IDEA is Not Enterprisey
February 11th, 2008
I suck. After my late night drunken IDEA is Now Enterprisey post, my faithful readers let me know just how wrong I was. Here are the top ten reasons why IDEA is NOT Enterprisey:
- IDEA is better than NetBeans. Sure, NetBeans includes a free profiler (which I really like and use all the time), and NetBeans is better at Swing GUI layout (who cares), but IDEA is better for stuff I care about…like coding. If IDEA was worse and still cost a lot of money, it would be Enterprisey. But they have the quality to back up the price.
- IDEA is better than Eclipse. Eclipse has a lot of plugins, which is fine unless you care about stuff like usability.
- IBM Rational Application Developer for WebSphere costs $2290 for one developer and expires in 12 months. If you want the license that does not expire, that costs $4240 per developer. For a single floating license, you’ll pay $7430.
- More on the previous point. IBM Rational Application Developer for WebSphere is a bloated*, slower**, more resource-intensive*** franken-IDE built on top of Eclipse, yet costs up to $7430. Ouch. That, my friends, is Enterprisey.
- Enterprisey products never have good keyboard navigation. IDEA does.
- Really smart people all left Java to use Ruby, Groovy, and perhaps Scala. Of those who remain, the top few percentile still prefer IDEA. There must be a reason why all of these smarties like IDEA.
- IDEA completely changes its project file format with each major release. They also keep tossing out and rewriting the project management GUI. Enterprisey products are far less volatile, demonstrating that JetBrains would rather fix and improve their product versus hanging on to garbage for years just to appease some boring IT department. (think Apple versus Microsoft here)
- IDEA’s bug database is public, definitely not very Enterprisey of them.
- Carpenters and mechanics buy some of their own tools. Somehow this makes IDEA non-Enterprisey.
- As Mark V. pointed out in an Email, you can get a free IDEA license by speaking at the St. Louis Java User’s Group. Which reminded me…that’s how I got my current IDEA 6 license. Damn, I’m a cheap bastard.
My wife just brought me ice cream, so I’ll wrap this up.
In summary, I apologize for the last post.
Footnotes
* – I’m just making this up
** – could be, I don’t know.
*** – how would I know? You think I’m paying $7430 to find out?
Uses RAD 7 everyday:
* – Nope, it is.
** – Than plain eclipse, it is. Than IDEA, it really is.
*** – Oh yea, try 1GB heaps to even keep it remotely running well.
re: #10. One might get a free Idea license by attending a StL JUG meeting. They often raffle one off, donated by JetBrains. I suspect that this happens at many JUGs. (This is yet another reason to attend a local JUG.)
Also, I forgot my own post: they contributed back to the Groovy project (the joint Java/Groovy compiler). A touch of icing on the cake (i.e. the above list).
That said, I do think it is a substantive debate on buying a personal license. My motto: give me Idea if someone else is paying, otherwise I’ll take Eclipse
I got my free license via their open source program. But I loved it so much I bought it with my own bucks so I could use it for other projects.
I got my free license (for v7) when I use EAP versions and report bugs. No enterprisey IDE vendor did it.
you guys are just cheap, buy IBM Rational Application Developer for WebSphere – its better
@raveman: Better than what?!
Better, presumably, than writing out class files in binary through an interface that works by slapping yourself in the face for a 0, and punching yourself in the groin for a 1.
>>Really smart people all left Java …
Really smart people *never started* Java …
I am forced to use IBM Rational Application Developer for WebSphere at work. It blows. You have to remember all kinds of quirks (like manually saving your files before running). I use it to autogenerate web service stubs for my EJB’s. then move the project to Idea. What really blows is that if I need to ask the tech lead a question, I have to go back to RAD. I also have to check in my RAD project to CVS. I pray daily for a return to Ant or Maven. It takes 25 grueling GUI commands in hidden submenus of hidden menus to build a project from scatch (to our spec.).
Idea Rules!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!