Developer tools can be magic but instead collect dust

Re:Developer tools can be magic but instead collect dust by cratermoon on Sunday March 28, 2021 @06:10PM (#26615168)

Every time I change developer tools it's because the one I've been using has become bloated with add-ons as part of the install. When the installer has options for choosing packages, they aren't granular enough to be worthwhile. So the IDE becomes a hinderance, using memory, CPU, and screen real estate intrusively. JetBrains is there now, but it still has better language support for my needs than anything else more lightweight. I use VS Code for everything unless I absolutely need to fire up JetBrains.

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Re:Developer tools can be magic but instead collect dust by luckylion on Sunday March 28, 2021 @06:32PM (#26615388)

> So the IDE becomes a hinderance, using memory, CPU, and screen real estate intrusively.

The screen space used is highly configurable, but if it wasn't, I'd agree. I don't care about memory or CPU at all.

Maybe it's different for other languages, I mostly do PHP + JS/HTML/CSS, but PHPStorm vs vscode (+ plugins for both) is not even close, and PHPStorm makes me so much more productive and takes so much annoyance out of my day that investing in a beefier machine seems like a small price to pay. I've easily made that money back once a month just because I get more done.

I like vscode, but I pretty much exclusively use it as a text editor and notepad.

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Re:Developer tools can be magic but instead collect dust by ipaddr on Sunday March 28, 2021 @08:18PM (#26616304)

PHPStorm gives you so much, it feels like too much because it takes forever to load.

Developing with php should feel fast. I feel like phpstorm slows me down. I like sublime, it opens the last project in .5 seconds. For me ctrl-p start typing is usually quicker than scrolling down a tree structure.

I want to use phpStorm daily again but it gives me zend eclipse flashbacks. I wish they offered a light verson.

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Re:Developer tools can be magic but instead collect dust by TylerE on Monday March 29, 2021 @12:53AM (#26617818)

Are you on a 15 year old laptop or something?

The Jetbrains stuff really isn't _that_ heavyweight.

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Re:Developer tools can be magic but instead collect dust by katbyte on Monday March 29, 2021 @03:11AM (#26618517)

Loads faster then vscode for me - the only real hinderance I find is it expects a “project” and isn’t very good at “I just want to edit this one file”

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Re:Developer tools can be magic but instead collect dust by ta988 on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @09:37AM (#26634448)

There is something exactly for that: https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/lightedit-mode.html

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Re:Developer tools can be magic but instead collect dust by luckylion on Monday March 29, 2021 @03:42AM (#26618644)

You might be having a different usage pattern than me. I typically work on only a few projects in a day, and I have those open in parallel and switch between windows.

It's a shared process, so they're not each taking up resources (I wish that was changeable, since they've had and continue to have some annoying bugs around it).

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