IntelliJ IDEA runs everywhere and is a lot smarter than Visual Studio out of the box. The community edition is not only free of charge, but open-source as well. Visual Studio needs the Resharper plugin by IntelliJ, to be able to call it a modern IDE.
It also has really good plugins for many languages, besides Java, like Scala, Python, Ruby, Javascript, PHP, Clojure and Groovy.
My colleagues that are doing Ruby development are saying that it's the best IDE for Ruby. Whereas myself, as a Scala developer, I'm saying that it's the best IDE for Scala - the Scala plugin for example is still not as smart as the Java functionality, but has everything you'd expect out of an IDE, like amazing autocompletion and magical debugging with inspection - personally I feel that IntelliJ IDEA for Scala is better than Visual Studio for C# without Resharper.
Its only problem is that there's no support for C#. This is because people doing C# are doing it on Windows with Visual Studio, so there wasn't demand. But say that demand increases for cross-platform stuff due to these moves by Microsoft, IntelliJ IDEA will probably gain C# support and if IntelliJ the company is the one that does it, then it's going to be darn good.
So don't get me wrong, but for cross-platform stuff alternatives already exist and even if Microsoft releases Visual Studio cross-platform, problem is that it will have serious competition, plus they'll have to poor serious resources into it and frankly I'm not seeing it happening - IntelliJ IDEA is built in Java and runs on the JVM, hate it or love it, for IntelliJ it is easy to port it to other platforms. Visual Studio on the other hand, well, it probably has very Windows-specific guts. So a cross-platform port probably won't happen.
But what I'm seeing happening is a plugin for IntelliJ IDEA or Eclipse (hopefully IDEA, since it's my favorite). And from what I understood there are things in project Roslyn that IDE authors could use to jump start the nice stuff, like completion or refactoring support.
> You didn't say what Resharper does, and why other IDE's need it to be called modern. Is this an advert for Resharper?
It's clear what he meant for everyone who hasn't been living under the rock for the last 10 years. Don't blame him if you are clueless.
> You listed one middling language among 6 top languages. Is this another advert, trying to promote a language by associating it with the oft used ones?
Heh? It's a list of some languages supported by that IDE.
> IntelliJ IDEA runs everywhere and is a lot smarter than Visual Studio out of the box. The community edition is not only free of charge, but open-source as well.
Perhaps he meant "automated code refactoring" but used a brand name instead. I've never knowingly used Resharper whenever I've used IDEA community edn, but perhaps it's been running anonymously beneath the surface. That's why I asked what it was. His whole comment read like an advert for brands like IDEA, Resharper, and Groovy so that's why I questioned it.
It also has really good plugins for many languages, besides Java, like Scala, Python, Ruby, Javascript, PHP, Clojure and Groovy.
My colleagues that are doing Ruby development are saying that it's the best IDE for Ruby. Whereas myself, as a Scala developer, I'm saying that it's the best IDE for Scala - the Scala plugin for example is still not as smart as the Java functionality, but has everything you'd expect out of an IDE, like amazing autocompletion and magical debugging with inspection - personally I feel that IntelliJ IDEA for Scala is better than Visual Studio for C# without Resharper.
Its only problem is that there's no support for C#. This is because people doing C# are doing it on Windows with Visual Studio, so there wasn't demand. But say that demand increases for cross-platform stuff due to these moves by Microsoft, IntelliJ IDEA will probably gain C# support and if IntelliJ the company is the one that does it, then it's going to be darn good.
So don't get me wrong, but for cross-platform stuff alternatives already exist and even if Microsoft releases Visual Studio cross-platform, problem is that it will have serious competition, plus they'll have to poor serious resources into it and frankly I'm not seeing it happening - IntelliJ IDEA is built in Java and runs on the JVM, hate it or love it, for IntelliJ it is easy to port it to other platforms. Visual Studio on the other hand, well, it probably has very Windows-specific guts. So a cross-platform port probably won't happen.
But what I'm seeing happening is a plugin for IntelliJ IDEA or Eclipse (hopefully IDEA, since it's my favorite). And from what I understood there are things in project Roslyn that IDE authors could use to jump start the nice stuff, like completion or refactoring support.