I've used emacs for about 10 years (written plugins, declared emacs.d bankruptcy, gone all-in on org-mode), so I'm familiar with the pros of configurable editors.
Here's a list of more advanced functionality built into Intellij that would be difficult to replicate:
- Bullet-proof navigation and advanced refactoring that works every time across a wide variety of languages.
- Database integration: syntax highlighting for SQL code in strings, runnable sql, database introspection
- Debugging: consistency and polish across languages, not relying on external tools that might not be installed, visual debugger
Text-editors struggle with the "integrated" aspect of an IDE. It's not terribly difficult to coerce text editors to perform well for a single language. It's much harder to integrate plugins and provide a consistent experience.
There's good reasons to use text editors (learn how it all works, extreme customization, magit, lightweight) but there's many development tasks Intellij is just better at.
I mean, it's a trade-off. IntelliJ is better at some things, and worse at others. There are certain programming languages where I prefer IntelliJ (mainly Java and PHP), and there are other cases where I prefer Neovim (Rust, Julia, Python, LaTeX, markdown).
> Text-editors struggle with the "integrated" aspect of an IDE.
Neovim integrates a lot better with my terminal heavy workflows than IntelliJ does.
Here's a list of more advanced functionality built into Intellij that would be difficult to replicate:
- Bullet-proof navigation and advanced refactoring that works every time across a wide variety of languages.
- Database integration: syntax highlighting for SQL code in strings, runnable sql, database introspection
- Debugging: consistency and polish across languages, not relying on external tools that might not be installed, visual debugger
Text-editors struggle with the "integrated" aspect of an IDE. It's not terribly difficult to coerce text editors to perform well for a single language. It's much harder to integrate plugins and provide a consistent experience.
There's good reasons to use text editors (learn how it all works, extreme customization, magit, lightweight) but there's many development tasks Intellij is just better at.