Are IDEs always a Good Thing(tm)? I used to use only jEdit, but a while back switched to NetBeans, mostly because of the GUI Builder and the NetBeans Platform (I’m mostly a Java programmer). While I am a lot more productive with it, it feels less flexible and I often find myself hacking some things in jEdit again (Scala in particular because the NetBeans Scala plugin is really buggy). All the behind-the-scenes stuff usually works great, but occasionally the way NetBeans does it is just inconvenient and there is no easy way to change it.
So while I’d assume most people are happy with IDEs because they make you more productive, are they really all they are made out to be?
It depends on who you ask! Seriously, everyone has their preference as to whether to use an IDE or not. I personally do not for most things, except for Visual Studio with C#. I believe that IDEs definitely have their good qualities, but they are simply not for everyone.