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Yea, I agree that the IntelliJ IDEA and VS (not code) are the two best IDEs out there.

The three major factors I would rank the IDEA over VS.

1. Extensibility, its more likely to support X language

2. Crossplatform, it actually runs on my platform

3. Its UI doesn't change drastically every few years. This is such an underrated thing IMO. Neither VS or IDEA are pretty IDEs, they both are actually butt ugly. They don't need to be. But VS goes thru so many visual changes and reorganizations, its the same reason why I don't use Office. I'm not sure many ppl view this as a bad thing however. I often find MS fans loving to brag about how "modern" their software always looks, even if it still looks just as shitty as the old one lol.

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I think the key to UX design is that it's very different to make a website or an application that is occasionally used than it is to make an application where most users use it 40h/week. I really welcome that ms keep iterating on the VS UI, and it doesn't matter if it slows me down the first days if it helps me over the coming year.

And now with the one you excluded (VS Code), we are seeing them making a serious move on your two big advantages of IDEA over VS.

They have apparently built a lot of the "big" VS in C#, and they have apparently architected VS Code with a C# runtime on top of Electron to make it easier to port big pieces of VS into VS Code.

Today they announced a preview of their upcoming C/C++ extension (https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vcblog/2016/03/31/cc-extens...) and they say their Python tools for VS are coming to VS Code this year.

And VS Code "runs on my platform(s)".

The more developers they convert to VS Code, which is a lot deeper than just an editor for C# and Typescript, the more influence they will have on development patterns on all platforms. This seems like a bigger push than just "make Windows the best platform for developing for all platforms". They're attempting to get devs who continue working on Mac and Linux to switch to their dev tools.

I've used both, but I'm forced to use VS at work. I think that its changes are for the better. It's definitely a strength. There are also very cool tools for source control; code reviews, continuous integration, bug tracking.

In addition, you can see a reference counter above your classes that offer a quick jump to where your class is being referenced from. It is majorly helpful.

The down side is when Visual Studio breaks. Sometimes, it caches files, causing strange functionality. There is this thing called MsBuild that can break your package management. It defaults to an auto-merge, which is the worst possible thing to do to your team mates.

I don't find VS ugly at all, but I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Yeah I stopped using MS Office when the "ribbon" was introduced, and on the rare occasions when I have to use it now it always seems to look completely different from what I remember, I'm completely lost and I find that common functions seem to be utterly undiscoverable.

#3 must be the most underrated software feature ever. Too bad that it is at odds with the model of making money by selling new software revisions. Maybe the slow move to paid subscriptions will spare us the hassle of re-learning UIs for no good reason when we are old and grey :)

(How much would i pay for a carefully maintained subscription of Office 97? Well, not that much, but that is more than i paid for office software since)

It's at odds with employees' own agendas as well -- nobody gets promoted for fixing a few bugs. Rearranging buttons, that is something your manager will notice.

I don't understand this hostility. Some change in design is OK. Nobody knows the future so when major new features get introduced or excised, some reorganization makes sense. The "What would you like to do?" In Microsoft office is a simple little textbox that adds a lot of value for casual users I'd say enough to warrant them paying $5 a month for an Office subscription.

The ribbon makes it seem easy to surface features that would otherwise be hidden deep in menus and sub menus.

Of course, UI design is difficult just as doing any work for consumption by others is difficult especially when there is no complete spec. I am not a UI designer but even I can make a UI that I will think is good enough. However, making a UI for others is tough.

Maybe it is just my luck but project managers or owners have always been hesitant to support UI changes. Maybe I've just been lucky to have good managers but I can't recall a single time I've had to make a UI change that wasn't driven by what I thought was a valid business need.

Also maybe why I'm not employed now :P

#3 they're not too bad with the darker themes, but to each his own. Eclipse does a bad job at this though, I think they should modernize their UI extensively. Android Studio isn't too ugly and it's based off IntelliJ.

In my opinion eclipse is still a lot better than VS. It is smaller, faster and provides more features. For C++ visual studio is not much better than smart editor. It cannot even find all symbol references (it searches just for text). I also do not like licensing (free version works 30 days and than requires registration with a lot of info about you).

I remember that C# version had totally different project settings window as if created by someone else than the rest of VS. But I haven't used it for some time so maybe it is already fixed.

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