4 reasons to move to IntelliJ and bail on Eclipse

  1. Same JAR, different version. If you have multiple projects in your workspace depend on different versions of the same JAR, Eclipse will hand out all of them the same version, which is the one it happened to load first. Uncool. IntelliJ handles this case properly.
  2. Spring support. IntelliJ is capable of certain tractability between your Java and your spring XML context. For instance, if you refactor a class name, its bean will be renamed accordingly. You can also navigate from your Java class name to its corresponding spring bean. How cool is that?
  3. Static imports. Because I simply hated looking for the proper import for every Hamcrest static mather I needed. IntelliJ suggests to add them for you.
  4. Out of the box SVN integration. IntelliJ supports SVN right out of the box, no need to download any SVN plugins or tweak any configuration files. Not a biggy, but it's nice nonetheless.

I guess one does have to mention Eclipse's incredible and unmatched plugin repository, and some would argue its background compilation mechanism works better at the moment. In addition, IntelliJ tends to go into an intense processing phase that pretty much grinds things to a halt for a minute or two every time you update your code. Everyone has their quirks. 

However, when it comes down to the overall experience, with Eclipse it often feels like I'm fighting the IDE to get things done, with IntelliJ it feels like it just gets me. 

IntelliJ, you auto-complete me.



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