A report that independent developer tools vendor JetBrains posted a financial loss for the first time in “tracked history” prompted much discussion on Hacker News, though the title of the thread was changed from one that was too negative, since the company is not in any sort of financial trouble, to one that is too positive.

Revenue is up 6.26% and at a record level so there is that; but staff expenses rose 34.2%, operating expenses rose 26.5%, and the figures are consistent with the idea that the company is attempting to find new AI-flavoured directions to support the future of software development, a challenging task since nobody knows what that is.

Perhaps most concerning for JetBrains are the many comments from developers cancelling subscriptions. “I’ve been a JetBrains subscriber for over a decade. Nobody is going to use their tools in five years. I certainly don’t need my subscription anymore,” said one.

The core issue is that AI agents do not need IDEs. “I was a big IDE user since they existed (I used Visual C++ beta releases in 1992). However, since adopting AI tools I really haven’t used an IDE. Once in a while for things I don’t know how to do without one (e.g. view a markdown file locally). That’s it though,” said another.

This view is by no means universal. As it happens I am personally using IDEs more than I have for a while, working on a project porting a Windows Forms project to modern cross-platform C# code (current MAUI though that could change). I am not using much AI for this, partly to control costs and partly because it does not seem well suited for it, though I could be wrong.

Developers empowered with AI sometimes deliver terrible code. This comment is an example:

“I have seen a bubble sort function in a PR from an engineer with 10 years of experience. Meanwhile sort from standard library is easily available with one single line … that same engineer sent out a PR of 200-file feature. The PR is so large that it freezes the latest MacBook Pro if you try to read it. Nobody reviewed it and he merged it himself. Nobody uses that feature, and nobody in the teams wants to maintain it. Now we are considering scrapping it.”

If AI is the future of software development, we have to get better at using it.

A new State of Devs report shows that developers are having a tough time. Burnout is high; 66% of respondents report “reduced motivation” and 57% are “emotionally drained.” Regarding AI, opinions are evenly divided on whether it is a net positive or negative; however there is a majority opinion that it has a negative impact on mental state and many reports that it has as many downsides as benefits. “AI has sapped the joy of the craft, shattered my focus, and every day I find myself closer to throwing in the towel and taking a year out to travel and decompress,” said one developer. There is anxiety not only about job security, but also code quality, deskilling, and pressure to deliver more features more quickly.

Finally, a comment from a JetBrains representative corrects a common misunderstanding, that the company has invested heavily in AI tools like Junie at the expense of maintaining the quality of its core IDE framework IntelliJ. “Junie is like 30-40 people (haven’t checked exactly, but the order of magnitude is correct), IntelliJ headcount is in thousands just for perspective. I don’t quite see how it can affect other products or financial health. Junie also doesn’t subsidise usage, so it is not a money burning machine either.”