What's your favorite IDE, running natively on Mac OS? I've heard Eclipse is good, NetBeans... I've personally only used BlueJ and IntelliJ. Any other takers?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
macOS What is your favorite IDE?
- Thread starter raymondu999
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I have used NetBeans and IntelliJ, and I have to say IntelliJ is far superior to NetBeans in performance and usability/features, but of course it doesn't come free. I haven't used Eclipse in forever, so I can't say much about it.
I haven't gotten into OS X native development, so I haven't touched XCode much. Does anyone have experience using XCode for Java development? I don't want to spend the time learning XCode if it has obvious deficiencies with regards to Java.
I haven't gotten into OS X native development, so I haven't touched XCode much. Does anyone have experience using XCode for Java development? I don't want to spend the time learning XCode if it has obvious deficiencies with regards to Java.
I always thought that XCode was more oriented towards C++ and Obj-C? I heard it wasn't that good for Java.
What I do now is if I'm feeling brave, I go with TextMate, and in those IDE times, I use IntelliJ for Java. Anyone have recommendations which from experience is better than IntelliJ?
What I do now is if I'm feeling brave, I go with TextMate, and in those IDE times, I use IntelliJ for Java. Anyone have recommendations which from experience is better than IntelliJ?
All time favourite: Visual C++ 6. IMHO it set the standard for IDEs and was way ahead of anything on other platforms (although, equally, I have never found a simple text editor I really like on Windows).
Right now, IntelliJ, especially when you keep finding shortcuts for the things you are trying to do. It's great to think 'hey, someone has wanted to do this before ... and made it easy for me'.
Right now, IntelliJ, especially when you keep finding shortcuts for the things you are trying to do. It's great to think 'hey, someone has wanted to do this before ... and made it easy for me'.
What I do now is if I'm feeling brave, I go with TextMate, and in those IDE times, I use IntelliJ for Java. Anyone have recommendations which from experience is better than IntelliJ?
Just use TextMate. You don't really need an IDE at all, in fact coming to rely on an IDE is a bad idea. Eclipse is rubbish, NetBeans is okay but not great and I have never used IntelliJ.
vi? xterm? nedit? What!? Yeah I don't really use IDEs... I feel that really it serves no purpose, in a sense.
Yeah I don't really use IDEs... I feel that really it serves no purpose, in a sense.
vi? xterm? nedit? What!?
There are benefits, but I don't want this to be a debate. I myself encourage people who are LEARNING to avoid IDEs, however, once you understand programming it's up to you whether an IDE is valuable to the way you work.
I myself embrace the INTEGRATED part, where I can manage my workflow, SCM, and build management within a single tool...Compile on the fly and intellisense is nice too amongst many other features.
Another vote for Coda! I really like its integration of ftp. Have used Eclipse but reverted to Xcode which I use for everything else. For messing around with graphics in Java, Processing is very good. Well I say good, the IDE is pretty crumby but the built in graphics libraries are great and the way it lets you write procedurally in Java makes it very easy and fun to mess around in.
For versioning I really like VersionApp and use that instead of the SCM of the IDEs.
b e n
For versioning I really like VersionApp and use that instead of the SCM of the IDEs.
b e n
Actually, there is no reason NOT to use an IDE. If you are writing an application of any magnitude (more than a few files) using an IDE WILL increase your productivity. Arguing the contrary is just plain stubbornness.
Which is fine until you need to bang something out on a server that doesn't have X on it, and you don't know how to use gcc, javac, etc.
I will admit my bias, i work on a system with many thousands of source files, and we get by with vi and makefiles without issue. These are non-OO, so it makes more sense... i prefer to write OO code in an IDE for the code completion alone.
-Lee
Objective-C - XCode
PHP - TextMate
C# - Visual Studio 2008
Honestly I like Visual Studio 2008 out of all the IDEs, as much as that pains me to say.
PHP - TextMate
C# - Visual Studio 2008
Honestly I like Visual Studio 2008 out of all the IDEs, as much as that pains me to say.
Not using an IDE is stupid. It saves you time, and you're never going to be programming without using an IDE.
I second that. Just use Terminal and vi. Or xterm and nedit like I do.
I love vim, but when your language is as verbose as Objective-C, for instance, I would always use XCode.
Speaking of which, XCode is my favorite IDE.
If only there were a way to combine XCode with vim....
You may never be programming without an IDE available, but your case is not the only case. I program without one available all the time, and many others do as well. I would refer you to my post above.
To reiterate: when programming an OO language with large libraries, autocomplete/code complete/whatever the IDE calls its autocompletion is a must have for me, and I would use an IDE for all but the smallest of projects. This does not substitute for knowing how to use the applicable tools (a programmer's text editor, compiler/linker, debugger, etc.).
-Lee
There are free IDEs for all languages on all platforms. You never have to be without it.
If you take programming seriously and do it for a living, you're going to HAVE to use an IDE.
I think you're misunderstanding. True, if you take programming seriously and do it for a living, you're probably going to be using an IDE most of the time. However, it's important to avoid being dependent on an IDE, because for one, there are likely going to be a few times (if only infrequently) when you can't easily use an IDE, and for two, it's just a good idea to know what's actually going on underneath the fancy IDE. So while I'm all for using a slick program to speed up work and save lots of time, there's definitely something to be said for avoiding them while learning.