
IntelliJ IDEA and the whole IntelliJ platform migrates to Java 8 - ingve
http://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/2015/12/intellij-idea-16-eap-144-2608-is-out/
======
StevePerkins
Interesting that all of the discussion is rambling about IntelliJ in general
(e.g. Is it slow? Is it better than this other IDE? Ermagherd, Java sucks!
Etc).

Nothing about the actual specific topic, which is that one of the most
prominent development tools in the Java ecosystem now expects the current Java
version to be installed.

Expecting the current version might sound mundane to a Rubyist or Node person
(and it might sound like a pipe dream to a wistful Pythonist!). However, it's
a pretty big change in the Java world. Backwards compatibility is highly
prized...and tool or library authors have always been reluctant to use current
language features, for fear of excluding users stuck on old versions.

Back when I was working in "the enterprise world", it wasn't unheard to see
shops still stuck on 1.4 long after Java 7 had been released. Up until a few
years ago, it was sometimes still a big deal for libraries to start
incorporating generics (introduced with Java 5 in 2004).

Java 8 was SUPPOSED to an even bigger shift than Java 5, with an even slower
adoption rate. However, for some reason it feels like the opposite is proving
true. I'm seeing tools and libraries move to Java 8 shockingly soon compared
to past experience.

I wonder why this is. Perhaps after the rocky Java 5 migration, large
companies embraced the practice of updating their deployed versions more
frequently? Maybe it's Oracle releasing new Java versions every two years now,
and being more aggressive about end-of-life'ing the prior versions? Or perhaps
it's just that I've been out of the enterprise environment and working for
startups instead these past several years, and the situation in large
companies is still as conservative and outdated as ever?

~~~
golergka
Honest question: why is backward compatibility an issue for development
machines? It's an IDE, right, so you will still be able to edit the project
that is backwards-compatible with 1.4 with it?

~~~
ixtli
Intellij can be configured to target older versions of the Java language (so
it will basically error if you use newer language constructs than the ones
you've set) but I can imagine that it might be very difficult for you to
capture quirks of java 1.x if you're using java 1.y. Difficult enough that
most developers would just decide they haven't time for the trouble and
install an old, unsupported, and insecure version of the jvm on their work
machine.

EDIT: To be clear, those quirks would exist on your production deployment
running java 1.x which is why they may be important to emulate.

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thejosh
I really like the IntelliJ products (especially PHPStorm with the Symfony2
plugins, PyCharm, etc) but you really need a 'beefy' computer to run it
properly. SSDs are a must.

~~~
frik
To speed up IntelliJ products, immediately open Settings -> Directories and
exclude all unnecessary folders. Otherwise a crawler background process will
indexes every file, and it consumes a lot of CPU and IO resources.

~~~
djhworld
Got any more detailed instructions for this? I'm running the OSX version of
IntelliJ, I can't see this option anywhere

~~~
frik
File -> Settings -> search for "direct"

Depending on the product version the settings dialog is a bit different:
[https://www.google.com/#q=intellij+exclude+folders](https://www.google.com/#q=intellij+exclude+folders)

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rms_returns
Call me old, but I still use eclipse even for android programming (using the
ADT plugin). Every IDE has pros/cons, and both eclipse and intellij have their
shares, but if you consider the big picture, they mostly even out.

In fact, I would rather argue that the features on which intellij rules are of
superficial nature and have more to do with a "nice feel" (such as more
friendly code-completion or better looking graphics/colors).

But features that eclipse rules are more substantial (like performance,
ability to work on wide range of projects).

The only reason that intellij appears to have more fanboys is that it doesn't
come free. And its human nature that if you spend bucks on something, the free
alternative will obviously look inferior to you!

~~~
vvanders
Eclipse is not what I would call the paramount of performance.

~~~
melted
Eclipse has gotten quite a bit better over the past couple of years. If you
haven't tried it in a while, try again.

~~~
rms_returns
Second that. I had a few issues with trying out mars, but I use kepler daily
and it simply rocks on Ubuntu 14.04!

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markbao
Explain like I'm five: Does this mean that IntelliJ IDEA will get faster?

~~~
jonathonf
HN != Reddit.

~~~
asp_hornet
you're right. on reddit they would have answered his question instead of
giving a snarky response like yours.

~~~
jonathonf
HN readers are not five years old; increasingly reductive questions don't help
anyone.

~~~
jonathonf
Downvoted again; try looking at it this way. Does the question need to be
answered in such a way to be understandable by a five year-old? Does the
question actually need to be prefixed in such a way? No, and no? Then let's
not get drawn in to making people think for themselves less and expect a
little more of them instead - this is how learning and real growth works.

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codecamper
Does anyone know if there was some relationship between Jetbrains & Netbeans?
Netbeans started as Xelfi in Prague mid 90s. Jetbrains is also based in
Prague.

A friend of mine started Xelfi -- I'm trying to figure out how awesome my
friend is.

~~~
currywurst
Netbeans is actually a great IDE, and no doubt has come a long way. It works
well "out of the box" compared to Eclipse, and feels lighter than IntelliJ but
still comes with tons of project templates that actually work well without
further customization.

~~~
codecamper
My friend is pretty awesome -- both as a coder & a great all around guy. Very
fortunate to have met him & it made living in Prague much more interesting &
fun for a nerd like me back in those days.

I could never get my head around Netbeans, and I never really gave it another
chance. Downloaded IntelliJ after it came up in an interview & was hooked ever
since then. Happy for Appcode as well.

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spdustin
I still can't seem to figure out: can IDEA + plugins = PyCharm & RubyMine &
PHPStorm & WebStorm?

~~~
VeilEm
No, they can't. The special versions of their editors do things that are not
possible in a plugin because of how much the UI changes the editor. The good
news is that you can now get a license for all of the intellij based IDEs.
It's not cheap, but worth it.

~~~
hhariri
That's actually not correct. The functionality of all IDE's we have (with
exception of AppCode and CLion) can be obtained via plugins on IntelliJ IDEA.

The smaller IDE's are focused around the specific platform / functionality.

~~~
VeilEm
Sorry hari, I love intellij and the work you do there, but I do not believe
you. Please show me an IntelliJ IDEA that looks and behaves exactly like
webstorm and pycharm just with plugins. You can't. For example Pycharm doesn't
even have a project settings option. What plugin gives you that?

~~~
hhariri
Are you asking if IntelliJ IDEA can look like PyCharm? If that's the case, no,
it can't. Each IDE is somewhat tailored to the specifics of the
framework/language/platform as I mentioned, but the functionality that they
provide is available as plugins. For instance with WebStorm you can have
node.js, angular.js plugins installed in IntelliJ IDEA and get the same
features.

Obviously, IntelliJ IDEA is a polyglot environment so certain things cater to
the needs of many platforms and languages, which is why there are some
differences in UI, but AFAIK, the core functionality is there.

Having said that, we fully understand that users want to have smaller more
focused IDE's based on the specific needs, which is one of the main reasons we
started offer the All Products option.

But I do want to stress that the functionality of the different IDE's are via
plugins, and that these plugins are available for IntelliJ IDEA, the same day
the IDE's are released.

~~~
VeilEm
Sure, and the UI differences become a big problem though when you want to set
something up and cannot find the available documentation for intellij IDEA.
The instructions will only be for Pycharm and making the translation of where
to find the resource in Pycharm to how to find it in IntelliJ via the plugin
can be considerably challening. In addition the special editors also seem to
have sane default options added in places. I don't have a specific example,
but I remember having trouble setting up a django project in intellij, giving
up and buying Pycharm and doing it that way.

I'm very happy for the universal license, thank you so much for adding it. I
love the special editors like WebStorm and PyCharm, and I use IntelliJ IDEA as
well. I use them all, regularly.

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spiralganglion
As someone who is about to heavily start using the Cursive IDE (built on top
of IntelliJ IDEA), this is wonderful news. Coming from a frontend web dev
background, Java 6 has been a layer of slime at the bottom of the barrel of
sweet wine that is Clojure. Now, as soon as Minecraft gets off Java 6, I can
rid my system of that infernal scourge.

[https://cursive-ide.com](https://cursive-ide.com)

~~~
russjr08
Have you upgraded to the new Minecraft launcher? It bundles its own JRE, and
I'm pretty sure it's Java 7.

~~~
SquareWheel
Current bundled Java version is 1.8.0_25.

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Randgalt
Cue the Java haters in 3, 2, 1

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s_kilk
I've given it a whirl, but it looks like their handling of non-English/Qwerty
keyboard layouts is as broken as ever:

[https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-63779](https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-63779)

It's disappointing, as I like the tool and would like to adopt it for every-
day development.

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Too
As an end user of IDEA, not writing any plugins and already got java 8
installed, will i notice anything by this?

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numan1617
This is awesome news. Hopefully this means I won't have to edit my Info.plist
file with every update now.

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mschuster91
Java as base platform? Shit, didn't know that, and it totally explains the
slowness on anything <8GB and spinning rust instead of a HDD.

Can anyone please tell me a reasonably complex GUI program in Java that is
actually fast and resource-efficient? Counter-examples include IDEA, Lotus
Notes, JDownloader, SAP...

I believe that while Java may be a nice programming language, you import
slowness and resource starving of your system by using it.

~~~
StevePerkins
I'm not so much arguing as I am simply asking... what would you recommend
instead for cross-platform desktop app development?

* GTK and even Qt are criticized for looking non-native or even ugly, and for being limited in their available components.

* Going the Atom route, of embedding Chrome and writing your app in HTML and JavaScript, is daft. The languages are poorly suited for the domain, installer bundles are fat and bloated, and the results are so slow and sluggish that they make Java apps look like assembly in comparison.

* Writing native versions for each target platform multiples the development effort, and the number of issues.

Java isn't perfect (nothing is), but it really does stand up well against the
likewise-imperfect alternatives. If you use modern JavaFX, or customize Swing
as I believe JetBrains has done, then users really aren't even aware that
they're running a Java application (you just admitted to being unaware that
IntelliJ was written in Java). Nothing touches Java for ease of cross-platform
development, and packaging and deployment is comparatively simple.

If your Java app performs sluggishly, then it probably isn't because of the UI
anyway. You're seriously citing a huge IDE, Lotus Notes, and freaking _SAP_ as
benchmarks?

~~~
dsacco
I find C#/.NET and Xamarin to be comparable for developing cross-platform
desktop applications. This allows a single codebase that interacts with native
libraries and APIs for each major operating system as well as a native looking
GUI for each.

~~~
purerandomness
Can you name any desktop app written in C#/.NET or Xamarin that looks decent,
on Linux and/or OS X?

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dominotw
now just embed neovim and make it awesome.

~~~
cmsimike
IdeaVim [0], a free plugin, is the best vim emulator I've ever used.

[0]
[https://github.com/JetBrains/ideavim](https://github.com/JetBrains/ideavim)

~~~
innocentoldguy
I agree. IdeaVim is the best Vim emulator I've used as well. However, it is
still just an emulator and it lacks some Vim features that I use all the time.
IdeaVim is very good, but not as good as having NeoVim embedded would be, I
think.

~~~
cmsimike
I'm curious, what features?

~~~
innocentoldguy
I don't remember all of the issues I had with IdeaVim, but remapping the
leader key was one (though I understand this has been fixed), issues with key
mapping and the Dvorak keyboard layout, relative line numbering, etc. There
were several other issues with key combinations I like using in Vim that
didn't work in IdeaVim, but it has been a while and I don't remember what they
were.

The Dvorak issue was specific to the JDK on OS X, according to JetBrains.
Perhaps this is also fixed, now that they don't require Java 6. I don't know.

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nowprovision
IntelliJ reminds me of ramp up prior to Firefox 3.5, forever announcing
performance increases which never seem tangible. However we're at Firefox 43
now and it seems to have delivered on the 3.5 promises, I still hold out hold
for IntelliJ perhaps nearer v20. Damn shame atm though as Cursive Clojure
looks awesome.

~~~
oblio
The Firefox performance increases were (are?) tangible. I don't really
remember which version first delivered them, but a long time ago I used Opera
(9?) because it was much faster when opening a lot of tabs. Then Firefox
became a lot more responsive.

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mc_hammer
pl0x (plz) bring the clion features (refactor and more) to the go ide/plugin

that thing is sweet

