Intellij Idea

News: IntelliJ IDEA 4.0 was released on February 17, 2004.
A Java IDE with built-in refactoring patterns. See http://www.intellij.com/idea and http://www.intellij.com/docs/IDEA_30_Overview.pdf

See also: WhyIntellijIdeaIsCool, EugeneBelyaev, SergeyDmitriev, JunitWithIntellij

'IDEA' is a pun combining the words 'IDE' and 'idea', because the developers had a lot of ideas that they implemented in IntellijIdea. any relation to IdeaSpace??

Be free to add new interpretations for the 'A' in the name:

I've created a Quick Reference Card: http://www.caracara.org/misc/quickref/
Experiences:

I am evaluating IDEA 2.0...it is way cool, and it is priced well. I characterize myself as a "Reluctant Java Programmer" who is at heart a still Smalltalker. Of course, VisualAge is my preferred Java IDE, but it is really crippled now, stuck in the Java stone age of JDK 1.2.2.

What do Smalltalkers and Visualagers think of IDEA? Anything better out there?

I agree, this editor is _very_ nice. I'm using 2.5 now, after a year or two of gvim and ctags, it's a welcome relief. One thing I'd like to see in _any_ editor is vi key bindings :(.

On a side note, I've noticed that whenever I switch to a "code completing" editor, I tend to rapidly forget big chunks of the base API (what are the parameters needed for a new Font constructor? etc).

It's not that you forget, it's that the IDE remembers for you. ;-)

I'd rather be free to remember what it was I wanted to do. Anything that cuts out a javadoc lookup enables me to keep flowing. (BTW: Have you seen Ctrl-Q for Quck javadoc?)

A colleague recommended this and it's awesome. It's the nearest thing I've seen to SteveMcConnell's imaginary CobblerIde? that he described in CodeComplete. When my evaluation license runs out I'm going to have to seriously consider buying this. Or tweak Emacs till it can do all the neat things IntellijIdea does out of the box. The memory footprint is tiny (compared to a monster like JBuilder) and it even has emacs key-bindings.

Tiny? You may be going overboard just a little.

Well maybe a little. On the other hand JBuilder 6 takes 33 meg even though I don't actually have any projects open. Whilst IntelliJIdea uses 38 meg when I'm actually doing useful work. Maybe the problem is that JavaIdesAreTooBig??
A FAQ for IntellijIdea is available at http://www.jguru.com/faq/printablefaq.jsp?topic=IntellijIDEA.
You can download a V3 version by subscribing to eap. Going on the site http://www.intellij.com/eap and subscribing. V3 is stronger. The CodeInspection? feature is also very useful. Especially after a heavy refactoring session or when you're looking at a large codebase that's evolved over time. It can spot things like unused methods, variables that never get used, and branches that never get executed. It's kind of like having a StaticAnalysis? tool like JavaLint built-in to your IDE.
One of the really nice features (besides the superb editing & code browsing) is the panels that auto-hide (ala the Windows taskbar). It's great for working on a laptop where screen real-estate is limited. It's also nice that almost everything has a keyboard shortcut associated with it. IDEA doesn't have all the "enterprise" features that make other IDEs so bloated. You can consider this a good or bad thing, depending on your point of view.
Lots of people want to know about EclipseVsIdea.
The best IDE the world has seen. The software oozes sincerity. So much care and attention to minute detail has been given while making it. There are great features and some very small yet such well-thought features:

I could just go on and on... I once got a warning from it saying "Silly assignement" to a statement that looked like this:

i = i ;

Every little thing has been soo taken care of. Excellent user-interface. It just reflects the personality of the developers - They are perfectionists. The developers have given it their personality. For people who aren't much into Java, it would make them want to be in it! -- AbhishekGupta

Just goes to show how important 'usability design' is in software developement. This is the most usable software program I have ever used IDE or otherwise.

IntelliJ 4.0 is going to be even better than 3.0. Their work in progress is even available for free, after a short registration. Remember that it's not official releases, but still, it's great, and it's the only IDE I know of that supports Java Generics.

Check out The early access program: http://www.intellij.net/eap/

I don't know if there is another page discussing IntelliJ 4.0 but I'm a bit disappointed. Version 3 was very fast and was clearly a winner for TestDrivenDevelopment. However, version 4 is much slower. Also, I have trouble finding features in 4 that were easy to find in 3. It's almost like they are moving towards Eclipse which is the opposite of where they should be going. Slow and complex is not where I want to go. I like the fast and simple "read-your-mind" flow of version 3. I hope they introduce a "classic" mode that basically completely emulates version 3 in every detail including the speed (which is critical to the rapid feedback of TestDrivenDevelopment). --MikeCorum
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EditText of this page (last edited May 8, 2004)
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