

IntelliJ IDEA goes open source - Hates_
http://blogs.jetbrains.com/idea/2009/10/intellij-idea-open-sourced/

======
mdemare
I used to love IntelliJ IDEA - it was the one thing that made coding in Java
fun. I even used it for a year after switching to Ruby - despite its complete
lack of support for Ruby.

But I'm trying it now, and I can't say I'm impressed. There's a forest of
plugins, the preference pane is bewildering, it doesn't look as slick as it
used to, Mac keybinding don't work, and it's extremely slow.

I'd like to say, hey, what happened to doing one thing (editing Java) and
doing it well? But, well, were talking about an IDE here. I guess that's just
not in the cards.

Even so, I'd love an editor with realtime code analysis and those fantastic
"suggested actions" for dubious code, without all the cruft associated with
version control, html/css, javascript debuggers, database viewers, and so
on...

------
brianm
Sadly, it is a fairly crippled version. It looks like they open sourced the
basic framework and some core modules, but keep the important ones behind the
$600 barrier. This may actually backfire as folk's willingness to pay $600 for
JSP debugging is questionable.

~~~
bokchoi
It doesn't look too crippled to me. The features I personally would be missing
are HTML, JS, CSS, Servlets, and JSPs.

[http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/nextversion/editions_compariso...](http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/nextversion/editions_comparison_matrix.html)

~~~
amichail
Google App Engine is not supported in the free version.

~~~
kaffeinecoma
Nor is GWT, unfortunately. Then again, it's only $600 to get these features vs
over a grand previously.

------
projectileboy
This means you now have a free Arc IDE, by the way :-)

~~~
strlen
Just searched for this and found it:
<http://plugins.intellij.net/plugin/?id=2043>

Wow! I've always thought the Lisp machines' environments as being an
inspiration for the modern third generations IDEs (Eclipse, IntelliJ). Now
this seems to have come full circle.

~~~
projectileboy
Thanks. Send me an e-mail if you run into any issues.

~~~
capablanca
How hard is it to support a new language, compared to writing an Emacs mode?

~~~
projectileboy
IntelliJ makes it shockingly easy to add custom language support. The main
problem is that the documentation is scant and scattered. I've never written a
line of elisp (I've hardly even ever used emacs), so I can't compare. Anyone
else?

------
scorpioxy
Whatever their motives might be. Kudos.

When i was working in Java world, i could never get any employer to pay for
IntelliJ and had to stick to reading how awesome it was.

Now, I would at least get a chance at trying it out.

------
stevoski
Astonishing news. This is either very good - or a sign that JetBrains is in
trouble, and therefore very bad for us fanatic Java developers and IDEA fans.

~~~
rayvega
_...or a sign that JetBrains is in trouble..._

That might not be the case. One of their other products ReSharper, the .NET
equivalent of IntelliJ IDEA, is popular in the .NET world. Perhaps that is
doing better in sales and they are shifting their attention on what has
greater growth potential.

Maybe it is another sign of C# supplanting Java as the more trendy development
language for your average developer?

~~~
ilyak
So you are assuming that there exist a developer for which Java was trendy
until recently.

And that now C# is trendy for the same developer.

Anyway, "trendy for average" is oxymoron.

~~~
gaius
I think you mean tautological.

~~~
ilyak
tautology is repeating something which is obvious. oxymoron is something that
doesn't make any sense.

"trendy" is something new that exceptional people to, contrary to what
everybody does. "trendy for average" is wtf.

~~~
gaius
No, trendy is something people do for no reason other than everyone else is
doing it. It is practically the definition of a popular programming language.
Exceptional people are ahead of trends, by the time a trend is established
they have moved on.

------
mryall
The omission of the HTML, CSS and JS tools in the community edition is a bit
of a shame. I can't imagine that much Groovy and Scala code is written that
isn't related to a web application.

I use IDEA at work. I could definitely get by writing a small web app without
their "enterprise" Java support -- it doesn't help that much in my application
-- but leaving out HTML, JS and CSS syntax highlighting would just be
annoying.

In response to Eclipse users who haven't tried IDEA, I'd recommend trying it
out now that you can do so for free. I used Eclipse for a couple of years
prior to getting an IDEA license, and find the IDEA editing and browsing
experience to be overall slightly better than Eclipse.

~~~
jomohke
Yeah, IDEA's javascript/html/css support is one of the reasons I switched from
eclipse. The Javascript editor in particular is much improved over eclipse:
Autocompletion, rename refactoring and find usages actually work somewhat!

------
jeremychone
IMO. Too late and not enough. It might stop the erosion, but won't get new
developers (IMO)

~~~
bdittmer
Heh, if a java developer is worth his salt he will eventually be using idea.
It's heads and shoulders above every other Java IDE out there.

~~~
axod
The Java developers I've known who are worth their salt, don't use IDE's :/

~~~
kaffeinecoma
If they're not using an IDE, then they've not yet worked on large projects.
Either that or they're doing themselves a serious disservice. This from a
hardcore Emacs-and-shell guy until fairly recently...

~~~
axod
Maybe they're large projects _because_ people are using IDE's ;) clicking once
to insert getter/setter/hashcode/tostring/etc instead of writing what is
necessary.

idk depends how large you're talking.

------
kaffeinecoma
Site seems overloaded. Mirror, anyone? This is awesome news... I was hoping
for something like this now for quite a while. IntelliJ is just so much better
than Eclipse (this from a paying customer now for about 3 years.)

~~~
whirlycott1
What do you like about it over Eclipse?

In my estimation, Eclipse has more momentum over anything else, primarily
NetBeans (which is quite good, actually) and IntelliJ. And momentum counts
more over the long run.

~~~
bdj
Intellij has a few features that I would have a hard time living without. Code
inspection is probably the number one feature that is pretty amazing. You can
configure it to check everything from warning about null pointers to unused
variables to questionable practices (like an assignment in a conditional).
When you have a green light, you can be reasonably sure that the code is clean
from most basic problems. The autocomplete is the best I've seen in any IDE,
and it allows matches on CamelCase by just typing the capital letters and
brings up choices based on type inference. The version control integration is
also pretty amazing; I think they could sell the change management and merging
portion as a stand alone tool that would do really well on its own. Overall,
IntelliJ lets me get into a flow with programming by making a lot of the warts
of Java melt away. Sometimes it feels like it's almost writing the code for
you and you are just giving it some direction. I know that some of these
features have been implemented in Eclipse, but the way they all integrate so
seamlessly makes IntelliJ a fun environment to code in. I miss these features
in other languages that don't have an advanced IDE.

~~~
Tichy
"I know that some of these features have been implemented in Eclipse, but the
way they all integrate so seamlessly makes IntelliJ"

Sounds as if it's just what you are used to, not that one is better than the
other. Back then when I worked with Eclipse, it did not seem full of seams,
either.

~~~
shiranaihito
Eclipse is a Blub IDE.

Edit: In case it wasn't obvious, I meant an IDE that you're just used to
using, and that you think it's perfectly alright because you're not aware of
better options.

I've got some anecdotal evidence to support this, so if you disagree, let's
hear yours.

Have you _really_ tried IDEA, and did you _really_ not think it was better
than Eclipse?

~~~
kls
"Have you really tried IDEA, and did you really not think it was better than
Eclipse?"

Yes and yes I did think it was better than Eclipse but I did not think it was
better than Netbeans since 6.5 and on. I think the problem with IDEA is they
are beginning to have trouble keeping up with the latest trends in the
industry given that fact that a lot of those trends are coming out of open
source it is natural that the open source IDE's will implement tooling before
there closed source competitors.

That being said IDEA always felt more "bolted together" and consistent than
Eclipse but the trade-off was always that they did not have tooling for some
of the things eclipse did, so personally I would have to jump between the two.

Since Netbeans 6.5 and now 6.7 I have moved away from both as, for me, it has
both covered well. It is polished as if it where build less by community and
more by a driving vision. It also has a large community following implementing
new tooling for the latest and greatest. Take the JavaScript tool-kits for
example, Netbeans is the only IDE short of Aptana that I have seen, that
implements code completion jsdoc inspection, code navigation, debugging, trace
from JavaScript client, through server to database, etc. etc. for all of the
major JS frameworks.

Anyway, long story short, IDEA is competing in a space that is becoming
increasingly difficult to remain closed source. Especially when some of it's
open-source competitors have caught up with it in it's mainstay, efficiency
and usability.

~~~
shiranaihito
Thanks for the tip! I'll have to try using NetBeans for Python.

------
topbanana
Open source, huh. Will they be accepting patches?

------
smharris65
Without support for Javascript, CSS, and HTML I don't see how this can be
useful.

~~~
cema
It is useful but crippled, as others said in the comments.

------
ilyak
Suddently.

However, I had my cow orker try it another day, and we've failed to find a way
to visually synchronize project with repository, like you do in Eclipse.
Therefore, threw it out.

~~~
Tichy
Not sure why you where downvoted. Your story supports what I suspect: that it
is just what people are used to, not the inheritent qualities, that make
people say IntelliJ is so much better. Probably there is a visual merging
thing in IntelliJ, just as the features people are missing in Eclipse are
probably also there - if you know how to find them.

~~~
ilyak
I've asked on ##java and nobody could tell me how to get visual merging in
IDEA. Sad.

~~~
shiranaihito
As far as I can tell, you get it automatically when using CVS or SVN.

And no, it's not just what people are used to. Earlier this year, me and
another guy converted a few developers from Eclipse to IDEA and they were all
really happy about discovering it.

~~~
ilyak
I do not understand what's "automatically"?

I want to see which changes are due, and which changes are to be imported.
Like one does in eclipse under Team -> Synchronize with repository.

I fail to find such a mode in IDEA.

Noone is yet to point me to it.

~~~
shiranaihito
Well, in my experience IDEA gives you a "visual merge" when there are
conflicts.

You have a three-column view with the local version on the left, the merge in
the middle, and the changes on the server on the right.

Then you can pick and choose which changes to include and which ones to
revert, and their locations are all marked with red and green colors on the
sides (of the columns).

I assume that's what you meant, and I don't remember ever having to "opt in"
for that functionality.

Btw, it's possible that the people on #java were all using Eclipse :)

~~~
ilyak
"You no understand" (c) The Italian Man Who Went To Malta

I'm not asking for a visual merge "when there are conflicts". I'm asking for a
visual merge NOW; _because I said so_. Because if it fails to produce the said
visual merge, it gets _thrown off the window_ \- exactly what's happened.

And it's more than visual merge; I also want a tree of _files_ that have been
changed, on both sides; and I want to look at diffs when clicking on them; and
to choose what to update, what to commit. It's very much more than just a dumb
commit all/update.

Nope, those people on ##java are really passionate about IDEA.

~~~
shiranaihito
Well, apparently Eclipse has more functionality for this specific purpose.
That may be enough for you to completely dismiss IDEA in a fit of self-
righteous prejudice, but that doesn't mean IDEA isn't a better product
overall.

You can choose specific files to commit or update in IDEA too, but I guess
that's no good either if it doesn't happen _exactly_ where you want it to.

Why do you want a visual merge even when there are no conflicts though? You
could just edit out everything that shouldn't be committed, and then commit.

~~~
mosburger
I'm not going to speak for ilyak, but some people (myself included,
sometimes), want to see the results of a merge even when there are no
conflicts, because we don't trust merges to always go right. There are
occasions where subtle bugs can get introduced by botched merges.

Having said that, I'm _way_ less disciplined than I used to be, so I've gotten
so I just trust the merge. The mentors who taught me the ropes with version
control systems would not be impressed.

~~~
jbellis
> The mentors who taught me the ropes with version control systems would not
> be impressed.

Or maybe they've also realized it's not 1992 anymore.

~~~
mosburger
It also probably has a lot to do with what kind of software you're developing.
In my case, we were writing firmware for prototypes that cost over $2000 and
were easily destroyed by bad code. That's bad, but not nearly as bad as code
that could endanger human life or perhaps code that handles large financial
transactions.

If you're just developing a web application or twitter client, it's probably
not worth being so anal-retentive about it.

