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JetBrains Air: A System of Products for Agentic Software Development

75 points · 123 comments · FinnLobsien

  1. throwaw12 · · focus · HN ↗
    I like JetBrains as a company, their pricing for individuals made a lot of sense, you buy the license and you can keep using perpetual license for that version, if you want to buy newer version, you pay slightly less than year before.

    I want them to succeed, but can't see how they can win in this agentic world, where people are barely opening their IDEs, and living in agents terminal whole day and from time to time opening a PR to get a review

    1. sunaurus · · focus · HN ↗
      I'm realizing I am a minority, but my IDE is becoming MORE valuable to me, not less, with LLMs.

      The volume of code is only increasing. Problems that used to be solved with a few lines (or even removing lines) are now solved with changes across 10 different files.

      My IDE is invaluable for me when trying to navigate this stuff. I am completely convinced that people reviewing LLM code only via PR diffs are consistently missing massive systemic issues. You *need* to review changes in context of the surrounding code.

      And doing this without an IDE is just making your life harder for no reason.

      1. bko · · focus · HN ↗
        So you're using the IDE for review? The main features you need are around simple things like reading files, tracking git changes, things like that?

        That's a small subset of the functionality you would need if you're actually authoring code. So the IDE maybe be more valuable, but the feature set you need is actually much smaller and can probably be redesigned given your narrow workflow.

        Is this accurate?

        1. sunaurus · · focus · HN ↗
          Sure, but my IDE does these simple things very well.

          Just some important things off the top of my head that I use daily:

          * Instantly jumping between definitions and usages

          * Folding and unfolding code blocks

          * Quick overview of structures in files

          * Database access, so I can browse the data and the code at the same time

          Also, sometimes I just want to quickly refactor/rename some variable across all its usages or whatever. It's just quicker to do it in the IDE with a simple keyboard shortcut, rather than prompting an agent "rename oldName to newName".

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