July 06, 2012

Getting frustrated with IDE´s

Working with eclipse never seemed so cumbersome. A bunch of plugins which seem to behave in an arbitrary and non comprehensible way. It´s even getting worse from release to release and installation. Is there something better?
Along my career I used several IDE´s. Starting from old DOS txt file editing to current eclipse or myeclipse IDE:
  • DOS console text file editing. 
  • WJed text file editing with syntax highlighting.
  • JBuilder IDE.
  • Eclipse 2.x  until Indigo.
Sure, demands are getting complex:
  • Versionmanagement. (Subversion Plugin)
  • Build-Management. (Maven Plugin)
  • Faceted Projects (Web application, EE applications, Persistence, etc.)
  • Annotations (Hibernate,JAXB,Dozer tools plugin)
But, I begin to doubt the eclipse implementation. Eclipse costs me dearly. Eclipse uses too much time for configuration and reconfiguration. Worse; Sometimes the workspace "breaks-down" even irreparable.

Yes, Eclipse is free. No, I don´t like it anymore. I am looking for alternatives. The first try of IntelliJ already made me think:
  1. Is the eclipse IDE at its final end when it comes to productivity? 
  2. Should we waste production time and efficiency for a free tool? 
Alternatives:
I´m ready for a change, what about you?