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I would like to try to switch to a JetBrains IDE. Especially the refactoring tools look to be much more advanced then Atom or VSCode.

At my workplace, most developers are either full stack or backend (python). As such, we have a grab bag of PyCharm licenses. However, I am purely a frontend developer, so frontend related tools are much more important to me then python support.

Unfortunately, the last time I tried PyCharm the integration with linters, toolchains, different template languages etc. was quite limited. Or perhaps I couldn't find the needed extensions or where or how to configure the right settings. I don't know if this is a JetBrains IDE thing, or simply because PyCharm is so geared towards Python development only.

The projects I work on are integrated in different backend systems. So one might be a C# project with Razor templates. Or it'll be some PHP with another templating language. Or it might just be mustache or handlebars. It might be a SPA in Angular, Vue or React. It might be purely Node.JS project. Some projects have Webpack, some have a Gulp toolchain. Linters might differ between projects. Folder structure also differs, one might have the git repository in the root. Another will have it one or two levels down. Some use a python virtualenv. Others use a docker container. Others use no enviroment management at all.

In my experience, because of the different nature of the projects, the PyCharm editor offered little extra functionality over Atom/VSCode, while missing a lot of simple extensions that Atom/VSCode does have. I was also quite a bit slower to start up.

Is it possible to configure / extend PyCharm to offer the same frontend related functionalities as WebStorm, or is a separate license needed? And is there support, or are there extensions, to support different toolchains, linters, templating languages etc. per project? The backend language support can be limited, as long as the very basics are there, and I'd like advanced frontend support for refactoring, debugging, etc.




The language specific apps (pycharm, rubymine?, phpstorm, webstorm) can’t run most other language plugins.

Get IDEA ultimate (also jetbrains) and just install the language plugins you need.

I use this to write php, shell, sql, javascript, css, html, a little ruby, a little python, makefiles, and hopefully some D-Lang soon.


> language specific apps

Isn't IDEA to Java what PyCharm is to Python?


Intellij Idea Ultimate is a universal product. Yes, it supports Java (and that support probably can't be turned off), but it allows to install support for almost anything (I think that Objective C and C++ is an exception). You can install PHP, Python and other languages. PyCharm is basically Idea with Python plugin and without ability to install other language plugins.


Thankyou this is a better summary than I’d have written while on my phone.


PyCharm contains all functionality of WebStom




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