Ask HN: If building an IDE from scratch, what features would you add?
2rajasimon45/7/2025, 7:02:40 AM
Many IDEs feel bloated or outdated. If you could design one from scratch,
what would you keep, drop, or reinvent?
Comments (4)
SvenL · 14h ago
Great debugging capabilities, time travel debugging, data break points, attach to running processes, remote debugging etc.
I think the most important feature for an IDE is debugging - at least this is the feature which separates an ide from just a Text Editor
joegibbs · 14h ago
Native vector search would be great. I was just thinking today how irritating it is to try to find some specific component in a very large codebase without knowing exactly what it’s called already.
pancsta · 12h ago
You mean like Zed? Check their roadmap.
T0V1 · 15h ago
I'd keep all the features from neovim, remove all the features from every other IDE.
I think the most important feature for an IDE is debugging - at least this is the feature which separates an ide from just a Text Editor