I upgraded macOS and it clobbered my vscode installation. Completely corrupted. I reinstalled, but maybe it's a good time to switch IDEs? I used to be a big Webstorm fan. What are people loving these days? I don't want an AI IDE.
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@ben I got fed up with VS Code about 12 to 18 months ago when needing to bounce between PHP and Python, as well as general web work. (Staying in one lane it was decent, but crossing became a hot mess).
I’ve loved Nova for years for my general site and PHP building and maintenance needs, which it still is.
But, when I needed to keep distinct versions of PHP (as well as Python versions) I leaned into PHPStorm and PyCharm and have enjoyed the JetBrains world.
@vanderwal Yeah, after this post I revived my old JetBrains subscription and it's honestly like a breath of fresh air.
@ben Haha yes 😄 nothing like firing up JetBrains again — instantly makes coding feel cleaner and way less painful 💻✨
@ben Apple has decided you don't need VS Code any more.
@ben If you're using VSCode for .NET development, and in a personal capacity, I'd recommend JetBrains Rider. It does have some AI slop, but overall it's a pretty great IDE.
@ben I still use Eclipse like I did in 2002, ha. I have vs code as well but I haven’t upgraded my MacOS yet. Thanks for the heads up. I have VScode so I can explain the code build process/containerization (wars, angular app, and spring boot app) in an environment with which the new developers are familiar.
@ben been using Zed for a while which works well for what I do and one can disable all AI shit with just one setting.
@ben I've started learning Emacs (for Clojure) after avoiding both it and vi for decades.
@ben RubyMine and Sublime Text. There's talk of JetBrains AI features, I haven't seen any of it in my IDE.
@ben I use emacs 80% to 90% of the time. Today's packages are amazing and I can control nearly everything I do with an IDE as well or better. My other time is spent in the JetBrains suite (Rider, DataGrip). I don't use their AI add-on.
@ben Perhaps Helix? Julia Evans and lots of folks like it! See her blog post: "Notes on switching to Helix from vim" <-- https://jvns.ca/blog/2025/10/10/notes-on-switching-to-helix-from-vim/
@ben I personally use PyCharm, so would endorse Webstorm. Heard folks praising https://zed.dev/ (edit: I see it also has an AI focus, but from what I hear it can is super easy to disable that and it won't get in the way https://zed.dev/docs/configuring-zed#disable-ai)
@ben I don’t know if it’d work for your needs, but I’ve been *loving* Nova since switching over this summer. https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/some-well-made-things/
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