I have had a similar experience. I am a professional Java developer, which means 1G Eclipse + 1mm LOC projects. And started hacking on Go in my spare time. The difference is phenomenal. I can use a full screen terminal with vim + another screen with a browser. This is paradise.
All my tools respond instantly (with a big enough project eclipse stutters on every interaction, even with an i7 + 16G of ram). And I can code happily on my monster quad core or my hacked up chromebook. This is flexibility.
Like brandall10 I found that the difference in focus is enormous. I haven't connected with my code like this for years. In a modern IDE everything moves, every twitch of the mouse brings up some overstuffed menu or brings up some javadoc summary of somesuch. It is an environment of constant distraction.
My terminal is like a warm summer's morning. Clear skies and not a soul to disturb you.
I lived in Emacs + Ruby/Python/Perl for most of 1998-2008 and I've recently been forced into IDEs to do mobile development in Obj-C and Java.
And I'm loving it. I never had this much visibility into my code or anything close to the refactoring power (especially in Java). Maybe things go south with 1mm LOC projects but those are no picnic in Emacs either. I've gotten so addicted to the benefits of a good IDE that I think I'll take a serious look at Rubymine if I ever go back to doing Rails again.
All my tools respond instantly (with a big enough project eclipse stutters on every interaction, even with an i7 + 16G of ram). And I can code happily on my monster quad core or my hacked up chromebook. This is flexibility.
Like brandall10 I found that the difference in focus is enormous. I haven't connected with my code like this for years. In a modern IDE everything moves, every twitch of the mouse brings up some overstuffed menu or brings up some javadoc summary of somesuch. It is an environment of constant distraction.
My terminal is like a warm summer's morning. Clear skies and not a soul to disturb you.