> But what do you actually get with IntelliJ? A massive, monolithic Java application that frequently hogs 8GB+ of RAM, locks up your system while “indexing pre-built binaries,” and forces you into a closed proprietary ecosystem.
This is just exaggeration. I use IntelliJIDEA everyday (on mac) with multiple projects open and tbh they have optimized the IDE a lot to make it faster. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's getting better. Also it's not closed source. The core of the IDE is open source (https://github.com/jetbrains/intellij-community) and for some specific framework support (e.g. Spring) are available on Ultimate.
Also, like where else would the indices live? They are in memory to make going to definition, source, analysis etc fast. It's not even using java objects for these, so a feature-equivalent solution would be similarly "fat".
This is actually not an exaggeration. Ive been using WebStorm when it worked well, then it became progressively slower to the point of being unusable even on small projects.
I've tried using RustRover over WSL2 multiple times with every new release, but it's been a huge disappointment every time. My fans constantly spin like crazy, memory vanishes into thin air, and typing is super laggy - it even overwrites random sections of the file sometimes. On top of that, the built-in terminal is totally unusable because it craps out and freezes the app whenever there's a large output.
PyCharm, on the other hand, was always great to use. But since VS Code gives me pretty much everything I need for my daily work without demanding too much from my system, I've finally moved away from JetBrains.
I feel the same about VS Code, it's probably some of the plugins but sometimes, especially when LLMs make edits, memory usage explodes until my system breaks down and force pauses some apps until I kill some of them.
I should go back to Zed, maybe use the CLI interface for agentic programming instead of the UI.
The fact we still don't have a decent Java language server is one of my canaries for the fact that LLMs still, generally speaking, can't ship. There is undeniably demand for this sort of thing, but nobody is coming to meet it. (jdtls, bless it for trying, is just not good)
Exactly. I've been trying to say this. Some people think that because people can write CRUD APIs and end-user apps with AI, no-one will need to write code anymore.
There is so much to be built in terms of tooling and libraries where we need tight, solid, well-crafted, original, unique code.
These are two different things; a language server would be a standardized intermediate layer between said CI tooling and any editor for inline / realtime checking, code suggestions and formatting.
That's just a wrapper for jdtls. I mean it works on some projects, but fails on many gradle builds and is basically just running the Eclipse IDE headlessly.
Metal, the Scala LSP, seems to do Java just fine. When using it in VSC, I feel the limitations compared to IntelliJ are more coming from VSC than from the LSP. Dependencies etc just resolve fine, it is just the UI that is not as polished as IntelliJ’s.
I try VSC with Metal twice a year. It works fine for small projects. But for bigger projects it lacks the more holistic approach that IntelliJ has and feels more like a text editor with smarts bolted on than an IDE.
I’m using Zed a lot as well for Golang and a bit for Rust. For Java it is also hard to use and lacking the same polish.
This is just exaggeration. I use IntelliJIDEA everyday (on mac) with multiple projects open and tbh they have optimized the IDE a lot to make it faster. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's getting better. Also it's not closed source. The core of the IDE is open source (https://github.com/jetbrains/intellij-community) and for some specific framework support (e.g. Spring) are available on Ultimate.
PyCharm, on the other hand, was always great to use. But since VS Code gives me pretty much everything I need for my daily work without demanding too much from my system, I've finally moved away from JetBrains.
I should go back to Zed, maybe use the CLI interface for agentic programming instead of the UI.
There is so much to be built in terms of tooling and libraries where we need tight, solid, well-crafted, original, unique code.
And speaking on llm and lsp. The new PHP lsp PHPantom (with help of llms) is approaching jetbrains offering fast.
This is probably the one contender:
https://github.com/georgewfraser/java-language-server
and it kinda works, but it's also a bit lacking.
I try VSC with Metal twice a year. It works fine for small projects. But for bigger projects it lacks the more holistic approach that IntelliJ has and feels more like a text editor with smarts bolted on than an IDE.
I’m using Zed a lot as well for Golang and a bit for Rust. For Java it is also hard to use and lacking the same polish.
https://scalameta.org/metals/docs/editors/emacs
https://github.com/jetbrains/intellij-community ?