With or without an IDE?

I've been working on JavaScript projects for 2 years now, and in the beginning, I found it very frustrating to work without a proper IDE, as I came from the C# (.NET) world. But things have changed (?).

Your IDEas?

One can say working with C# (or VB, whatever) in Visual Studio is like a dream. You can find the references of nearly anything, refactor and debug your code easily, in addition there is IntelliSense. This tool is a very strong factor when it comes to development. A few years ago I gave speeches and presentations about C#, .NET, and Visual Studio, and I started my programming career with C# so I can say I like this world.

But things have changed, and nowadays I write a lot of JavaScript code on a daily basis. I use Eclipse now, nothing really fancy. This is a really nice open-source environment, though it's not as good as Visual Studio. Moreover, when it comes to JS it's not so strong at all.

However, this situation has more pros than cons for me. I started to realize when I don't have a really clear view of my "classes" because Outline view starts to fail, or can't see a variable's value just a few clicks away, I start to think about my code. I analyze it, think about it, and critisize it.

"This class shouldn't be so huge. I can't manage it very well."

"I can't see the role here, should I put these into separate files?"

"This variable name isn't good."

So I reckon that I write more manageable code when I don't have such a good support with my IDE, because  I can't see through my classes/functions if they are too big. Moreover, I can't debug so easily so I pay more attention on naming things, especially on variables, thus I write cleaner code.

This post is not about why I don't use NetBeans (which is evolved to a nice tool for a HTML5 dev.) or Aptana Studio (though this one has some serious performance issues I think). It's more likely about why I don't feel the need, and why I can understand hardcore emacs/vi/vim guys.

You have to face it!

In regards to JavaScript there will be a point when you’ll have to face the lack of your IDE, and that time will come fast. Maybe you have a full support for native JavaScript expressions (however some anonymous functions will be enough to confuse any IDE, not to mention the module pattern), or jQuery but when one will start to use other libraries like underscore or BackBone, no IDE will provide any good help.

Okay, the situation is not that bad, because these libraries generally have clear and nice API documentations, but all in all you'll have to give up some of your comfort when you want to write JS codes.

p.s.: If you are wondering about the second picture: that was the first match on Google Search for Eclipse... :)