What language?
Could be they've forgotten how, but this isn't the first experience like this. I am doing fine with the tools even though they don't do everything when the language is not statically typed).
Java isn't perfect and when people also treat their IDE as a glorified text editor I think it is no wonder they dislike it.
(If you go with Java, embrace it. This is probably the thing I disliked most about the way programming was taught in school: they used Java, but without the tooling that makes it awesome. Supposedly so we should learn it well.
If anyone here teaches Java: by all mean have your students use javac in the first assignmemt but teach them maven the very next thing you do. Learn them to use an IDE - it's not harmful as long as you don't accept autogenerated code.)
The part in parenthesis is just a rant about education and how teachers use notepad and javac to teach Java.
So my point is the only thing students shouldn't use in an IDE is code generation.
If I had been given a zip with a basic pom file and the correct main and test directories I think I'd had a much simpler start.
It's possibly the single tool[0] I'll miss from the .Net world when I program in Java.
(For anyone who might be wondering why not Resharper that is because that functionality is provided out-of-the-box with all major Java IDEs. On .Net however, Resharper seems to be almost a must-have for many.)
[0]: I'll be missing Asp.Net MVC, parts of Entity Framework and parts of the C# language too.