am I too fanatical?!
k.. you were supposed to say no ;)
well, the context revolves around Eclipse n IntelliJ.. and when it comes to choosing between the two, well, honestly I don't really see a choice over there :D it's just IntelliJ, IntelliJ, IntelliJ and that's about it :P

happened to stumble across this entry which tries to tell you the 10 reasons why Eclipse is better. alright dude, I'll give you all that.. but honestly, you've never used IntelliJ for pro development.. I'll avoid counter-commenting over each of your points (though it's way too tempting not to :D )..

but here's why I prefer IntelliJ over ANY other IDE on the planet (across all the languages).. all the other IDEs help me write code, but IntelliJ helps me solve problems.. IntelliJ knows what I'm thinking.. and that really makes a big difference.. with IntelliJ, my focus almost completely is taken off the nitty-gritties of code which I definitely don't have to be bothered about..

coming to Eclipse, oh I definitely don't hate it.. and honestly, I respect it over many other IDEs (xcept IntellliJ of course ;) ).. but given that, it's nothing more than an IDE.. sure it's free.. and has a very xtensible plugin architecture and everything.. but it loses because of that very point.. it's so generic that it complicates building anything specific around it..

the fundamental differentiator from my point of view is usability.. I think Eclipse has serious usability issues and it's usability sucks big time! alright, it uses SWT, but that only makes it kinda blend with other applications.. from nowhere do I see Eclipse looking pretty because of SWT! alright, I kno I might be a lil biased on that bit.. n that's xactly why it's my point of view (which's fairly twisted btw :D )..

and ah! the open architecture! can't wrap up without mentioning that.. ever tried writing an Eclipse plugin? I did.. long back.. and I gave up.. sure, there's a LOT of documentation around for Eclipse.. and very little for IntelliJ OpenAPI.. but still, I found myself writing an IntelliJ plugin without much (read: any) hassle (ignore the fact that there was a T-shirt for incentive ;) ).. oh, the Eclipse API isn't really bad, but 've said it earlier, it tries to be too generic.. too many details to pay attention to for a small task.. and too much documentation to read thru..

with IntelliJ, you won't find much documentation.. and that does become a major pain in the ass at times.. despite that, OpenAPI is pefectly usable, coz most of the things in there make perfect sense.. definitely OpenAPI isn't the best around.. I've got a 100 improvements to suggest and others'd have a lot more.. but with Eclipse, I just haven't got the time and energy it takes to explore and use it's API to do anything practical..

k.. all these mainly have to do with the power that IntelliJ gives me.. it's code browsing features are simply the best I've seen for Java.. my favourites: Ctrl+N and Ctrl+Alt+Shift+N, Ctrl+H, Ctrl+Alt+H.. with IntelliJ, I'm up for tampering around the most unfamiliar codebases in an instant :)

oh and since it's my blog, I thought I shud mention my IntelliJ plugin.. 'tis called Jump To Usage (alright, 'tis a silly name).. quite a trivial plugin.. but nicely fits into my style of coding :D