[dragonwriter]

> IDEs weren't a thing until recently (the last 15 or so years).

IDEs originated in the 1970s, and became popular in the 1980s.

> Text-editor devs aren't extinct, just shrinking in numbers.

The line between "text editor" and "IDE" is so blurry now that there's probably not a clear line between text editor devs and IDE devs. (And there's plenty of multilanguage devs whose preference on the "editor-IDE" axis probably varies by language -- certainly the level of tooling sophistication I want with Ruby is different than I want with C# or Java.)

And more and more modern languages have both "doesn't need an IDE as much as older static languages" and "can more easily support IDE tooling than older dynamic languages" as features, so there's plenty of fuel for both sides. I don't think the preference for lighter tooling is dying out.