Considering Eclipse is "the most popular" editor around, I don't think the barrier to entry is very high. I used it for over a year before giving up on it as useless. For me, having reliable builds is FAR more important than the editor holding my hand with respect to Java syntax. I swear Eclipse is primarily popular EXACTLY because of the latter, since it can act as a crutch for new and junior developers.
I did use Emacs for several years before moving on to something more ergonomic. I still have muscle memory for several of the more common keystrokes.
I haven't really felt like there's been a Truly Great editor available since Brief, which I stopped using because they never upgraded it from DOS to Windows.
It's not about "getting my head" around something. To the contrary, I am very good at picking up new software and using it, whether it's designed well or not.
It's about having seen what a REALLY powerful editor can do for you, and having other editors never really live up to that standard. SlickEdit is close, and even better in some ways than Brief was, but it's not perfect.
So did you actually understand what I wrote? "Stockholm Syndrome" applies when you've been abducted, and you fall in love with (and defend the actions of) your abductor. I'd say you're not disabusing me of my original notion.
"""For me, having reliable builds is FAR more important than the editor holding my hand with respect to Java syntax."""
I don't understand what "reliable builds" means in this context. I never had "unreliable builds" from Eclipse.
Also, what you call "holding your hand" actually is automating tedious manual labor re Java syntax, and continuous AST based syntax checking.
That --and build automation, is exactly what people want from an IDE. If you don't care for those, yeah, use anything else.
I find anything without actual AST-based syntax checking/autocomplete/navigation/refactoring as a dumb text editor, Emacs included.
Now, Eclipse has tons of problems, but that it got right.
It's sad that there is not a modern, GUI based, editor, with pluggable language support for multi-language use, using full AST power (regex highliting and ctags is so last century) while also being lean and mean...
Have you done Android development? Have you ever changed a file outside of Eclipse? That's where the unreliability comes in.
I've said above, and I'll say again: With respect to helping you out with Java, it's really nice. It goes beyond what SlickEdit does, though SlickEdit does a few things for you.
ctags sucks; that's a given. SlickEdit goes beyond simple regex highlighting, but it's not completely AST-based syntax checking etc. Of course Eclipse only gets THAT right in Java, not the languages I actually care about (C++ and Lua).
Most of my coding these days is in Lua. Instead of having an editor write code for me because the syntax includes lots of tedious manual labor, the syntax itself is clean and I write fewer lines of code.
>It's sad that there is not a modern, GUI based, editor, with pluggable language support for multi-language use, using full AST power (regex highliting and ctags is so last century) while also being lean and mean...
Not sure if you're being ironic here, but I think it WOULD be possible. Almost certainly not if it's written in Java, however. You lose "lean and mean" the moment you start up the JVM, IMO.
Another thing I haven't tried is the SlickEdit plug-in for Eclipse:
Though since SlickEdit itself is heavy, I'm not sure that layering one heavy environment on top of another makes any sense. Maybe the plug-in isn't as heavy? Don't know.
Wait till you try Emacs...