Scala IDE

[Jan Goyvaerts]

Seeing all these releases of ScalaIDE, I'm wondering if it finally overtook the Scala plugin on IntelliJ.

Has it ?

[andy petrella]

I'd be interested by such feedback... but by someone who's using IDEA already, otherwise it would be biased.

I think I'll try it soon ^^

On Fri, May 4, 2012 at 12:40 PM, BeScala on behalf of Jan Goyvaerts <bes...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Seeing all these releases of ScalaIDE, I'm wondering if it finally overtook the Scala plugin on IntelliJ.

Has it ?

--

Andy Petrella

Belgium (Liège)
********

 IT Consultant for NextLab sprl (co-founder)
********
Mobile: +32 495 99 11 04

Mails:  

• andy.p...@nextlab.be
• andy.p...@gmail.com

Socials:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/noootsab
  
• LinkedIn: http://be.linkedin.com/in/andypetrella
• Blogger: http://ska-la.blogspot.com/
• GitHub:  https://github.com/andypetrella

[Jan Goyvaerts]

I should have added that I actually never used Scala on IntelliJ/IDEA/...

I *assumed* IntelliJ was the best because I often heard this on the JavaPosse podcast. But since then ScalaIDE went through a lot of releases.

Hence, what's the status ? :-)

[andy petrella]

I do use Intellij for java dev and scala for now, but as you said, I'm teased by the last releases of ScalaIDE. So, I'll soon install it and try it.

However, intellij has its own strengh which for me is its performance. And the scala plugin (because it's just a plugin) is not so bad, but lacks some features. A dummy one, copy pasting files looses the internal structure or the template support.

From my pov, what is really missing is a good support of sbt in idea.

Moreover, ScalaIDE is part of the TypeSafe stack, which contains also Play 2.0, so I guess that the scala template support will be better time to time.

my 2c

[Jan Goyvaerts]

Everybody else in this group is already using ScalaIDE ? :-)

[Renato Guerra Cavalcanti]

Hi Jan,

I was a Eclipse user and switched to IntelliJ because of Scala. 

I didn't try the last ScalaIDE release recently. I don't believe they are already better than IntelliJ, but it'll come. In the long run the ScalaIDE will be probably better than Intellij plugin, because they are using the a compiler api to get access to AST. So they will probably have better support in the future.

IntelliJ has very nice features, but the lack of incremental compilation and immediate feedback is for me a big disadvantage. Eclipse is know for its problems, but our main daily task is coding / compiling / testing. And in my opinion, IntelliJ looses on that. 

I'll certainly move back to Eclipse as soon the Scala plugin achieves the same level of maturity as the Intellij one.

[Jan Goyvaerts I❤©]

Don't bother about Netbeans - I can't even do code completion for a type without causing exceptions.

Not to mention $SCALA_HOME and $JAVA_HOME must be defined before it even works.

That's sad...

[Jan Goyvaerts I❤©]

Scala-IDE works well for Scala projects. Less well for Maven Scala projects. Things are missing here and there.

But what IS impressive is the compilation. Usually when running a Scala program the whole compilation train is launched. Scala-IDE doesn't do that. Your Scala program runs immediately. Just like that. And THAT's pretty neat !

[Renato Guerra Cavalcanti]

That's my point about incremental compilation and this is not only true for Scala, but also for Java.

In Eclipse, your code is immediately compiled. When you want to run it, it's already there. 

In IntelliJ, the code still has to be compiled when you hit 'run'. They do incremental compilation, but only when you want to run the program and therefore you loose time. If you do TDD, you are constantly running your code and therefore you are constantly loosing time.

[Jan Goyvaerts I❤©]

alas... but using FSC in intellij helps some. but it's still second to none in eclipse.

what is scalatypes waiting for to publish a proper plugin for intellij ?! :-p

Just kidding of course... ;-)

[Jan Goyvaerts I❤©]

Well... I've been fiddling around with the IDE's. And I don't mean to be rude to the ScalaType guys, but the current Scala-IDE is a tool of the iron age. That is, compared to Intellij's Scala plugin. It works and compiles fast. But whether it's meant for a newbie Scala programmer ?! 

On Netbeans 7.1.2, I couldn't even get it to work properly. Sadly.

And no arguing about Idea's license fees ! :-) Because I'm purposefully using the free Community Edition. So anybody can use it. 

So for me the choice is obvious: Idea CE 11. It looks better, works out of the box, its coding assistance is great and it comes with all the professional power of Intellij.