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Comment by flatiron | Hacker News Reader

For Java there really is no replacement for IntelliJ. I don’t think people “talk shit”. I use vscode and I enjoy it. I don’t use it for Java.

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I'm not a Java developer so forgive my ignorance, but is Eclipse as good as IntelliJ?

Sadly no, as Eclipse was an admirable project at the time. But IntelliJ has far outpaced them years ago. I used them side by side in maybe 2016 for a while, and it was just no comparison. Since then IntelliJ is still making leaps, and Eclipse is just hanging by a thread.

VSCode supports Java, and can do 99% of what IntelliJ does in a simpler, faster interface. https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/java/java-tutorial

Do you do Java for a living? I do and nobody in the industry uses vscode for Java. IntelliJ has a unique position like eclipse did 10 years ago that every senior person uses it and loves it. Vscode for Java I’m sure is fine. Never used it. So not saying it’s not good or not suitable for tasks.

“Everyone in the industry uses it” is always the argument for some legacy tool before it’s replaced by something better. Case in point, Eclipse like you mentioned yourself.

> “Everyone in the industry uses it” is always the argument for some legacy tool before it’s replaced by something better

I guess the MacBook Pro's days are numbered, then?

> “Everyone in the industry uses it” is always the argument for some legacy tool before it’s replaced by something better.

I guess stability, tooling ecosystem, and ages of user/customer support info means nothing then, and being new is reason enough to scrap all your tooling and workflow?

Developers are paid to deliver features, and test-driving the latest and greatest fad gets in the way.

Once the alternatives does even a fraction of what Intellij provides out of the box..

Name one major feature that IntelliJ has that VSCode doesn’t.

Before everything more important, maybe vscode should fix their auto complete. The suggestions are so bad, I'd turn it off before using it for anything serious.

Any number of complex refactoring, code upgrade refactoring, symbol search etc.? Knowing how to work with project configs (such as Spring, Micronaut, and non-java projects like Symfony etc.)?

Eclipse users loved it 10 years ago? Man, I think I started using Eclipse 15 years ago, and every year would get excited when hearing about the new release because I would be hopeful that they finally made it perform better. They never did... I was so happy when I finally found out about IntelliJ. It's a significantly better experience than Eclipse ever was.

Yes - Eclipse was the best Java IDE once upon a time and I loved it! It was far superior to its contemporaries (Netbeans!). I have fond memories of the Indigo release, which was one of the last versions I used before switching to Jetbrains

I do Java and Scala for a living. VS Code is perfectly fine, it runs eclipse underneath. I use both it and IntelliJ for my work. IMO the only area where IntelliJ shines is debugging, and support for more rare libraries like play and sbt.

I do Java for a living, and I use VSCode and IntelliJ both for Java. VSCode shines when you want to quickly open up a project and do something minor. IntelliJ is better for when you're going to be there for a while.

The big thing about VSCode that I really like is that it just seems to be easier to look at... There's less visual cruft by default than in IntelliJ.

Funny, I have the reverse opinion. I think VSCode's UI is obtuse and the default theme is awful. I will agree that IntelliJ's UI is busy but I know where all the tools are. Reminds me of Photoshop in that regard. I appreciate not needing to frankenstein together a ton of plugins just to get non-trivial functionality.

Edit: Not to say that I'm right or that you're wrong. Just pointing out differing opinions exist. To each their own.

You will LOVE Fleet. It looks like VSCode, loads faster than it... Yet you can activate "smart mode" which is the full power of IntelliJ. Pretty cool. Still early so a lot of things aren't there yet but I think it will be a huge deal.

> VSCode shines when you want to quickly open up a project and do something minor.

VSCode shines in comparison only when all you need is a text editor to quickly open a couple of files, you don't need to do anything beyond reading code without navigating files or doing the occasional typo fix, and you don't actually need an integrated development environment.

Other than that, I struggle to come up with a scenario where, if anyone already had both installed, vscode would be the preferred solution.

I agree with 'by default' but you can hide it all, even go as far as having nothing but the text visible in the window.

My IJ is set up in a way that it is very clean. Tabs, file explorer, editor, embedded terminal if needed. It doesn't get much cleaner.

No, it can't, because it's understanding of Java code is much worse.

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