Atom has been deprecated since December 15, 2022, but you can check it out here: https://atom-editor.cc/.

When I first started development, Atom was my go-to IDE for everything. This was before type-hinting in Python became more popular, and the basic auto-complete was more than good enough for my needs.

Atom was definitely a good IDE for me as an early college student, but I outgrew it by junior/senior year as I took on larger, more complex projects.

Check out PyCharm here: https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/.

I picked up PyCharm junior/senior year of college (early 2019). I was primarily working on Python projects at the time (SmartFarm, Bridge/Grove, various robotics projects), and I really appreciate the Python-focused experience that PyCharm provided.

I'm amittedly not a PyCharm power-user. I'll occasionaly use the built-in refactoring tools, but I stick to very basic stuff otherwise.

PyCharm features I don't use:

• Terminal or Python console
• Breakpoints/debugger
• Git tooling
• "Run" or scripts/commands
• AI assistant

So why do I use PyCharm at all then?

I've tailored the layout to something pretty minimal and toned-down. I'm also accostomed to the default keyboard shortcuts, which are similar/identical across most JetBrains IDEs.

Check out WebStorm here: https://www.jetbrains.com/webstorm/.

I picked up WebStorm while I worked at ROSALIND. This was the first large-scale, complex web app that I made significant contributions to, and I needed an IDE better suited for JS/TS projects than PyCharm was.

Similarly to PyCharm, I'm amittedly not a WebStorm power-user. I'll occasionaly use the built-in refactoring tools, but I stick to very basic stuff otherwise.

WebStorm features I don't use:

• Terminal
• Breakpoints/debugger
• Git tooling
• "Run" or scripts/commands
• AI assistant

So why do I use WebStorm at all then?

I've tailored the layout to something pretty minimal and toned-down. I'm also accostomed to the default keyboard shortcuts, which are similar/identical across most JetBrains IDEs.

Check out Zed here: https://zed.dev/.

I tried Zed briefly when it was still relatively early in it's development (mid 2023). While I appreciated the simplicity of Zed, some essential plugins/features were missing when I tried it.

Features I was missing:

• Auto-formatting on save
  • I use prettier for WebStorm
  • I use ruff for PyCharm
• Linting integration
  • I use eslint for WebStorm
  • I use ruff for PyCharm
• Type assistance
  • The TypeScript integration worked fine, though I remeber needing to restart the server constantly
  • Typing in Python is notoriously not-great. I use the Pydantic plugin for type-hinting in PyCharm, but it's not very helpful anyway

That being said, I don't use many of the power-user features in PyCharm or WebStorm because I want a clean and simple IDE. So maybe I should try Zed again.