Some time ago, I was all Windows and I really liked VisualStudio. Some people say it is one of the best IDEs out there. But then, with Win10, I started turning my back on Microsoft. So I had to search for a new IDE, which would run on Linux. A lot of people recommend against using IDEs on Linux (or at all), but instead using some text editor with code highlighting and the bare tool-chain.
Personally I think that's BS. Good IDEs do not hide the toolchain and add a lot of additional value to the project. That's why, after trying some combinations and other IDEs, like NetBeans and KDevelop, myself, I settled for JetBrains CLion, which uses GCC or Clang coupled with CMAKE. It has all the comfort I am used to from Visual Studio, like autocomplete, refactoring, etc. and might be a little better at it sometimes :) I really like it so far, but I wouldn't use it on Windows as it takes time and headaches to set up there.
What are your experiences? What IDE do you prefer on what OS? For what reasons?
vscode
just try it and you will know it is the best.
Also if you use react you should check nuclide.
Hands down to WebStorm, the best WebDev IDE I've ever used, since it allows me to do so much things in one place and ease the development phase a lot.
I have used visual studio and it is ok, but I always feel it is a bloated beast. I actually prefer codeblocks for c++. However some things are easier to do in visual studio so I switch between them depending on what project I am throwing together.
I code exclusively on terminals securely connected to my Linux servers running on Google Chrome windows as spun by Google Cloud Platform. Therefore I code completely in the cloud.
I found running Vim inside GNU screen [or even (vim inside gnu-screen) inside a docker container] to be extremely flexible and powerful, yet simple and standard.
Vim is pre-installed on most *NIX systems you will encounter and GNU screen, when absent, can be installed easily and quickly with the distribution's package manager.
GNU screen allows for persisting sessions and managing multiple views with extra terminals (one view is running vim, the next is running "$ tail -F example.log" the third is running a server "$ node myserver.js", another one is used for housekeeping command like committing code etc... you get the point).
There is zero installation and almost no computational overhead on my local machine.
There is no configuration on the local machine (I keep the .vimrc and .screenrc config files on GitHub that I load on servers where I have a lot of coding to do in) . Therefore, I can code from any computer including my phone (using the GCP app on the Mac App Store). I use a small USB-less MacBook that wouldn't be powerful enough for many setups given in the other answers.
The only drawbacks I have encountered are:
For PHP, Aptana Studio. It's built on an Eclipse base, and coming from Java programming, the transition is pretty simple. Sadly, the company that bought them (Appcelerator) seems to have stopped development on it, so it hasn't been updated since 2013. It doesn't support PHP above 5.5. You can run PHP > 5.5, but it detects certain things as errors that really aren't. But, all in all, it's a decent IDE. I've tried others, but keep coming back to this one. It's free. It works well for me.
For .NET, of course, Visual Studio.
Starting to use Visual Code for JavaScript. It's okay. Not quite decided how much I like it.
For all other languages, vim.
Well, I am too a big fan of VisualStudio. However, it is a TERRIBLE text editor. And I'm really dependent of high productivity edition. You never really felt good until you tried multi edit :D (JetBrains probably has it).
If you really like IDE's, you are probably well served with the one from JetBrains. It's The same company of IntelliJ, which is an awesome IDE for Java. It probably have all the features you find in high productivity editors and I really recommend you search for them. Especially multi-edit, as mentioned above.
Aside from JetBrains, maybe you would wanna try VisualStudio Code. It's also from Microsoft, and probably has a lot of features from VisualStudio.
My personal choices are SublimeText and Atom. In my humble opinion, modern editors give you much more productivity than refactoring tools. As for auto complete features, IDE's really are better, but you can get there with plugins. If you are ever interested in learning what a good editor can do to you, maybe search for some videos on some tricks the editors may offer you.
Then there's Vim. It's a great editor for the terminal, also can get quite powerful with plugins. But this one has an incredibly hard learning curve. The best part of it in my opinion is the ability to code without ever taking your hands off the keyboard, not even for reaching arrow keys.
vi though ssh on your phone on production
Ok, serious one answer: I'm using PhPStorm, Visual Studio Code, Nodepad++, nano/vi and xcode
and my favorite IDE still is a paper and a pencil.
I have been using both WebStorm and VSCode for Node.js projects. Both of these editors are pretty solid and have everything you need.
I used to be a .NET developer, and now I am doing Mobile. With mobile I am using Android Studio and Xcode. For my Node development I really like VS Code. Microsoft has done a great job of packing features into that IDE, and it is cross platform. I can open the same project on Windows, Ubuntu or macOS. Even on the Raspberry Pi. I still love the regular version of Visual Studio.
IntelliJ Idea Ultimate
It has fantastic Java support, Eclipse doesn't come close to it, Kotlin support, Dart support, JavaScript and Angular Support, the Spring and Hibernate support is fantastic, I can write PHP and Python in it just like I would write Java in it, it has built-in database support, so I don't need a third-party client to browser my database, it has SQL and HQL autocomplete, etc etc etc. Just love it!!!
I have used a couple of IDEs since I started programming. whatever makes life easier: JS and html is difficult to read without formatting, indentation, and I like a text editor that allows me control over those things. Line numbers. Themes that include colouring that seperates tags from text, etc... Things that make the code more readable prevent you from making errors. Plugins that help to highlight errors and make suggestions help too.
Sublime is cool. Anything by the guys who did phpstorm and webstorm (agree with @scandelario) : great products. Suggestive text when there are lots of packages... Integration with dbs and svn... Helps👌
My favourite IDE are Brackets and Atom. I literally love both, even if I'm using Atom lately! I like its simplicity and the add-ons I can find all over the web!
Anyway, I'm always open to know new IDE to improve my knowledge and to find out new workflow or best practices.
Cheers!
My favorite one is Stack Editor, which is created by myself. And it's kind of between and text editor and an IDE. You can check this medium.com/cirru-project/stack-editor-programming…
For short, it's structured code editor in which there's no text syntax and no concept of files. But instead there are syntax trees, definitions and namespaces. The cool part is I can edit syntax tree by definitions. My code will be generated by code in Clojure. So, it's very special.
And I configure my console to behave like a Quake-Style console. iTerm2 v3 and Cmder are candidates for macOS and Windows. I don't use terminal plugins for my Editors/IDEs because my console is always just a keystroke near :-)
Since a few years until now i'm using PHPStorm, and simply love it because offers me a lot of options, plugins and a nice interface to have in one touch everything i need at a glance.
Have autocompletion, finding files, open quickly, database integration, VCS and many others features to make development easier.
My favourite IDE is MacVim
I like Vim because of it's amazing keybinding and It won't consume lots of RAM like any other IDE. Even though there are lots of amazing plugins available for Vim, It can't match the Android studio and Xcode experience when I write Swift and Java code. So, I started using XVim in XCode and IdeaVim in Android Studio
I have listed down some of favourite Vim plugins in my another answer. Check that if you want to know more about my development setup.
Sorry, I can't say many about c++ IDEs (till now I only used c++ on my Arduino projects).
But for JS I use VS Code on all OS. It has all I need. So no need for a full IDE.
Mark
formerly known as M
Note that there is a JetBrains toolbox, which makes installing tools like CLion easy. I still prefer Linux myself, but it's quite workable on Windows.