As I learned some basic programming languages I came across tens of IDEs, and tens of compilers. Most people you ask will tell you "Go with that IDE or go with the best" etc, however they do not provide a proper statement as to why this is important. I understand a good IDE will provide you with functionalities to save time and money, such as debugging or quick-word-fill, but I doubt that's the whole reason a programmer picks a good IDE.
At school we work on old compilers (Money probably isn't the reason) because the theory "As long as you learn it's good" works.
The bottom-line question is: How important is it to pick the best IDE for your programming language? YOu have Eclipse for Java, C++, Python and more, but can't you simply use a different one? What difference does a good IDE to your programming skills or your programming time?