Do you trust 'jump to definition'. Obviously it depends on the language server, but it's best effort. I'm often frustrated when it doesn't work, because I broke the code in some way. Or it jumps to a specific definition, but there are multiple. If I was as quick at opening and reading files as claude code, I'd prefer grep with context around the searched term.

> Do you trust 'jump to definition'.

It depends, for some languages 'jump to definition' tools ask the same compiler/interpreter that you use to build your code, so it's as accurate as it gets, and it's not 'best effort'.

It also depends a bit on your project, some project are more prone to re-using names or symbols.

> If I was as quick at opening and reading files as claude code, I'd prefer grep with context around the searched term.

Well, Claude probably also doesn't want to have to 'learn' how to use all kinds of different tools for different languages and eco-systems.

In java, for example, jump to definition is pretty flawless.

Unless I'm in an interface and inheritance heavy codebase. Then the first place it jumps to is rarely the one I wanted.

In ViM with the CoC code completion plugin JTD gives me multiple options when there are many and I can choose the sensible one in a popover before the actual jump occurs.

I believe that was my experience with IDEs too?

You can instruct the compiler to tell you, for example by passing -save-temps, and then it's a trivial text search in a single file.

Jump to definition works when you have the starting point already.

I use both grep and JTD fairly frequently for different use cases.

Yes.

I meant 'Jump to Definition' as one clear example, not as a definitive enumeration of everything that compiler integration can help you with.

Eg compiler integration is also really useful to show you the inferred types. Even dinosaurs like old-school Java and C have (limited) type inference: inside of expressions. But of course in a language like Haskell or Rust (or even Python) this becomes much more important.