IDE with refactorings?

[jeremy sellars]

While I haven't needed this yet, I am anticipating that refactoring
tools will come in really handy. It seems that the style of classes
Uncle Bob Martin suggests (as in 'long methods are where classes go to
hide') would be particularly useful in asynchronous programming in
general and Node.js development in particular.

Does anyone know of an IDE that makes refactoring fast and easy in
javascript?

[Joseph Andaverde]

I think this is particularly difficult with dynamic languages. We are
definitely spoiled in the C# world. I credit what I'm about to say to
a tweet I saw from Andrew. The need for a refactoring tool can be
avoided with a good test suite.

Here's the tweet:

"Unit & functional tests are a requirement in JavaScript since tooling
is lacking for refactoring—which is secretly a blessing. #nodesummit"
@adunkman

[Andrew Dunkman]

At NodeSummit there was a recurring theme: JavaScript's lack of tooling is one of the adoption pain-points in Node development. It's a known issue—but I'm not sure there's a whole lot that can be done about it (other dynamic languages such as Python and Ruby don't seem to have a whole lot of refactoring tools available, either).

Many of the developers I saw at NodeSummit were using either Cloud9IDE or Sublime Text.

[Dusty Burwell]

This isn't the answer you're looking for, but personally, I feel like
IDE's can get in the way a lot more than they help. I definitely
prefer a lightweight editor. SublimeText is definitely my current
favorite. But, Joe/Andrew is right, dynamic language development
necessitates a comprehensive testing suite.

That said, I don't think that a tool capable of supporting some of the
things you want is out of reach. For instance, Jetbrains has WebStorm
which supports NodeJS including debugging and refactoring. However,
I'm not sure how good it is for Node development, I think it's more
targeted at client side web development. They also have RubyMine for
Ruby. Also, word on the street is that C9 is working on some
refactorings too.

[Simon Sturmer]

I can vouch for WebStorm. It's pretty top notch for JS of any kind and has explicit support for Node including the module system. It's pretty affordable and very powerful for refactoring (understands code structure via built-in AST). I'll never go back to using another editor!

[Joseph Andaverde]

I applied for an open source license for WebStorm for the NodeKC
group. I'll keep everyone posted on how that goes.

[Joseph Andaverde]

Still no response from Webstorm about our request for an open source
license. I was kind of worried that we wouldn't be given one because
of how new our group is.