Best free IDE for Scala?

2010/9/9 Kenneth McDonald <kenneth.m.mcdonald@sbcglobal.net>

Not intending to start a flame war, just curious as to which free IDE people think is best for use with Scala. I guessing the Eclipse IDE is the way to go, since that seems to be the official IDE, but all comments are very welcome.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2615196/which-ide-for-scala-2-8 
and follow links from there.

--
Grzegorz Kossakowski

I'm having success with the IDEA 9.0.3 + scala plugin (SBT + idea-plugin as well)

On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 10:49 PM, Kenneth McDonald <kenneth.m.mcdonald@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

Not intending to start a flame war, just curious as to which free IDE people think is best for use with Scala. I guessing the Eclipse IDE is the way to go, since that seems to be the official IDE, but all comments are very welcome.

Thanks,
Ken McDonald

--
Viktor Klang,
Code Connoisseur
Work:   www.akkasource.com
Code:   github.com/viktorklang
Follow: twitter.com/viktorklang
Read:   klangism.tumblr.com

I'd suggest IDEA as well.

I've tried using the Eclipse plugin several times (first back in late
2009, and then again about a month after Scala 2.8 was released), and
both times had too many problems (lots of spurious compile errors
reported in the editor, often requiring a clean build, which may or may
not fix all of the false alarms).

That said, IDEA is not without its share of problems. Builds are really
slow by default, although you can improve build times using the fsc or
sbt integration. Unfortunately, fsc (or maybe the plugin's fsc
integration?) seems to be buggy, sometimes issuing weird errors and
frequently crashing altogether. When fsc crashes you have to restart
it, which means that the next build is slow.

I can't comment on sbt personally (I have a moderately complex maven
build that I haven't tried to port), but I've heard that it works very
well with IDEA.

If you're using Scala in production, it would be helpful if you would
report your experiences with whichever IDEs you try here:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3496492/scala-2-8-tools-for-productio...

~Aaron

On 09/09/2010 01:54 PM, Viktor Klang wrote:
> I'm having success with the IDEA 9.0.3 + scala plugin (SBT + idea-plugin as
> well)

And I'm having very good success with IDEA 9.0.3 + scala plugin with a Maven build too. There have been a couple of updates to IDEA's scala plugin in the last few weeks and it's greatly improved from where it was a month ago. 

On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 13:54, Viktor Klang <viktor.klang@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm having success with the IDEA 9.0.3 + scala plugin (SBT + idea-plugin as well)
On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 10:49 PM, Kenneth McDonald <kenneth.m.mcdonald@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

 I guessing the Eclipse IDE is the way to go, since that seems to be the official IDE, but all comments are very welcome.

 --
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Brian Schlining
bschlining@gmail.com

Emacs + ENSIME + SBT is another good choice. It's fast and fairly usable.

On Friday, September 10, 2010, Aaron Novstrup
wrote:
> I'd suggest IDEA as well.
>
> I've tried using the Eclipse plugin several times (first back in late
> 2009, and then again about a month after Scala 2.8 was released), and
> both times had too many problems (lots of spurious compile errors
> reported in the editor, often requiring a clean build, which may or may
> not fix all of the false alarms).
>
> That said, IDEA is not without its share of problems. Builds are really
> slow by default, although you can improve build times using the fsc or
> sbt integration.  Unfortunately, fsc (or maybe the plugin's fsc
> integration?) seems to be buggy, sometimes issuing weird errors and
> frequently crashing altogether.  When fsc crashes you have to restart
> it, which means that the next build is slow.
>
> I can't comment on sbt personally (I have a moderately complex maven
> build that I haven't tried to port), but I've heard that it works very
> well with IDEA.
>
> If you're using Scala in production, it would be helpful if you would
> report your experiences with whichever IDEs you try here:
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3496492/scala-2-8-tools-for-productio...
>
> ~Aaron
>
> On 09/09/2010 01:54 PM, Viktor Klang wrote:
>> I'm having success with the IDEA 9.0.3 + scala plugin (SBT + idea-plugin as
>> well)
>
>

I am a big fan of Netbeans. Sadly, Scala plugin for Netbeans is not stable enough to be usable. IDEA is stable and it works.

On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 8:00 PM, Heejong Lee <heejong@gmail.com> wrote:

Emacs + ENSIME + SBT is another good choice. It's fast and fairly usable.

On Friday, September 10, 2010, Aaron Novstrup
<anovstrup@stottlerhenke.com> wrote:
> I'd suggest IDEA as well.
>
> I've tried using the Eclipse plugin several times (first back in late
> 2009, and then again about a month after Scala 2.8 was released), and
> both times had too many problems (lots of spurious compile errors
> reported in the editor, often requiring a clean build, which may or may
> not fix all of the false alarms).
>
> That said, IDEA is not without its share of problems. Builds are really
> slow by default, although you can improve build times using the fsc or
> sbt integration.  Unfortunately, fsc (or maybe the plugin's fsc
> integration?) seems to be buggy, sometimes issuing weird errors and
> frequently crashing altogether.  When fsc crashes you have to restart
> it, which means that the next build is slow.
>
> I can't comment on sbt personally (I have a moderately complex maven
> build that I haven't tried to port), but I've heard that it works very
> well with IDEA.
>
> If you're using Scala in production, it would be helpful if you would
> report your experiences with whichever IDEs you try here:
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3496492/scala-2-8-tools-for-production-use
>
> ~Aaron
>
> On 09/09/2010 01:54 PM, Viktor Klang wrote:
>> I'm having success with the IDEA 9.0.3 + scala plugin (SBT + idea-plugin as
>> well)
>
>

--
Heejong Lee

Associate Research Engineer
Program Analysis Division
Fasoo.com, Inc. (www.spa-arrow.com)

Maybe I am not as picky, but the NetBeans plugin has worked pretty for
me. My projects haven't been all that large, though. See
http://weblogs.java.net/blog/cayhorstmann/archive/2010/09/04/scala-jsf-2...
for my setup.

On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 7:58 AM, Lex wrote:
> I am a big fan of Netbeans. Sadly, Scala plugin for Netbeans is not stable
> enough to be usable. IDEA is stable and it works.
>

NetBeans 6.9 with the Scala plug-in works well for me. It's not without bugs (sometimes the IDE shows errors where there are none or vice versa) but it's usable.
I tried Eclipse Scala IDE, but it did not work well together with m2eclipse (the Maven plug-in for Eclipse) - when I open a Scala source file from a Scala Maven project, the whole IDE locks up.
At the moment, none of the big Java IDEs (Eclipse, NetBeans, IDEA) have Scala support that is completely bug free and as complete as support for Java (for example, debugging and profiling is missing for the largest part).
Jesper

2010/9/9 Cay Horstmann <cay.horstmann@gmail.com>

Maybe I am not as picky, but the NetBeans plugin has worked pretty for
me. My projects haven't been all that large, though. See
http://weblogs.java.net/blog/cayhorstmann/archive/2010/09/04/scala-jsf-2-and-netbeans
for my setup.

On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 7:58 AM, Lex <lexn82@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am a big fan of Netbeans. Sadly, Scala plugin for Netbeans is not stable
> enough to be usable. IDEA is stable and it works.
>

I understand why people like IDEs for Java but the benefits for Scala
seem a little less obvious to me. What's the big win vs a good
vim/emacs environment + sbt?

On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 7:07 PM, Jesper de Jong wrote:
> At the moment, none of the big Java IDEs (Eclipse, NetBeans, IDEA) have
> Scala support that is completely bug free and as complete as support for
> Java (for example, debugging and profiling is missing for the largest part).

On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 9:28 PM, Miles Egan <milesegan@gmail.com> wrote:

I understand why people like IDEs for Java but the benefits for Scala
seem a little less obvious to me.

What's the difference?

I gain a lot of productivity from quick function lookups in Intellij.
I'm not sure this is available in a vim/emacs/textmate editor.

For example, if i have an object like "new Hfs(debugPageStatsScheme,
debugPageStatsPath, true)" and I want to look up the definition of Hfs,
i just hit a shortcut like command-B and intellij takes me straight to
the constructor definition even if Hfs is embedded inside a 3rd party jar.

@tommychheng
Programmer and UC Irvine Graduate Student
Find a great grad school based on research interests: http://gradschoolnow.com

On 9/9/10 7:28 PM, Miles Egan wrote:
> I understand why people like IDEs for Java but the benefits for Scala
> seem a little less obvious to me. What's the big win vs a good
> vim/emacs environment + sbt?
>
> On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 7:07 PM, Jesper de Jong wrote:
>> At the moment, none of the big Java IDEs (Eclipse, NetBeans, IDEA) have
>> Scala support that is completely bug free and as complete as support for
>> Java (for example, debugging and profiling is missing for the largest part).

Netbeans (with the Scala Plugin) has worked well for me. It shows spurious
compliation errors under certain conditions, but other than that its been solid
and very usable.

Cheers,
- Lalit

Code completion is the big win for me. I don't like to spend time
looking up and typing package imports and method names. For example,
with an IDE, I can type

val external = FacesContext

then get the IDE to import javax.faces.FacesContext
then type .getCu and have the IDE complete it to getCurrentInstance
then type .getEx and have the IDE complete it to getExternalContext.

It's like Google Instant :-)

On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 9:28 AM, Miles Egan wrote:
> I understand why people like IDEs for Java but the benefits for Scala
> seem a little less obvious to me. What's the big win vs a good
> vim/emacs environment + sbt?

Profiling works well enough with NetBeans 6.9. The only restriction
seems to be that you have to attach the profiler dynamically.

Debugging is the biggest problem IMO. You can't set breakpoints in most
expressions.

Am 10.09.2010 04:07, schrieb Jesper de Jong:
> At the moment, none of the big Java IDEs (Eclipse, NetBeans, IDEA)
> have Scala support that is completely bug free and as complete as
> support for Java (for example, debugging and profiling is missing for
> the largest part).

dunno if i already replied, but i suggest idea & scala plugin. it's far from perfect, but the newest plugin builds are stable (good code red errors have become very rare, type inference is working fine, refactorings don't break the code) and the speed has gotten better.

-------- Original-Nachricht --------
> Datum: Thu, 09 Sep 2010 14:11:48 -0700
> Von: Aaron Novstrup
> An: scala-user@listes.epfl.ch
> Betreff: Re: [scala-user] Best free IDE for Scala?

> I'd suggest IDEA as well.
>
> I've tried using the Eclipse plugin several times (first back in late
> 2009, and then again about a month after Scala 2.8 was released), and
> both times had too many problems (lots of spurious compile errors
> reported in the editor, often requiring a clean build, which may or may
> not fix all of the false alarms).
>
> That said, IDEA is not without its share of problems. Builds are really
> slow by default, although you can improve build times using the fsc or
> sbt integration. Unfortunately, fsc (or maybe the plugin's fsc
> integration?) seems to be buggy, sometimes issuing weird errors and
> frequently crashing altogether. When fsc crashes you have to restart
> it, which means that the next build is slow.
>
> I can't comment on sbt personally (I have a moderately complex maven
> build that I haven't tried to port), but I've heard that it works very
> well with IDEA.
>
> If you're using Scala in production, it would be helpful if you would
> report your experiences with whichever IDEs you try here:
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3496492/scala-2-8-tools-for-productio...
>
> ~Aaron
>
> On 09/09/2010 01:54 PM, Viktor Klang wrote:
> > I'm having success with the IDEA 9.0.3 + scala plugin (SBT + idea-plugin
> as
> > well)
>

+1 I find it difficult to use eclipse at all after experiencing the speed and stability of ensime / sbt

On Sep 10, 2010 2:01 AM, "Heejong Lee" <heejong@gmail.com> wrote:

Emacs + ENSIME + SBT is another good choice. It's fast and fairly usable.

On Friday, September 10, 2010, Aaron Novstrup

<anovstrup@stottlerhenke.com> wrote: > I'd suggest IDEA as well. > > I've tried using the Eclipse pl...

--
Heejong Lee

Associate Research Engineer
Program Analysis Division
Fasoo.com, Inc. (www.spa-arrow.com)

On 10/09/2010 08:42, Cay Horstmann wrote:
> Code completion is the big win for me. I don't like to spend time
> looking up and typing package imports and method names. For example,

I haven't tried an IDE with Scala yet (so this thread is of interest, lot of info on
Internet is outdated...) and so far I am happy with SciTE (simple editor).
But I admit that using Eclipse with Java is interesting, for the reasons you mention, the
fact it shows JavaDoc of a class or method when hovering them, quick jump to an
implementation, class hierarchy, fast error reporting (if reliable!), and so on.

Missing good debugging is a shame, though... :-( Oh well, println can be useful, too...

so there really are people that use simple text editors? i would die if i had not even code completition, basic refactorings and some kind of error highlighting.

-------- Original-Nachricht --------
> Datum: Fri, 10 Sep 2010 14:02:56 +0200
> Von: Philippe Lhoste
> An: scala-user@listes.epfl.ch
> Betreff: [scala-user] Re: Best free IDE for Scala?

> On 10/09/2010 08:42, Cay Horstmann wrote:
> > Code completion is the big win for me. I don't like to spend time
> > looking up and typing package imports and method names. For example,
>
> I haven't tried an IDE with Scala yet (so this thread is of interest, lot
> of info on
> Internet is outdated...) and so far I am happy with SciTE (simple editor).
> But I admit that using Eclipse with Java is interesting, for the reasons
> you mention, the
> fact it shows JavaDoc of a class or method when hovering them, quick jump
> to an
> implementation, class hierarchy, fast error reporting (if reliable!), and
> so on.
>
> Missing good debugging is a shame, though... :-( Oh well, println can be
> useful, too...
>

There are tools to provide that behaviour in both emacs (ensime) and TextMate

On 10 September 2010 13:10, Dennis Haupt <h-star@gmx.de> wrote:

so there really are people that use simple text editors? i would die if i had not even code completition, basic refactorings and some kind of error highlighting.

-------- Original-Nachricht --------
> Datum: Fri, 10 Sep 2010 14:02:56 +0200
> Von: Philippe Lhoste <PhiLho@GMX.net>
> An: scala-user@listes.epfl.ch
> Betreff: [scala-user] Re: Best free IDE for Scala?

> On 10/09/2010 08:42, Cay Horstmann wrote:
> > Code completion is the big win for me. I don't like to spend time
> > looking up and typing package imports and method names. For example,
>
> I haven't tried an IDE with Scala yet (so this thread is of interest, lot
> of info on
> Internet is outdated...) and so far I am happy with SciTE (simple editor).
> But I admit that using Eclipse with Java is interesting, for the reasons
> you mention, the
> fact it shows JavaDoc of a class or method when hovering them, quick jump
> to an
> implementation, class hierarchy, fast error reporting (if reliable!), and
> so on.
>
> Missing good debugging is a shame, though... :-( Oh well, println can be
> useful, too...
>
> --
> Philippe Lhoste
> --  (near) Paris -- France
> --  http://Phi.Lho.free.fr
> --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --
>

--
GRATIS: Spider-Man 1-3 sowie 300 weitere Videos!
Jetzt freischalten! http://portal.gmx.net/de/go/maxdome

--
Kevin Wright

mail / gtalk / msn : kev.lee.wright@gmail.com
pulse / skype: kev.lee.wright
twitter: @thecoda

On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 1:02 PM, Philippe Lhoste wrote:
> Missing good debugging is a shame, though... :-( Oh well, println can be
> useful, too...

Debugging with Eclipse worked quite well for me. The main reason why I
moved to IDEA + sbt is that the system wasn't responsive enough for
the project I work on (medium-sized project with many modules).

Best,
Ismael

Hi all, Netbeans 9.1 + Scala plugin works rather well. I've following the scala tutorials and I like it a lot. I think that Eclipse IDE is bugy!

Regards,
--
TSU. Amador Cuenca

On 10/09/2010 14:10, Dennis Haupt wrote:
> so there really are people that use simple text editors? i would die if i had not even
> code completition, basic refactorings and some kind of error highlighting.

Well, SciTE is able to do code completion on words already in the file, like long local
identifiers. It doesn't know the API, though.
Refactoring: I admit I rarely do them (in Java) beside renaming a method or field or
variable. Find & replace with care can do that in simple (most) cases...
Error highlighting: I compile often, and I can double-click on an error to jump to the
faulty line...

As I wrote, I appreciate the facilities of modern IDEs, particularly on the large projects
we have at work. But writing small programs with a text editor can be OK too.
Hey, I can fire my editor, fix two lines, recompile and test before Eclipse finished to
start (we have slow, old computers...). ^_^'

And I appreciate to be able to run custom Lua scripts on my code (add pairs of braces,
transform line comment to doc comment, etc.), something that I have yet to see in Eclipse
(they dropped Eclipse Monkey). I like to be able to type in several lines at once
(sometime). And so on.

On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 02:10:32PM +0200, Dennis Haupt wrote:
> so there really are people that use simple text editors? i would die
> if i had not even code completition, basic refactorings and some kind
> of error highlighting.

There really are such people. I have long wanted to believe that some
kind of IDE would make me more productive, and I have tried all of them
more than once each, and I have always fled. I spent most of my life
using vi so it's not like I'm fundamentally unable to switch. Until
such time as I can figure out how to obtain the benefits without the
costs, I believe I at least provide an existence proof that the fancy
tools are not absolutely necessary. I use TextMate with no intelligent
code completion (it does have built-in completion based on other words
in the same file), no refactorings, and no error highlighting.

-------- Original-Nachricht --------
> Datum: Fri, 10 Sep 2010 15:27:10 +0200
> Von: Philippe Lhoste
> An: scala-user@listes.epfl.ch
> Betreff: [scala-user] Re: Best free IDE for Scala?

> On 10/09/2010 14:10, Dennis Haupt wrote:
> > so there really are people that use simple text editors? i would die if
> i had not even
> > code completition, basic refactorings and some kind of error
> highlighting.
>
> Well, SciTE is able to do code completion on words already in the file,
> like long local
> identifiers. It doesn't know the API, though.
> Refactoring: I admit I rarely do them (in Java) beside renaming a method
> or field or
> variable. Find & replace with care can do that in simple (most) cases...
> Error highlighting: I compile often, and I can double-click on an error to
> jump to the
> faulty line...

"with care" < fire & forget" ;)

I've gotten so used to developing without an IDE in other languages
that I just brought my plain editor (emacs) habits over as well. I
would think that code completion would be less useful in a language as
flexible as Scala but I haven't really spent much time with any of the
IDEs. The main thing I occasionally miss is a graphical debugger but,
even then, Scala with all it's inline code and function literals seems
less amenable to graphical debugging tools.

I've also come to really appreciate the power of sbt, so putting
another layer of tooling above it doesn't appeal to me that much. I
think the Scala community somewhat undersells sbt, to be honest. It's
the most powerful and useful build/project management tool I've seen
in *any* language.

All that said though, I've only been working with fairly small Scala
codebases so far so maybe the benefits of a fullblown IDE aren't as
apparent at that scale.

On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 6:36 AM, Paul Phillips wrote:
> I use TextMate with no intelligent
> code completion (it does have built-in completion based on other words
> in the same file), no refactorings, and no error highlighting.

On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 7:10 AM, Dennis Haupt <h-star@gmx.de> wrote:

so there really are people that use simple text editors? i would die if i had not even code completition, basic refactorings and some kind of error highlighting.

Yes. I do all of my coding (personal and professional) in vi, accompanied by an odd home-grown integration of shell scripts, vi functions, find, grep, ctags, git, etc.

- Colin

-------- Original-Nachricht --------
> Datum: Fri, 10 Sep 2010 07:49:48 -0700
> Von: Miles Egan
> An: Paul Phillips
> CC: Dennis Haupt , Philippe Lhoste , scala-user@listes.epfl.ch
> Betreff: Re: [scala-user] Re: Best free IDE for Scala?

> I've gotten so used to developing without an IDE in other languages
> that I just brought my plain editor (emacs) habits over as well. I
> would think that code completion would be less useful in a language as
> flexible as Scala but I haven't really spent much time with any of the
> IDEs.

imho: on the contrary - an ide greatly helps navigating through and showing all the implicit stuff explicitly. at least idea does.

missed the topic.
code completition, if it grabs all the implicit stuff as well, is veeeery powerful.

-------- Original-Nachricht --------
> Datum: Fri, 10 Sep 2010 17:15:15 +0200
> Von: "Dennis Haupt"
> An: Miles Egan , paulp@improving.org
> CC: scala-user@listes.epfl.ch, PhiLho@gmx.net
> Betreff: Re: [scala-user] Re: Best free IDE for Scala?

> -------- Original-Nachricht --------
> > Datum: Fri, 10 Sep 2010 07:49:48 -0700
> > Von: Miles Egan
> > An: Paul Phillips
> > CC: Dennis Haupt , Philippe Lhoste ,
> scala-user@listes.epfl.ch
> > Betreff: Re: [scala-user] Re: Best free IDE for Scala?
>
> > I've gotten so used to developing without an IDE in other languages
> > that I just brought my plain editor (emacs) habits over as well. I
> > would think that code completion would be less useful in a language as
> > flexible as Scala but I haven't really spent much time with any of the
> > IDEs.
>
> imho: on the contrary - an ide greatly helps navigating through and
> showing all the implicit stuff explicitly. at least idea does.

> On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 7:10 AM, Dennis Haupt wrote:
>>
>> so there really are people that use simple text editors? i would die if i
>> had not even code completition, basic refactorings and some kind of error
>> highlighting.

I was using Emacs + MVN and it was OK. I installed Ensime yesterday
and is truly amazing. Hard to believe that Emacs can do all the stuff
it does with Ensime.
--
Diego

On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 3:36 PM, Paul Phillips <paulp@improving.org> wrote:

On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 02:10:32PM +0200, Dennis Haupt wrote:
> so there really are people that use simple text editors? i would die
> if i had not even code completition, basic refactorings and some kind
> of error highlighting.

There really are such people.

+1 

I have long wanted to believe that some
kind of IDE would make me more productive,

my take on this is that using a simple text editor forces you to keep a mental model of the code you're working on, which goes beyond the information an IDE will ever be able to supply (until they figure out a way to plug them into your third brain half). 
IDE's are kind of like driving everywhere solely based on gps navigation, and we all know where that leads (more insidiously, it weakens your overall sense of direction) (only half-kidding, but if you feel compelled to reply to the serious half, please follow up to scala-debate -- of course I don't mean to dismiss IDEs in general, just pointing out training your brain is good for you and your productivity)

I use TextMate with no intelligent
code completion (it does have built-in completion based on other words
in the same file), no refactorings, and no error highlighting.

I exclusively used TM for the last couple of years, with occasional forays into Eclipse.
I'll admit I'm currently using intellij because I need the debugger (my mental model doesn't allow me to run code). I really appreciate being able to hover over symbols to see their types, but I don't feel it makes a huge difference. I think there are other things that have a bigger impact on productivity (once you know the code base), such as the built-in mini-vcs. Also, Scala makes going to symbols much easier because you can just grep for "def XXX" or "val YYY" or "class CCC".
While we're on the topic, anyone have a textmate keymap for intellij? I miss cmd-e/cmd-g, cmd-shift-f, cmd-t :-(
adriaan

Dennis Haupt wrote:
> so there really are people that use simple text editors? i would die if i had not even code completition, basic refactorings and some kind of error highlighting.

Lots of. Across all languages.

I can live without a lot. But in the long run, I cannot live without 2 features:
a) code highlighting
b) rename & move refactorings

I cannot understand how people can live without the latter and still write clean code. All other refactoring tasks are mostly very local in scope. I can do that manually, no big issues. But renaming (or moving between packages) across a code-base of several hundred thousand lines of code... I need that automated. Otherwise, the resistance not to do that refactoring because of the sheer HUGE amount of work it creates and the high likeliness of bugs when doing it manually, is simply too high. At least for me.

Productivity gain: renaming/moving manually -> several hours; automated -> several seconds

Another very important thing Eclipse offers is "search references". How people keep huge legacy codebases under control without it, I am unable to comprehend. I could not do my daily Java work without Eclipse, nor would my employer pay the extra time I'd need without it.

My hats off to those who manage without an advanced IDE. I've no idea how you do it.

I don't think the mental model applies to my usage of an IDE.   I use an IDE because I work in unfamiliar code-bases a lot.   The IDE helps me "discover" what's going on and build my mental model *much* faster than a text editor ever did.   I'll agree once you have that mental model, I'm not 100% sure the IDE adds a lot, but anytime you need to pull in a new library or do something different, the IDE is there making it easier to explore and find what you need.
In particular, I feel that "find all references" in an IDE is usually more helpful than my attempts at grep.
In any case, if I ever learned how to do discovery/learning well in raw text editors perhaps an IDE would be unneeded.   But debugging support, syntax highlighitng, hover-documentation, ctl-click to defintion, find references.   These all help me walk into an unfamiliar code base and get up to speed quickly.
- Josh

On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 12:05 PM, Adriaan Moors <adriaan.moors@epfl.ch> wrote:

On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 3:36 PM, Paul Phillips <paulp@improving.org> wrote:

On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 02:10:32PM +0200, Dennis Haupt wrote:
> so there really are people that use simple text editors? i would die
> if i had not even code completition, basic refactorings and some kind
> of error highlighting.

There really are such people.

+1 

I have long wanted to believe that some
kind of IDE would make me more productive,

my take on this is that using a simple text editor forces you to keep a mental model of the code you're working on, which goes beyond the information an IDE will ever be able to supply (until they figure out a way to plug them into your third brain half). 
IDE's are kind of like driving everywhere solely based on gps navigation, and we all know where that leads (more insidiously, it weakens your overall sense of direction) (only half-kidding, but if you feel compelled to reply to the serious half, please follow up to scala-debate -- of course I don't mean to dismiss IDEs in general, just pointing out training your brain is good for you and your productivity)

I use TextMate with no intelligent
code completion (it does have built-in completion based on other words
in the same file), no refactorings, and no error highlighting.

I exclusively used TM for the last couple of years, with occasional forays into Eclipse.
I'll admit I'm currently using intellij because I need the debugger (my mental model doesn't allow me to run code). I really appreciate being able to hover over symbols to see their types, but I don't feel it makes a huge difference. I think there are other things that have a bigger impact on productivity (once you know the code base), such as the built-in mini-vcs. Also, Scala makes going to symbols much easier because you can just grep for "def XXX" or "val YYY" or "class CCC".
While we're on the topic, anyone have a textmate keymap for intellij? I miss cmd-e/cmd-g, cmd-shift-f, cmd-t :-(
adriaan

On 10 Sep 2010, at 18:46, Andreas Flierl wrote:

Dennis Haupt wrote:

so there really are people that use simple text editors? i would die if i had not even code completition, basic refactorings and some kind of error highlighting.

Lots of. Across all languages.

I can live without a lot. But in the long run, I cannot live without 2 features:
a) code highlighting
b) rename & move refactorings

In a legacy codebase I would agree with you. But I've been involved in several scala projects over the last year when we haven't had refactoring support. I was very pleasantly surprised to find that I could quite easily manually refactor safely with scala using textmate/emacs with sbt. 
I will always use IDE's with refactoring when available, but with Scala, it isn't such a pain as it is in Java on a new codebase. This was a pleasant surprise for me.
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-Channing Walton
m: +44 (0) 7980 294 809t: +44 (0) 1483 799 491
web:  http://www.casualmiracles.com/twitter:  http://www.twitter.com/channingwalton

I see JRebel is providing free license to all Scala users which is
limited to work only with .scala files.

Have anyone tried using JRebel? Any comments on this tool? Is it worth
giving a try purely for Scala development?

Thanks!

On Fri, 2010-09-10 at 09:16 +0200, Jens Tinz wrote:
> Profiling works well enough with NetBeans 6.9. The only restriction
> seems to be that you have to attach the profiler dynamically.
>
> Debugging is the biggest problem IMO. You can't set breakpoints in most
> expressions.
>
> Am 10.09.2010 04:07, schrieb Jesper de Jong:
> > At the moment, none of the big Java IDEs (Eclipse, NetBeans, IDEA)
> > have Scala support that is completely bug free and as complete as
> > support for Java (for example, debugging and profiling is missing for
> > the largest part).
>

> Debugging is the biggest problem IMO. You can't set breakpoints in most
> expressions.

That's certainly true, and I sometimes have to reformat or rewrite the
code to make it more debuggable. For example, when I want to put a
breakpoint on a @BeanProperty setter, then I end up having to
implement the setter by hand, which is a definite pain.

Does IDEA do better with that than NetBeans/Eclipse?

Cheers,

Cay

On Friday September 10 2010, Cay Horstmann wrote:
> > Debugging is the biggest problem IMO. You can't set breakpoints in
> > most expressions.
>
> That's certainly true, and I sometimes have to reformat or rewrite
> the code to make it more debuggable. For example, when I want to put
> a breakpoint on a @BeanProperty setter, then I end up having to
> implement the setter by hand, which is a definite pain.
>
> Does IDEA do better with that than NetBeans/Eclipse?

It doesn't sound like it. I think the limitation is in the debug data in
the .class files. It has only line-number resolution, so it's very
common to hit a given line of Scala code with which several different
bytecode addresses get associated and hence hit breakpoints several
times for what appears to be a single pass or iteration through the
code.

> Cheers,
>
> Cay

Randall Schulz

yes, that's it. the debugger can only break at line X, so if the line is
a.map(_.b).filter(_.c==5).flatMap.flatten.collect, then the debugger is
screwed

Am 11.09.2010 07:25, schrieb Randall R Schulz:
> On Friday September 10 2010, Cay Horstmann wrote:
>>> Debugging is the biggest problem IMO. You can't set breakpoints in
>>> most expressions.
>> That's certainly true, and I sometimes have to reformat or rewrite
>> the code to make it more debuggable. For example, when I want to put
>> a breakpoint on a @BeanProperty setter, then I end up having to
>> implement the setter by hand, which is a definite pain.
>>
>> Does IDEA do better with that than NetBeans/Eclipse?
> It doesn't sound like it. I think the limitation is in the debug data in
> the .class files. It has only line-number resolution, so it's very
> common to hit a given line of Scala code with which several different
> bytecode addresses get associated and hence hit breakpoints several
> times for what appears to be a single pass or iteration through the
> code.
>
>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Cay
>
> Randall Schulz
>

This is quite unfortunate. When debugging (LINQ like) C# code in Visual
Studio I often set breakpoints in expressions.

/Jesper Nordenberg

HamsterofDeath skrev 2010-09-11 08:00:
> yes, that's it. the debugger can only break at line X, so if the line is
> a.map(_.b).filter(_.c==5).flatMap.flatten.collect, then the debugger is
> screwed
>
> Am 11.09.2010 07:25, schrieb Randall R Schulz:
>> On Friday September 10 2010, Cay Horstmann wrote:
>>>> Debugging is the biggest problem IMO. You can't set breakpoints in
>>>> most expressions.
>>> That's certainly true, and I sometimes have to reformat or rewrite
>>> the code to make it more debuggable. For example, when I want to put
>>> a breakpoint on a @BeanProperty setter, then I end up having to
>>> implement the setter by hand, which is a definite pain.
>>>
>>> Does IDEA do better with that than NetBeans/Eclipse?
>> It doesn't sound like it. I think the limitation is in the debug data in
>> the .class files. It has only line-number resolution, so it's very
>> common to hit a given line of Scala code with which several different
>> bytecode addresses get associated and hence hit breakpoints several
>> times for what appears to be a single pass or iteration through the
>> code.
>>
>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Cay
>>
>> Randall Schulz
>>
>
>

at least that's what i believe ;)

Am 11.09.2010 11:48, schrieb Jesper Nordenberg:
> This is quite unfortunate. When debugging (LINQ like) C# code in
> Visual Studio I often set breakpoints in expressions.
>
> /Jesper Nordenberg
>
> HamsterofDeath skrev 2010-09-11 08:00:
>> yes, that's it. the debugger can only break at line X, so if the
>> line is
>> a.map(_.b).filter(_.c==5).flatMap.flatten.collect, then the debugger is
>> screwed
>>
>> Am 11.09.2010 07:25, schrieb Randall R Schulz:
>>> On Friday September 10 2010, Cay Horstmann wrote:
>>>>> Debugging is the biggest problem IMO. You can't set breakpoints in
>>>>> most expressions.
>>>> That's certainly true, and I sometimes have to reformat or rewrite
>>>> the code to make it more debuggable. For example, when I want to put
>>>> a breakpoint on a @BeanProperty setter, then I end up having to
>>>> implement the setter by hand, which is a definite pain.
>>>>
>>>> Does IDEA do better with that than NetBeans/Eclipse?
>>> It doesn't sound like it. I think the limitation is in the debug
>>> data in
>>> the .class files. It has only line-number resolution, so it's very
>>> common to hit a given line of Scala code with which several different
>>> bytecode addresses get associated and hence hit breakpoints several
>>> times for what appears to be a single pass or iteration through the
>>> code.
>>>
>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>>
>>>> Cay
>>>
>>> Randall Schulz
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
>

I see JRebel is providing free license to all Scala users which is
limited to work only with .scala files.

Have anyone tried using JRebel? Any comments on this tool? Is it worth
giving a try purely for Scala development?

Also, any notes on RedCar?

Thanks!

On Fri, 2010-09-10 at 10:34 -0500, Diego Echeverri wrote:
> > On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 7:10 AM, Dennis Haupt wrote:
> >>
> >> so there really are people that use simple text editors? i would die if i
> >> had not even code completition, basic refactorings and some kind of error
> >> highlighting.
>
> I was using Emacs + MVN and it was OK. I installed Ensime yesterday
> and is truly amazing. Hard to believe that Emacs can do all the stuff
> it does with Ensime.
> --
> Diego

never heard of it, google isn't much help either

On 11 September 2010 17:20, Sankar Ammaiyappan <dev.sammaiya@gmail.com> wrote:

I see JRebel is providing free license to all Scala users which is
limited to work only with .scala files.

Have anyone tried using JRebel? Any comments on this tool? Is it worth
giving a try purely for Scala development?

Also, any notes on RedCar?

Thanks!

On Fri, 2010-09-10 at 10:34 -0500, Diego Echeverri wrote:
> > On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 7:10 AM, Dennis Haupt <h-star@gmx.de> wrote:
> >>
> >> so there really are people that use simple text editors? i would die if i
> >> had not even code completition, basic refactorings and some kind of error
> >> highlighting.
>
> I was using Emacs + MVN and it was OK. I installed Ensime yesterday
> and is truly amazing. Hard to believe that Emacs can do all the stuff
> it does with Ensime.
> --
> Diego

--
Kevin Wright

mail / gtalk / msn : kev.lee.wright@gmail.com
pulse / skype: kev.lee.wright
twitter: @thecoda

JRebel [1] dynamically reloads changed classes into a running
application server to reduce turnaround time during development. A
colleague of mine uses it with Wicket, SBT and Tomcat, and really
loves it.

-jason

[1] http://www.zeroturnaround.com/jrebel/

On Sat, Sep 11, 2010 at 6:22 PM, Kevin Wright wrote:
> never heard of it, google isn't much help either
>
> On 11 September 2010 17:20, Sankar Ammaiyappan
> wrote:
>>
>> I see JRebel is providing free license to all Scala users which is
>> limited to work only with .scala files.
>>
>> Have anyone tried using JRebel? Any comments on this tool? Is it worth
>> giving a try purely for Scala development?
>>
>> Also, any notes on RedCar?
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> On Fri, 2010-09-10 at 10:34 -0500, Diego Echeverri wrote:
>> > > On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 7:10 AM, Dennis Haupt wrote:
>> > >>
>> > >> so there really are people that use simple text editors? i would die
>> > >> if i
>> > >> had not even code completition, basic refactorings and some kind of
>> > >> error
>> > >> highlighting.
>> >
>> > I was using Emacs + MVN and it was OK. I installed Ensime yesterday
>> > and is truly amazing. Hard to believe that Emacs can do all the stuff
>> > it does with Ensime.
>> > --
>> > Diego
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Kevin Wright
>
> mail / gtalk / msn : kev.lee.wright@gmail.com
> pulse / skype: kev.lee.wright
> twitter: @thecoda
>
>

Paul, seriously, you got to try emacs (with the vi plugin of course)
and ensime + sbt - it works really well!

I've been using an eclectic mix of vim (with vtree) and emacs with vi
and ensime plus sbt and it works pretty well...I've been on an
eclipse-free sabbatical for a week now). I think step by step
debugging is evil (eschews thinking) so that setup is a good
replacement for eclipse. No rattattouile, eh?

Oh yeah - I've lived inside eclipse for 5 years now (with the vi
plugin obviously) and for Java there's no equal...

Cheers,
Razie

On 9/10/10, Paul Phillips wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 02:10:32PM +0200, Dennis Haupt wrote:
>> so there really are people that use simple text editors? i would die
>> if i had not even code completition, basic refactorings and some kind
>> of error highlighting.
>
> There really are such people. I have long wanted to believe that some
> kind of IDE would make me more productive, and I have tried all of them
> more than once each, and I have always fled. I spent most of my life
> using vi so it's not like I'm fundamentally unable to switch. Until
> such time as I can figure out how to obtain the benefits without the
> costs, I believe I at least provide an existence proof that the fancy
> tools are not absolutely necessary. I use TextMate with no intelligent
> code completion (it does have built-in completion based on other words
> in the same file), no refactorings, and no error highlighting.
>
> --
> Paul Phillips | All men are frauds. The only difference between
> Stickler | them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.
> Empiricist | -- H. L. Mencken
> ha! spill, pupil |----------* http://www.improving.org/paulp/ *----------
>

I just tried Ensime, and while it does a good job with method
completion, I could not figure out how to get it to insert imports
automatically. Can it do that?

On Sun, Sep 12, 2010 at 9:12 AM, Razvan (Pub) Cojocaru wrote:
> Paul, seriously, you got to try emacs (with the vi plugin of course)
> and ensime + sbt - it works really well!
>

There's an organize imports that might work...see the manual

On 9/12/10, Cay Horstmann wrote:
> I just tried Ensime, and while it does a good job with method
> completion, I could not figure out how to get it to insert imports
> automatically. Can it do that?
>
> On Sun, Sep 12, 2010 at 9:12 AM, Razvan (Pub) Cojocaru
> wrote:
>> Paul, seriously, you got to try emacs (with the vi plugin of course)
>> and ensime + sbt - it works really well!
>>
>

Hi

On Sunday 12 September 2010 12:48:20 Razvan (Pub) Cojocaru wrote:
> There's an organize imports that might work...see the manual
>
> On 9/12/10, Cay Horstmann wrote:
> > I just tried Ensime, and while it does a good job with method
> > completion, I could not figure out how to get it to insert imports
> > automatically. Can it do that?
> >

Ensime's refactorings are based on my refactoring library, and Organize
Imports doesn't yet add imports, it only removes unneeded ones. But I'm
actually working with Aemon to implement adding imports, so that should be
coming soon.

Cheers

Mirko

> then type .getCu and have the IDE complete it to getCurrentInstance
> then type .getEx and have the IDE complete it to getExternalContext.

You don't even need the "et". Try typing "gC" and "gE" in IDEA.
> On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 9:28 AM, Miles Egan <milesegan@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I understand why people like IDEs for Java but the benefits for Scala
> > seem a little less obvious to me. What's the big win vs a good
> > vim/emacs environment + sbt?

Code navigation - including search by class/method/text. Instantly get to MyClassHasAStupidlyLongName with CTRL+N+MCHASLN (IDEA probably found what you were looking for at MCH!)

Am 12.09.2010 17:31, schrieb christopher marshall:

COL109-W38194938B497475C4F4BBD8D760 [at] phx [dot] gbl" type="cite"> > then type .getCu and have the IDE complete it to getCurrentInstance
> then type .getEx and have the IDE complete it to getExternalContext.

You don't even need the "et". Try typing "gC" and "gE" in IDEA.

try typing CI or EC
not sure if that works, but i think it might

COL109-W38194938B497475C4F4BBD8D760 [at] phx [dot] gbl" type="cite">
> On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 9:28 AM, Miles Egan wrote:
> > I understand why people like IDEs for Java but the benefits for Scala
> > seem a little less obvious to me. What's the big win vs a good
> > vim/emacs environment + sbt?

Code navigation - including search by class/method/text. Instantly get to MyClassHasAStupidlyLongName with CTRL+N+MCHASLN (IDEA probably found what you were looking for at MCH!)

i'd do "ctrl+n+M*stu*" ;)

Yep yep.

I love this feature. Hope to have it in ensime soon.

On 09/12/2010 07:31 AM, Mirko Stocker wrote:
> Hi
>
> On Sunday 12 September 2010 12:48:20 Razvan (Pub) Cojocaru wrote:
>> There's an organize imports that might work...see the manual
>>
>> On 9/12/10, Cay Horstmann wrote:
>>> I just tried Ensime, and while it does a good job with method
>>> completion, I could not figure out how to get it to insert imports
>>> automatically. Can it do that?
>>>
>
> Ensime's refactorings are based on my refactoring library, and Organize
> Imports doesn't yet add imports, it only removes unneeded ones. But I'm
> actually working with Aemon to implement adding imports, so that should be
> coming soon.
>
> Cheers
>
> Mirko
>

I use Emacs for most things. I sorta think of it as optimizing the
common case. When you're in a tight loop between 2 or 3 files,
and the APIs are already familiar, and you just want to slice and dice
text, it's _really_ fast. I assume the same is true of Vi(m), TextMate, etc.

The times when it burns is when exploring a new API (missing the
brain-cache). That's when completion, code outlines, integrated docs,
can be nice. Ensime is my self-serving solution to this problem :)

On 09/10/2010 05:10 AM, Dennis Haupt wrote:
> so there really are people that use simple text editors? i would die if i had not even code completition, basic refactorings and some kind of error highlighting.
>
> -------- Original-Nachricht --------
>> Datum: Fri, 10 Sep 2010 14:02:56 +0200
>> Von: Philippe Lhoste
>> An: scala-user@listes.epfl.ch
>> Betreff: [scala-user] Re: Best free IDE for Scala?
>
>> On 10/09/2010 08:42, Cay Horstmann wrote:
>>> Code completion is the big win for me. I don't like to spend time
>>> looking up and typing package imports and method names. For example,
>>
>> I haven't tried an IDE with Scala yet (so this thread is of interest, lot
>> of info on
>> Internet is outdated...) and so far I am happy with SciTE (simple editor).
>> But I admit that using Eclipse with Java is interesting, for the reasons
>> you mention, the
>> fact it shows JavaDoc of a class or method when hovering them, quick jump
>> to an
>> implementation, class hierarchy, fast error reporting (if reliable!), and
>> so on.
>>
>> Missing good debugging is a shame, though... :-( Oh well, println can be
>> useful, too...
>>
>> --
>> Philippe Lhoste