"Best" JS IDE
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I'm kinda wanting to learn JS. What would be the best IDE to learn it with or use?
For me, "best" primarily means free.
It needs to have coding stuff, too, so not just be a glorified text editor (i.e. a bit more substantial than Notepad++). It should have a project explorer, go-to-reference feature, code completion, a code linter, etc. I want a full IDE (or one that I can get plugins to add these features).
Github integration would be a nice feature, too.
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For learning it, assuming you mean something like Node, you would probably be ok with just a text editor. For in-browser stuff it's even simpler, just go to jsfiddle.net and do whatever.
For more complex stuff, I don't know any good IDEs but Sublime Text probably has some plugins for it. It's got a decent typescript plugin made by the typescript team, that much I know.
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@hungrier Why would you assume node when he said JS?
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@stillwater As an example of something that you might need more than just a browser to work with.
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@djls45 said in "Best" JS IDE:
What would be the best IDE to learn it with or use?
I don't know about best (depends on what you like in your IDE, and people tend to be fussy about that stuff) but Eclipse has JS support plugins. They even do a version package specifically for JS development.
For people who prefer JetBrains's IDEs…
WebStorm: The JavaScript and TypeScript IDE, by JetBrains
Make development more productive and enjoyable with WebStorm, the IDE for JavaScript and related technologies.
Apparently, you can also use Visual Studio…
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/scripting/javascript/javascript-in-vs-2017
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@djls45 Get Mozilla Firefox.
If you are gonna follow the Mozilla Developer network docs then use the scratchpad for the initial lessons and VS Code for larger code files as you progress. Two best alternatives to any other text editor or notepad++
VS code is fully optimized for JS and has nice GitHub intergrarion too. It's free ofcourse.
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@dkf JS in Visual studio is okay but far better in VS Code. YMMV.
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@stillwater said in "Best" JS IDE:
YMMV.
Personally, my mileage tries very hard to avoid writing JS. (I've written a little in Eclipse and that works, but it was in a context of a project written in a totally different language and I've not installed many JS-related plugins so the amount of IDE support was minimal.) But there's lots of IDEs that support it.
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@dkf said in "Best" JS IDE:
Personally,
myeverybody's mileage tries very hard to avoid writing JS.FTFY. When it comes to JS anything that makes it less awful is what I look for. I ve tried many IDEs and VS code makes coding in JS almost pleasant.
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@djls45 said in "Best" JS IDE:
I'm kinda wanting to learn JS
Are you looking at taking up work that involves frond-end fuckery?
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My 2¢: Go with WebStorm. JetBrains IDEs are the best. Although you said 'best' means free, so I suppose that wouldn't work that well since I doubt you'd be eligible for an educational license. In that case Visual Studio would probably work best.
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@stillwater Actually, at the moment, I want to try to fix something that's been bugging me here (I'm not sure yet whether it's core NodeBB or one of our plugins). But I like learning languages (both computer and human), so I figured I could kill two birds with one stone.
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@djls45 In that case go with VS Code so there s no IDE fuckery to deal with on top of birdstoning.
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@pie_flavor said in "Best" JS IDE:
@stillwater said in "Best" JS IDE:
IDE fuckery
explen
JetBrains: Developer Tools for Professionals and Teams
JetBrains is a cutting-edge software vendor specializing in the creation of intelligent development tools, including IntelliJ IDEA – the leading Java IDE, and the Kotlin programming language.
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@stillwater No, I mean what part about that is fuckery. WebStorm > everything else.
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@stillwater said in "Best" JS IDE:
@pie_flavor said in "Best" JS IDE:
WebStorm > everything else
Objectively?
It's written in Java, so no, it's objectively worse than most other IDEs.
(Jury's still out on whether Electron or Java is worse, but I'm leaning towards Java.)
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@unperverted-vixen Yes, because the language it's written in totally matters.
There aren't that many companies that can write performant and bug-free Java code. But JetBrains is one of them.
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@pie_flavor said in "Best" JS IDE:
There aren't that many companies that can write performant and bug-free Java code.
That would require not using the JVM.
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@stillwater said in "Best" JS IDE:
Objectively?
Yes.
The bar is pretty low for JavaScript IDEs, because no matter what you're doing it's pretty much always a shitshow. But Webstorm is by far the best one.
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My 2 Cents.
My first experience with Jetbrains was with Android Studio. Piece of shit. But it was a modified version from google. Let us count that one out.
IntelliJ and pycharm for Java and python fuckery respectively. Such a pain to use. It always felt clumsy for a lack of better phrase. I gave these IDEs more than one shot before I got tired of them. A bunch of us switched to Atom for python and some switched to Eclipse for Java. Jetbrains IDEs have conistently been shitty. Worst ever IDEs I have ever used. I cannot remember much but I've been much happier after I started using Atom / VS Code. I'm not articulating very well but I hope someone comes along and clearly outlines why Jetbrains products' feel like shit.
The only thing from Jetbrains that was a pleasure to use was Datagrip. That was way more decent than the rest of their products.
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@stillwater I've never experienced any sort of clunkiness. Maybe it's like the cilantro thing.
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@pie_flavor Oh what I'm saying is super duper next level subjective. Feel free to discard.
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@stillwater said in "Best" JS IDE:
Jetbrains IDEs have conistently been shitty.
Could just be that you don't like them. I don't like them. But I know that others like them a lot. De gustibus non est disputandum. (AKA, YMMV.)
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@stillwater said in "Best" JS IDE:
@dkf JS in Visual studio is okay but far better in VS Code. YMMV.
Yeah I agree. I use VS for all my C#, but when I need to do my TypeScript, it's VS Code.
VS does some weird thing with TypeScript where it builds the TypeScript to JS but it bypasses your normal build system and litters .js files all over the place and it's really annoying.
As for learning JS, also learn TypeScript. It adds (most of) the shit JS badly needs, and the JS spec seems to follow TypeScript improvements pretty closely, so it's a way of future-proofing too.
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@dkf said in "Best" JS IDE:
Could just be that you don't like them
Probably. The problem is I can't put a finger on what exactly it is that I hate about em.
@dkf said in "Best" JS IDE:
De gustibus non est disputandum.
TIL.
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@blakeyrat said in "Best" JS IDE:
VS does some weird thing with TypeScript where it builds the TypeScript to JS but it bypasses your normal build system and litters .js files all over the place and it's really annoying.
Just the instructions on the Typescript page on configuring it for VS gives one a headache.
VS also does something fucky with Python but I hope it is fixed now.
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@stillwater said in "Best" JS IDE:
Just the instructions on the Typescript page on configuring it for VS gives one a headache.
I think the quirks are because VS needs to build the TypeScript for intellisense features to work (since they already worked in JS). But why it litters the JS files all over instead of putting them, for example, in the temp folder is a mystery to me.
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@stillwater said in "Best" JS IDE:
I can't put a finger on what exactly it is that I hate about em.
They do a LOT for you.
If you're not used to it, or if you don't like that, it feels like they're always in the way.
If, like me (and presumably @pie_flavor), you learned on them, they're ridiculously useful.So I guess they're not objectively better, but if you're used to them, they're much better to use.
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@sloosecannon said in "Best" JS IDE:
you learned on them
Not even. I used Eclipse for so long. When it fucked up my workspace completely, I tried IntelliJ just for the lulz and never went back.
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@sloosecannon said in "Best" JS IDE:
they're ridiculously useful
I'm gonna give it another whirl with pycharm, a thorough one and see what's the deal.
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@stillwater said in "Best" JS IDE:
Are you looking at taking up work that involves frond-end fuckery?
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When hacking around for the purposes of modifying an existing page I tend to just use the browser dev tools. The actual paid Javascript work I've done has all been in the context of existing projects with a small amount of JS in a couple of files, so I've just used visual studio since it's generally already open for the main asp.net project.
