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Comment by solardev | Hacker News Reader

I never used Eclipse so can't speak to that, but compared to VScode, it's got a lot of great built-ins: symbol lookup and searches work well, Typescript support is great, the debugger works well, built-in Gutlens-style version control GUI, a good 3-way diff and merge tool, linters, refactoring tools, etc. Also database browser, diagrammer, multi language support...

Most of that is also available in some form with VScode plug-ins, but I prefer Jetbrains's monolithic approach with batteries included. It's what I want from my IDE (everything out of the box).

And aren't Maven and Gradle build tools, not IDEs? (Sorry for the noob question; JS dev here)

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I like IDEA plenty... it's better in some ways than Eclipse, worse in others. I don't get why the Java dev market swept wholesale over to the paid-for tool in preference to the free one.

(edit: actually I think the reason may be that there was a perception that Eclipse was buggy/slow but I think that was always down to bad plugins - I'm not sure if IDEA had a better plugin system or just better curation of them)

I haven't itemised it, but Eclipse has most if not all of the features you list.

Maven and Gradle are indeed build tools, there I was just addressing the original question of "outdated" tools that I still use in preference to the current shiny one. Confusing in context I admit, sorry.

What was the Larry Ellison attributed quote about programmers ? Google shows me sth along the "the computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than fashion industry".

It rings quite true - new tools comes and gets the market because they are the new hot shot in town (like eclipse and then intellij once was). Its only matter of time before VSCode will go the same way.

As for eclipse I personally blame lack of funding and interest from new open source devs after it lost its status.

I still use it daily but with each new Eclipse release and my code base growth it really slows down to a halt sometimes and it becomes more and more frustrating. Maybe its time to switch to something that is kept alive by more than few old guys.

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