better Copilot integration and time-travel debugging. Other than that I’d actually prefer that it doesnt change.