Should all team members use the same IDE?
ide
Solution
If no specific plugins are being used then why not let people use what they want? We use a mixture of Eclipse, vim and other editors to edit a mix of Java, PL/SQL and Pro*C. We all have different vim setups, and it has never been a problem. Having said that we all use Eclipse for Java, but that is mainly because it is the best IDE for Java (for our purposes). We are all on different versions of it though so there is not really any enforced consistency there either.
Problem
Should all team members be forced to use the same IDE (e.g. eclipse, netbeans, intellij) for programming, even though the build process is independent of IDE? (Assume no IDE specific plugins etc are being used on the project.) If everyone is using the same IDE, they can share the same configuration and work in a more consistent environment. However, if you have been working with a certain IDE for many years, being forced to use another will be frustrating and reduce productivity because you will be trying to learn the IDE instead of focussing on the problem domain. I am interested to hear which one of these two types of teams you have worked in and which one you think works best. Thanks