I feel like I "earned" the right to use big ugly IDE after learning the underlying complexity the hard way, but that's only for one language.
Jumping into a new language with JetBrains is the difference between me spending 2 hours figuring out a codebase and submitting a PR, and me spending 2 hours fucking around trying to fix things.
An IDE generally adds another complexity layer, esp. if you’re not experienced in the language, that’s true. Maybe the reason I didn’t feel that was the gradual ramp up in using the IDE, and starting to play with a language in the terminal first.
I still don’t use an IDE for projects up to a certain size, but after a certain point, being able to also store all the nitty gritty bits about a project (building, profiles, environment, flags, etc.) in a project saves more time than it requires to set them up.
Jumping into a new language with JetBrains is the difference between me spending 2 hours figuring out a codebase and submitting a PR, and me spending 2 hours fucking around trying to fix things.