Although it's still rare for management to get it, programmers know that programmers should get the latest and greatest hardware. The case is clear: at a lowball price of $70,000 a year, even a %1 speedup is worth $700 a year. Developers, however, have a way of sticking with substandard software out of inertia -- afraid of the breakage that might result from switching to new tools, we suffer with tools that never work quite right.

1. Paul Houle - Friends Don't Let Friends Use Eclipse
Friends Don't Let Friends Use Eclipse
IntelliJ Idea Improves Quality Of Life For Java Programmers
Paul Houle – Creator of database animals and bayesian brains
November 12, 2013
The problem
Although it's still rare for management to get it, programmers
know that programmers should get the latest and greatest
hardware. The case is clear: at a lowball price of $70,000 a year,
even a %1 speedup is worth $700 a year.
Developers, however, have a way of sticking with substandard
software out of inertia -- afraid of the breakage that might result
from switching to new tools, we suffer with tools that never work
quite right.
The Eclipse IDE is the poster child for a "dull tool"; visual
debugging support, autocompletion, and automated refactoring
make something like it indispensable for Java projects, yet, it's
rare for an Eclipse installation to work 100% correctly. And even
if you do have it working correctly, you're just one plugin away
from disaster.
We've all got our pet peeves, but let's name a few of mine:
Eclipse comes in many editions, some of which will work
with your build and others which won't
Eclipse has plugins which can (sometimes and almost) do
useful things, but the one certain thing is it will become
increasingly unstable as you install more plugins.
http://blog.databaseanimals.com/friends-don-t-let-friends-use-eclipse[1/9/2014 2:52:27 PM]

2. Paul Houle - Friends Don't Let Friends Use Eclipse
Eclipse always seems to hide the tab I'm looking for (could
they please patent that algorithm?)
Under linux and gtk, graphical screwups that hurt usability are
the norm. Autocompletion labels, for instance, frequently
appear white-on-white. (Don't get me started on the difficultto-grab "scrollbars" that appear on Ubuntu)
Eclipse is slow
The last one is something you might not notice without comparing
Eclipse to another IDE.
The Solution
About a year ago, a fellow programmer told me that I was wasting
my time using Eclipse. I wasn't ready to switch then, because I
didn't want to deal with the breakage that comes with changing
my dev tools, but when I had a chance to catch my breath, I tried
out IntelliJ Idea and found that, finally, my laptop feels like a 4
core machine with 32GB of RAM and an SSD.
If you use Eclipse, you owe it to yourself to try another IDE
Paul Houle
Creator of database animals and bayesian brains
  
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http://blog.databaseanimals.com/friends-don-t-let-friends-use-eclipse[1/9/2014 2:52:27 PM]

3. Paul Houle - Friends Don't Let Friends Use Eclipse
© 2013 Paul Houle
http://blog.databaseanimals.com/friends-don-t-let-friends-use-eclipse[1/9/2014 2:52:27 PM]