Code editor of choice?

I come from a .NET world where we have the panacea known as Visual Studio. I supposed I’m just used to a certain layout and use case - tools/data connections on the left, editor in the center, code tree/properties on the right, errors/output at the bottom, a simple button to launch and debug with easy breakpoints and both simple and advanced stepping and debugging capabilities. Very easy to learn and navigate.

Don’t get me wrong - I hear WebStorm has all of these features and more, and it has the capacity for highl levels of customization. I’m just going to have to take the time to learn it. And that’s a hard pill to swallow sometimes.

See? I hear what you’re saying about it being the best. It’s just the thing you said right there: “if you take the time to learn what it can do.” Everyone should take the time to learn the tools of their trade - but when you’re already learning a new technology/platform like Meteor it’s hard to also take the time to learn the tooling around it when that tooling isn’t given front-and-center attention in the docs/tutorials/articles surrounding it.

Something Microsoft does right (don’t flame me, bro!) is include all of this around the IDE within their docs on MSDN. But then, they built the tool and the technology to work with the tool, etc. so they could all get behind it.

Used Eclipse, Notepad++, Sublime Text 1-3, Atom.io, Codenvy.com, Cloud9, Cloud Foundry, Nitrous.io, Codeanywhere.com, and most recently WebStorm 9.0 with Meteor.js support. Sublime Text and Notepad++ are great first editors and are easy to get up and running in your languages of choice, but WebStorm 9.0 with Meteor.js support is my editor of choice even though it takes just a little bit more effort to set-up, but with all of it’s enhanced functionality it is well worth the effort and price.

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I can’t wait to have Meteor supported in Visual Studio. I think that will be huge for Windows developers. They already support Node.js so maybe it wouldn’t be that hard.

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WebStorm 9. It is easy to setup, has differential updates/fixes, can search across editor settings, supports node.js & meteor.js. It’s fun and has many powerful features.

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Hi brwn! That’s awesome because I’m a .NET guy too. I’ve done Microsoft development for 20+ years. I too have always consider Visual Studio a best-in-class IDE. But honestly, after using WebStorm, when I go back to Visual Studio if feels sluggish and old-fashioned. CTRL + K, CTRL + C (comment); CTRL + K, CTRL + U (uncomment) who came up with that monstrosity? :wink:

Now I feel like Webstorm is the more innovative and modern editor in many ways. Your mileage may very, but just wanted to share my testimonial that it was very worthwhile in my experience. Far better than Sublime and ATOM for sure.

But I hear you. Switching tools came be uncomfortable. I also switched cold turkey to a Kinesis keyboard on my Windows machine last year.

Painful learning experience, but well worth it for my comfort. I’ve learned to enjoy the awkwardness of learning a new skill.

Another change I made was to buy a Mac. It’s a much better machine for doing web development than Windows because the OS is essentially the same as a web server. That took some getting used to as well, and I can’t say it’s better in every way. Windows Explorer is much more powerful than OSX Finder. Now I use both Windows and Mac at my office and only use a MacBook Pro at home and while traveling.

So as a .NET guy myself, I now find Meteor development with WebStorm on a Mac to be even more fun that .NET dev with Visual Studio. Webstorm has a lot of the editor tools you’ve grown to love and some which you’ll wonder how you lived without.

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After my experience with Webstorm, when I go back to Visual Studio I feel like it’s sluggish and old-fashioned. I feel like WebStorm has really rethought some things and have created a more modern product. Btw these are they same guys who make Resharper. They know Visual Studio, and in developing WebStorm it looks like they took many of the best ideas and improved on many others.

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You can also use it with Java 8 when you change JVMVersion to 1.8* in /Applications/Webstorm/Contents/Info.plist :wink: That’s what I’m doing.

That’s definitely a good thing to hear coming from another .NET / VS developer. I mean, VS2013 is incredible. I’d really like to get used to an IDE that’s better than that, just sort of hard to believe it’s out there. But I’ll give it a definite try!

You know, I haven’t used this keyboard - I’m using a Razer Ultimate Black Widow 2013 Stealth right now (because usually I WFH and my desk is in my bedroom - and well, the wife didn’t like the “clickety-clack” of a regular mechanical. :stuck_out_tongue:)

I made the same switch several years ago, so I know what you mean :slight_smile: But I usually do all my “work” in a VMWare vm of my Windows 8 bootcamp with Visual Studio. I do my Meteor work in Atom on the OS X side. But I’ll be looking into WebStorm and reviewing the tutorials.I’m a fan of ReSharper and the JetBrains guys know their products and their devs, so it’s comforting to know that they have expert analysis, at least, on their use cases.

I really love your relating this to me, and I appreciate it. It gives me confidence in looking at the product when someone from a similar background who’s made similar evolutionary steps and changes in their workflow provides advice.

Intellij IDEA. Silly name, awesome editor for all projects, Meteor, WordPress, whatever.

Emacs

yadayodayoyo!!

hell, i’ll even hop on Skype and give you a 5 minute Webstorm overview of how we use it if you like. I certainly wish someone did it for me, so I’d be happy to show you the ropes.

Could do it as a Google Hangout if anyone else wants in.

Cheers!

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Just got an email from a team lead at Jet Brains. They have updated the auto completion engine for Meteor and fixed bugs in the new upcoming version of WebStorm :slight_smile:

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You can make a 5 min video tutorial of setting up Webstorm so that everyone can benefit, just a thought.

@maxhodges that would be phenomenal. I’m in the CDT timezone, and it’s 12:35pm. I’ll be out of the client site in 3 hours, so in 4 hours time I should be free to Skype. We could record the conversation as per the suggestion by @chos89 if it’s in a sort of short Q&A format and post it in a topic. It’d be a good video in general, but I think it would help any others coming from a full-fledged IDE like VS to learn the new layout and sort of have a mapping of common things you’re used to doing in that environment and doing them in WebStorm.

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Pretty much what I suggested earlier!

If you did end up recording something, please do post a link to it, I’d love to learn a bit more about WebStorm before using it in earnest.

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Unfortunately, I never got confirmation from @maxhodges yesterday, but I’m hoping he’ll have an opportunity to get with me sometime this week. Even if he’s unable to have the recording, I can follow-up with an overview video specific to using WebStorm with Meteor - unless this already exists somewhere out there and I find that link to put here!

Hey guys, I’m in Japan, so we’ll probably have a hard time with the time zones. I created an intro video for you. It’s pretty rough, but I hope it leaves a good impression. I cover just a 15 or 20 little things which highlight the very enlightened interface. WebStorm should spend some money and make a more polished video like this because apparently too many people are hesitant to really dive in.

There are really too many features to cover in 15-20 minutes, but I hope it at least entices you to learn more!

just reuploaded to dropbox but looking like meteor forums can’t handle thsi link

Cheers!

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Pretty please ask them to implement linting and navigate to declaration for package exports.

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You should ask him yourself, give it a shot: https://twitter.com/anstarovoyt