Normally, the IDE is open at all times when you're coding. But if you don't code all the time, I can see how you may prefer to avoid IntelliJ and I would also do that if I was just searching for strings.
IntelliJ is unfortunately very sluggish for me either way, and as of now, if it is open, I cannot do anything else on the PC, which means it is only open when I am actively coding, but even then, it is just so slow that I would rather not.
On the other hand, VSCodium and vim / emacs are always open, at the same time. But I do not like coding in Java / Kotlin without IntelliJ, which I do for some work.
I completely understand. But I suppose most developers, specially in the USA (where salaries are astronomicals) and even Europe (where I am, most top-of-the-line laptops are affordable to most devs here) it's not a problem, but I too have a low-end Mac (which would be an expensive machine in some countries!) where IntelliJ doesn't run so well, as you mention. In those cases, I use emacs which has similar "grep" functionality. What I was arguing against was just doing it "only" in the CLI. You will spend hours for something that should be minutes!! But even the guy who originally said he does it on the CLI admited he's actually just calling it from the CLI, but using an IDE (if you allow me to call Neovim an IDE) to go through the results... which is basically the poor man way to do what IntelliJ does (no offence meant).
FWIW in VSCodium, I have one or more terminals open, and sometimes I would (rip)grep. Not always, but sometimes, when I see there is use for it. I am used to the quick output of the tool and sometimes that is all I need.
