IDE lockdown - give my Java back

As aptly put in this article, there are two types of programmers, those that go with languages and those that go with tools. Given that we all go with Java, what about the tools? Looking at the market, we have at least five major players, Eclipse, JBuilder, NetBeans, JDeveloper and IntelliJ (which, unfortunately, has no free version). How to choose which one is the best for you? Here there are number of options:

• at work - most probably dictated by the work-place policy (which on itself isn't bad, considering that you have to work in team environment at different computers, so you'd better have the same environment installed)
• go with the majority (hoping that the shepherd isn't blind and has no hidden agenda)
• try out various tools and see which one fits you the best

In this case, the freedom of choice is a bliss. I remember working with JBuilder back in 4-6 versions, and i look back at those days with a shudder. It's unthinkable why even now, after 5 more versions, the GUI still looks awful, but that is a totally different subject. Unfortunately, the longer you work with a particular IDE, the more keyboard shortcuts you learn. Why do i say unfortunately? Because now you are locked on one particular IDE. For better or worse, you are basically stuck. Let's see a quick example.

At work, we use Eclipse. At home, I use IntelliJ. The more i program with both tools, the more i get used to the quick shortcuts (instead of lifting my fat fingers and moving that heavy mouse across the screen to the menus). Looking back, i see that most of the time i use eight different functionalities (in no particular order):

• rename (variable, member, class)
• move (class to another package)
• find declaration (of variable, member, class)
• refactor string to constant static member
• generate getters and setters for a class
• implement methods from interface
• organize imports
• reformat code

The first two are a must-have, as pointed out here. The third one is even more important, the rest are nice and very useful. Of course, i use much more than these eight (guess i disagree with this post). Here is the problem:

Function	Eclipse 3.1	IntelliJ 4.5	JBuilder 2005	NetBeans 4.0	JDeveloper 10g
Rename	Alt+Shift+R	Shift+F6	None	Alt+Shift+R	-
Move	Alt+Shift+V	F6	None	Alt+Shift+V	-
Find declaration	F3	Ctrl+B	Ctrl+Enter	Alt+G	None
Refactor to const	None	Ctrl+Alt+C	-	-	-
Organize imports	Ctrl+Shift+O	Ctrl+Alt+O	Ctrl+I	Alt+Shift+F	None
Format code	Ctrl+Shift+F	Ctrl+Alt+C	-	Ctrl+Shift+F	-
Generate get/set	None	Alt+Insert	-	-	None
Implement methods	None	Ctrl+I	None	Ctrl+I	-
Total shortcuts	165	243	202	82	173

The more i use these features in Eclipse and IntelliJ, the more i get confused and use wrong combination in wrong IDE. It gets worse at the beginning of the programming session, but it doesn't get much better after that, when i try to tell myself to use the right combinations. I was thinking right now about the natural language analogy and why babies seem to easily pick two different languages at the same time. The analogy is out of place here: although the shortcuts refer to the same functionality, they are in the same Ctrl+Shift+Alt+Key language. It gets even worse in debugging:

Function	Eclipse 3.1	IntelliJ 4.5	JBuilder 2005	NetBeans 4.0	JDeveloper 10g
Step in	F5	F7	F7	F7	F7
Step over	F6	F8	F8	F8	F8
Step out	F7	Shift+F8	-	Alt+Shift+F7	Shift+F7
Resume	F8	F9	-	Ctrl+F5	F9

So what, you may say, just stick with one IDE and you are set. When something better comes up, just move to it and forget about the old one. The problem here is that not only you present yourself (say in CV) as Java programmer, but now you are tempted to mention that you are expert in a particular IDE. The current trend of hiring J2EE programmers that only have experience in a particular application server may well project into IDEs. Although tying language and working environment may prove fruitful in the short run, you are restricting your options and the mindset in the long run.

I vote with both hands for IDE. They are indespensable for debugging, refactoring, integration with third part extensions. I won't go back to emacs or pico. But each vendor implementing 200+ shortcuts that agree only on Ctrl+S being Save? Maybe we need a JSR for the key bindings. I won't even go into creating my own keymaps or choosing one of the predefined keymaps that simulate the rival IDEs. If they are there, why won't you just stick with them? The people will not choose the IDE because of the keymaps, they will only be more than happy to know that they can revert to your IDE without the need to learn new keymap set.