I'd like to know how IDEA users handle their workspace.
Do you:
As for me, I prefer to have one IDE and a bunch of plugins. In fact, IDEA provides more SDK for plugins, according to the Elixir plugin page (projects, modules, building).
This depends on two factors: the price and depth of integration.
Price: IDEA Ultimate costs about 149€ while standalone IDE's like PyCharm or PhpStorm only cost 89€. (Not sure if you can install a Pyhon plugin in PhpStorm)
Depth of integration: as far as I know (correct me if wrong), the IDEA Ultimate plugins do not provide the same level of features like the language-specific versions. There are features in PyCharm that are not available for IDEA Ultimate with the Python Plugin (or what language you choose).
If you are using several languages without digging too deep into the feature set of the language, it may make sense to go with an all-in-one solution. However if you are a poweruser who needs a lot of very specific features and support for them, a specialized IDE makes more sense.
Price: IDEA Ultimate costs about 149€ while standalone IDE's like PyCharm or PhpStorm only cost 89€. (Not sure if you can install a Pyhon plugin in PhpStorm)
Depth of integration: as far as I know (correct me if wrong), the IDEA Ultimate plugins do not provide the same level of features like the language-specific versions. There are features in PyCharm that are not available for IDEA Ultimate with the Python Plugin (or what language you choose).
Well, I'm not sure, but looks like they are similar. I've switched to IDEA + Python plugin and I haven't noticed any difference in terms of features.
I currently have different IDEA IDE's installed for each language that I work in.
I work mostly in Android Studio (also IDEA) and PHPStorm, the others are for contributing to open-source and making PR's.
For me benefit is that for some of these languages I am not very experienced (Ruby, Python, Node) and I might not know what plugins or default settings to use and the IDE will come basically already optimised for that language (maybe some personal preference changes).
I use Jetbrains Toolbox to easily download, update and open my IDE's or projects.
I got the Ultimate pack at home through Jetbrains Student and at work because it was barely different buying our team Ultimate vs just IntelliJ.
Since I have access to them all, I use the dedicated app for each function.
IntelliJ is just way too bloated to spin up every time I want to just toy with some HTML
Coming from a Java background before switching to ruby, I initially decided to stick with IntelliJ and install the ruby plugins. This works fine if you don't mind some of the UI issues like having to define a JDK/modules for your ruby projects, which doesn't really make sense.
When profiling integration support was released earlier this year in RubyMine, there was a bug in the IntelliJ plugin that didn't expose the run profiler in the command menu, so it couldn't be started. That was just recently fixed, but I decided to switch to the more 'native' RubyMine for ruby development and the interface feels a lot cleaner imo.
AFAIK each sub-IDE is just an IDEA with a plugin and some UI tweaks for this language.