good text-based powerful java IDE that runs on linux

Question

The problem is - I like old goods ;) Having some old laptop which I just LOVE. It runs Xorg of course, and it's fast. But Intellij IDEA is still slow.

Thought about emacs, but never used. Isn't emacs too complicated? Going to work in text mode under X in many windows and make some scripts to automate things.

Answer 1

The big three Java/universal IDEs (IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse & Netbeans) are all written in Java and are going to be slow-ish on an old (define old?) laptop. I wouldn't want to run any of them on one of my 3-4 year old Thinkpads, but I don't mind running Netbeans on my 2 year old MacBook. I haven't tried IntelliJ on the MacBook but I use it at work on a new Thinkpad and it's not exactly fast there. It's still usable, though.

There's a world of difference between a do-all IDE like IntelliJ and a text editor, even one that is extensible like Emacs is. Emacs will use fewer resources and will feel more responsive, but that's partially because it does less and partially because its core engine is native code and not Java. Plus it has 20 years of tweaking behind it.

I tend to use Emacs as an editor if I just want to crank out code - once I move from writing code to the debugging, refactoring and tweaking stage, I also avail myself of an IDE because they tend to do at least some tasks like debugging better. This shouldn't really come as a surprise given that you are talking about a text editor (on steroids, admittedly) compared to a full-fledged IDE.

Basic Emacs isn't that hard to learn. If you want to write scripts, learning the movement and basic text editing commands should get you up and working quite quickly; the complexity comes when you delve deeper into the editor and start making use of the multitude of add-on packages and the advanced features built directly into the editor. The learning curve is going to be steeper than, say, gedit, but it's perfectly doable if you accept that it's a completely different beast from an IDE (more powerful editor with less handholding) and it does things its own way.

Is it worth learning Emacs? I don't know - if you want to, then yes. If you just want a more responsive but essentially basic text editor, have a look at the alternative programmer's editors out there. A lot of them are easier to learn than Emacs and VIM, but not necessarily as powerful either.