They always work with minimal configuration for me, and just generally make all of the tedious stuff take less time. Being able to do everything I need to do (building, running tests, debugging, interfacing with a db, HTTP requests, refactoring, static analysis, VCS tasks) in one place just feels good to me. Also, I have yet to see another IDE with something like IntelliJ's Structural Search and Replace.
I use emacs on the command line for brief edits, but I've never managed to find an IDE-esque setup for it that worked well (I've struggled just to have it indent Python the way I want it to).
I used to love vim, but it's just an editor and sometimes I want more. I decided it is worth my time to invest in a tool that has existed for decades and will be around for decades.
The dream honestly is Emacs to be replaced by another modern and streamlined editor, that is still as extensible and lispy as Emacs. The current iteration is weird and idiosyncratic, but the foundations it is built upon are timeless and way ahead than any other programmer's editor.
People are commenting a number of Jetbrains IDEs below.
PHP with PhpStorm is like a flakey Java.
It’s amazing what that IDE did to that language. It’s the only way to write a lot of PHP.
it is very promising https://helix-editor.com/ https://github.com/helix-editor/helix
Really feels like the best of both worlds to me.
The VSCode Vim extension has a `gh` key sequence for showing the hover info you normally have to use the mouse for that made switching much easier.
Killer features are directory list, integrated terminal, git and remote development extensions.
would almost beat VSCode, but it's only available on Windows. N++ perfectly fits into how I work, using the keyboard mainly. It supports plugins, is quick even with large files and is highly customisable which makes it (combined with Total Commander) the perfect command center on Windows.
I love its block copying/pasting/typing and also that you can 'pass' any block of selected text into external command and it will be pasted back into that file you selected it after being parsed by it.
For example you can send that block of text info sort -n or tr ' ' '\n' command ... or into column -t to make it format well.
This also makes Geany a great editor/IDE for taking notes/documentation etc.
I tried to use ZIM for that but you can not even disable word wrapping so its maybe useful for some 'short' things but it definitely does not work for me and Geany fits beautiful here.
Regards.
Vim before, and periodically now, because I don't need emacs RSI and muscle memmory is real thing.
Jetbrains IDEs are pretty good, but PyCharm is pretty heavyweight when you've got a bunch of small Python repos, each with their own LSP server going. Maybe it's gotten better in the past few years though.
Love certain features of VScode such as cross-project file drag and drop, but cannot get over how slow it is.
Kate and Lapsce are showing a lot of promise.
Admittedly wrote a ton of code in Notepad++ back in the day. Would have never switched to Sublime if it had Linux support.
For config file editing, VS code if available. Otherwise (SSH, visudo, other CLI-only situation) I use whatever is available (usually vim or nano).
I tend to use Notepad++ on Windows for some things, since it's got good support for keyboard macros which are sometimes faster to use than sed or awk.
I think it's an awesome project and may use it one day, but definitely felt not ready to use.
Vim simply gives the best editing experience, and together with the old Vim plugins and the newer Neovim plugins it gives me everything I'd want and more.
This is why I will pretty much always using a vi-like editor. Currently using vim/nvim/Doom Emacs depending on which machine I'm using, but it is _extremely_ helpful to be able to have a common set of keybinds which I can use to at least comfortably edit config files on *nix.
it is always there.
it loads instantly.
it can handle filesizes that make other editors croak.
Win: Visual Studio 2022, SQL Server Management Studio