In case you did not read one of my past posts where I threatened to break up with R# 4.0 I have moved away from using ReSharper for the time being. Now just to clear something up, I was still using ReSharper 3.1 with any VS 2005 work. I just stopped using it for vs 2008, but now I am back
During my time away from R#, I made the switch to CodeRush/Refactor! and the great guys over at DevExpress were gracious enough to provide me a license so I could do a solid comparison.
In this corner we have ReSharper 4.0 EAP
Pros
- The built in UnitTest running is a beautiful thing. I feel naked when I do not have this feature.
- The built in Code Analysis (red, yellow, green) is very mature and does exactly what I want
- Kick ass code completion/formatting rules.
Cons
- Crashes all the damn time
- Each nightly build was appearing to be worse then the one before it
- Memory hog
- The UI is a bit clunky and sometimes non-intuitive (compared to CodeRush)
- Still does not support .Net 3.5 syntax for the most part (Linq and Lambda's)
In this corner we have CodeRush/DevExpress!
Pros
- The UI is super slick and ultra polished.
- The way that tool 'learns' from your usage is great
Cons
- No built in UnitTest Runner. I was using TD.Net to get the same result, but that is not as nice as R#'s
- The Code Analysis is not as mature. I am told that is priority #1 for the team, so looking for great things in the future.
- Does not have any built in code completing/formatting. Have to use the VS IDE rules.
So, who won the smackdown????? Both of them won.
Both tools have some great features along with some draw backs. What I have finally decided to do was use them both, well kinda. I have removed Refactor! as it and R# do NOT play nice together, but have left on Code Rush. In order to get CodeRush and R# to work well you do need to make configuration changes, but once you have done that the 2 tools work real nice together.
For the time being I am going to stick to this dual prong approach because I feel that R# just gets me more (they better understand how I like to code). However, when the next release of Refactor! comes out and they have full support for .Net 3.5 I will give them another chance.
Till next time,