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Windows 8: Do I Really Need a Single OS?
gManZboy writes "If you skip Windows 8, you lose the appealing opportunity to synchronize all of your devices on a single platform — or so goes the argument. If you're skeptical, you're not alone. OS monogamy may be in Apple's interest, and Microsoft's, but ask why it's in your interest. Can Microsoft convince the skeptics? 'If the hardware and software are the same at home and at work, one can't be "better" than the other. It would help if Microsoft convinced users like me that their platform is so good, we'd be fools to go anywhere else,' writes Kevin Casey."
I use VS at work a XCode at home. I've used Eclipse at work back in 2005-2006. In my opinion:
Visual Studio:
This is the best IDE IMO and has been for a while. This could change of course. I develop the fastest with this IDE. This might be biased since I use it the most. Delphi was great in it's day (5) and VS took a lot of cues from Borland's IDE. Microsoft started as a developer tools company, and I think they still have a soft spot for it.
XCode:
XCode was a little cumbersome back in 3.x but is getting much better with every release. It's picking up a lot of cues from VS and Delphi IDEs.
Eclipse:
This is a juggernaut and it shows. I haven't used it really since 2006, but at the time, it was huge and a little cumbersome. I would have liked to see Apache/Tomcat configuration be a little more automated, because when I first set it up, it took too much time. This may be different now.
Netbeans:
As an aside, my GF used it for some MIS class projects. It's not a bad little IDE, but I haven't used it extensively.
IntelliJ IDEA:
We switched to this for our Java IDE when I used it in a previous live. This was a nice IDE when I used it for 6 months.