Java IDEs *Le sigh*

[Nate the Capricious]

I do most of my programming in C/C++ using Microsoft IDEs. I'm a
student so this is the best avenue to take, my school has some nice
deals with them (Free Development Tools, Professional+ versions).

But I've been trying to get into Java, so I'm looking for a nice IDE
and I've been having a few problems finding one.

I generally don't like applications that don't *install*, but I
downloaded Eclipse anyways. It sounded very nice, especially since it
has C/C++ development tools. Too bad they're only for GCC (I use
Microsoft AND Borland compilers, but not the GCC). O well.

No visual designer, no support for web development. No built-in
support for applciation servers. I spent about 8 hours searching for
and downloading plugins to get something that was vaguely comparable to
what I am using for ASP/.Net development and ended up deleting it in
despair. The refactoring features are nice, but it's alot less
intuitive than VS.

Sun Java Studio Enterprise 8/Java Studio Creator. 2 IDEs for the
functionality of one? This boggled me, but I was intrigued enuff to
waste my time downloading them. JSE's UML support seems broken, JSC
looked nice. They ran really nice, for being Java IDEs. But, I have
to install two instances of Sun's Application Server to do any type of
web development? 1) You have the option to not install the AS with
JSE 2) You don't have the option to not install it with JSC 3) JSE
refused to use the AS that was installed with JSC 4) waste of time.

NetBeans is slow and clunky. And believe it or not, for a beginner,
those refactorings are important (if you actually understand them)
because you tend to make more coding mistakes that need to be undone.
Well NetBeans sucks in that department compared to Eclipse. Then again
Eclipse is more like Emacs on Windows.

I evaluated JBoss AS and found it ran exceptionally well on my "low end
development machine" (2.6GHz P4 HT w/ 512 MB RAM), but I couldn't even
get the Admin console applets to work correctly, not to mention it
seems rather mundane compared to Sun's exceptionally well-designed
Admin console for their application server. It used about 50MB less
RAM, though, and loaded up in 20-40 seconds (which is very good, on my
machine, I think). Seeing they had tools for Eclipse, I gave in and
redownloaded and installed them. O well, I'm still stuck working at
the code level.

JDeveloper has so much Oracle stuff in it I didn't even bother to mess
with it. It's too high maintenance as far as getting it to work with
my existing M$ technologies. It looked a bit promissing though.

Now, I know there are alot of veteran Java developers who would say
doing it at the code level is great. But I tend to learn alot by
working with the visual designers. I understand Eclipse has a visual
designer, but most of my interest is in web development; where Eclipse
sorely lacks in functionality. I don't feel like having to work with 2
separate IDEs (Sun), and I don't like software that slows my computer
down to a halt (Sun's AS, NetBeans). JBoss looks like a nice AS, if I
can get the Console to work. It still seems like there are no really
complete *non-vendor-specific* free IDEs out there. Maybe I'll just
save a few paychecks and purchase JBuilder.

Anyone have any recommendations as to nice alternative IDEs out there
other than the above mentioned? (I know of IntelliJ, will download the
trial later).

 

[Oliver Wong]

I do most of my programming in C/C++ using Microsoft IDEs. [...]

But I've been trying to get into Java, so I'm looking for a nice IDE
and I've been having a few problems finding one.

I generally don't like applications that don't *install*, but I
downloaded Eclipse anyways. It sounded very nice, especially since it
has C/C++ development tools. Too bad they're only for GCC (I use
Microsoft AND Borland compilers, but not the GCC). O well.

No visual designer, no support for web development. No built-in
support for applciation servers. I spent about 8 hours searching for
and downloading plugins to get something that was vaguely comparable to
what I am using for ASP/.Net development and ended up deleting it in
despair. The refactoring features are nice, but it's alot less
intuitive than VS. [...]
I understand Eclipse has a visual
designer, but most of my interest is in web development; where Eclipse
sorely lacks in functionality. [...]

Anyone have any recommendations as to nice alternative IDEs out there
other than the above mentioned? (I know of IntelliJ, will download the
trial later).

It's not clear to me what you want to get out of your IDE. Do you want
to do ASP.NET coding? Java coding? C/C++? Eclipse's support for ASP.NET and
C/C++ is quite weak as you've noticed, just like Visual Studio's support for
Java is quite weak. Once you give a more specific description of exactly
what you want to do, we can probably make better recommendations for what
tools you should use to accomplish that task.

If you want a do-it-all IDE though, I think Eclipse is the closest
match, with its highly extensible plugin system.

- Oliver

 

[Nate the Capricious]

It's not clear to me what you want to get out of your IDE. Do you want

to do ASP.NET coding? Java coding? C/C++? Eclipse's support for ASP.NET and
C/C++ is quite weak as you've noticed, just like Visual Studio's support for
Java is quite weak. Once you give a more specific description of exactly
what you want to do, we can probably make better recommendations for what
tools you should use to accomplish that task.

If you want a do-it-all IDE though, I think Eclipse is the closest
match, with its highly extensible plugin system.

- Oliver

Oliver,

I don't want a do-it-all IDE, and certainly don't want one that does
ASP.NET or C/C++. I was just pointing out a nice feature in Eclipse in
that it had a ver nice (easy to find) plugin to support C/C++
development. It is a very good thing to be able to work with the
language I use for most of my projects as well as Learn to use
Java/etc. from the same IDE. I have Visual Studio, I don't want a
clone (multi-language IDE blablabla). I just want something somewhat
comparable to it for the Java language, and I'm having alot of trouble
finding one. With the way Java IDEs hog resources, it would be more
"attractive" to be able to use the same IDE to do some C/C++ and Java
builds/development; not something I count as a requirement for the IDE,
though. Java IDEs generally focus on Java features, not C/C++.

I agree, Eclipse is nice and I'm more than sure it can do it all. But
after googling and searching for 8 hours [straight], I wasn't even
close to close to doing what I'd like to do with it. In fact, most of
what I found was indeed very nice, but not even related to it. Most of
the plugins for Eclipse are targeted at enterprise developers who know
the ins and outs of Java. It's very difficult to work with if you
don't know much about it. These plugins integrate well, but I don't
find it attractive having an entire bookmark folder dedicated to
Eclipse plugin websites so that I can find info on them when something
doesn't work the way I expected it to (and of course, it could be
operator error).

Maybe I was too long winded. What I'm lookign for is:

"An IDE that isn't platform/vendor restricted (or offers too many
confusing menues/etc for their products that I don't want to install)
that has a nice editor, some refactorings, and Visual applications/web
designers."

Integration with VSS would also be nice.

Thanks.

Nate.

 

[Oliver Wong]

I have Visual Studio, I don't want a
clone (multi-language IDE blablabla). I just want something somewhat
comparable to it for the Java language, and I'm having alot of trouble
finding one. [...]
Maybe I was too long winded. What I'm lookign for is:

"An IDE that isn't platform/vendor restricted (or offers too many
confusing menues/etc for their products that I don't want to install)
that has a nice editor, some refactorings, and Visual applications/web
designers."

Integration with VSS would also be nice.

A lot of people recommend sticking with something simpler than Eclipse
when first learning the Java language, and only later on moving to Eclipse
(or NetBeans or whatever) once you no longer have to juggle learning the IDE
along with learning the syntax and the API, for example.

AFAIK, neither Eclipse, NetBeans nor Sun Studio ONE are platform or
vendor restricted, except in the sense that if you write Java programs,
you're restricted to the Java platform. In fact, most Java IDE are not
restricted. The only one I can think of is Visual Studio's J++ and J#
support, where J++ and J# are languages that are "kind-of" like Java, but
not really. If you consider those languages to be a variant of Java, and you
use those tools, then you'll be restricted to that variant of Java.

There's an IDE that was designed specifically for learning Java. It's
called BlueJ (http://www.bluej.org/) I'm not sure if it has refactoring
and/or visual application/web designers though.

BTW, web application stuff is usually done with J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise
Edition), whereas most tutorials on learning Java will focus on J2SE (Java 2
Standard Edition). So if you're new to Java, I recommend you forget about
web applications for now, and concentrade mostly on command line programs
and desktop applications. Once you've got the hang of that, you can move on
to J2EE for web applications, or J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition) for handheld
and cell phone applications.

- Oliver

 

[Srini]

having gone through similar stages (of becoming Java literate)
recently, I recommend JBuilder from Borland highly. There is a "free"
version available which can take you very very far.

Disclaimer - I have nothing to do with Borland. Just a user.

 

[hilz]

I agree, Eclipse is nice and I'm more than sure it can do it all. But
after googling and searching for 8 hours [straight], I wasn't even
close to close to doing what I'd like to do with it. In fact, most of
what I found was indeed very nice, but not even related to it. Most of
the plugins for Eclipse are targeted at enterprise developers who know
the ins and outs of Java. It's very difficult to work with if you
don't know much about it. These plugins integrate well, but I don't
find it attractive having an entire bookmark folder dedicated to
Eclipse plugin websites so that I can find info on them when something
doesn't work the way I expected it to (and of course, it could be
operator error).

If you don't mind spending $30/year, check out www.myeclipseide.com

You basically install eclipse then you install myeclipseide which is
basically a set of plugins that contain probably all what you need in
one step.

I am evaluating it at the moment and it is pretty nice.

On the other hand, I've been using NetBeans for all my Java development
so far, and it is getting better and better. It is much easier to use
than eclipse, in my opinion. Hopefully soon they will integrate Sun Java
Stuio Creator 2 with NetBeans and that would be a killer IDE.

good luck

 

[Wes Williams]

On the other hand, I've been using NetBeans for all my Java development
so far, and it is getting better and better. It is much easier to use
than eclipse, in my opinion. Hopefully soon they will integrate Sun Java
Stuio Creator 2 with NetBeans and that would be a killer IDE.

good luck

Indeed, Java Studio Creator2 is supposed to be integrated into NetBeans
before too long.

I'd also suggest to the OP that he try Creator2 again as it an easy to
use visual Java IDE but still has many of the traits necessary to look
at and modify the code - basically a better learning path than starting
with Eclipse or NetBeans. Then by the time you Creator2 you could then
pickup NetBeans and go from there.

Personally, I'm partial to the Creator2/NetBeans route vs. Eclipse, but
this is largely a matter of personal preference that doesn't warrant a
flame war.

 

[Roedy Green]

Anyone have any recommendations as to nice alternative IDEs out there
other than the above mentioned? (I know of IntelliJ, will download the
trial later).

You have covered them and done the wise thing of taking them for test
drive rather than letting others tell you which is best.

One way to tackle your problem is to give up on the idea of a single
unified IDE for both your C/C++ and Java work. I just use MS Visual
C++ for C/C++ and IntelliJ for Java.

For JNI, I sometimes write test drivers of the core code in C/C++
before doing the JNI glue. That way I don't have too much hopping back
and forth between C/C++ and Java.

IntelliJ is even more of a RAM hog than Eclipse, so you could not
seriously consider running both IDEs at once in an older machine.

 

[Nate the Capricious]

Yes, I noticed NetBeans had some nice additions, I did some more
reading and found
out a little more info abotu what they support and whatnot. I did try
it in it's 3.6 nad 4.1
facades before, and Matisse is really nice. I read that Eclipse is
going to integrate
Matisse into their IDE (Correct me if I'm wrong) and that would be
great.

Overall I think the Eclipse IDE is the better of the bunch, it runs
quite snappy; but the
learning curve of it seems to me a bit like Emacs. I cannot get over
the "perspective"
system they've implemented. I must admit, I'm a bit spoiled by the
other "visual"
programming environments I use (C++Builder, VS).

I will evaluate JBuilder and IntelliJ IDEA and see which one suites me
best. It's never
too late to change one's mind.

P.S. I generally avoid ThisIDE vs. ThatIDE websites, they are too
violent to get any useful
information out of them

Thanks for all responses, everyone.

Nate.

 

[Oliver Wong]

I cannot get over
the "perspective"
system they've implemented.

Sounds like a haiku, complete with misleading errant pause on the end of
the second line.

Those mini-windows called "Views" can be dragged around and arranged to
your likings. Perspectives are basically predefined arrangements of views.
So the "normally" the "Debug" perspective will give you the view that lists
breakpoints, and variables-contents, while the "Java" perspective won't. But
if you wanted to, you could add the "Breakpoints" view to your "Java"
perspective.

- Oliver

 

[hilz]

Sounds like a haiku, complete with misleading errant pause on the end
of the second line.

Those mini-windows called "Views" can be dragged around and arranged
to your likings. Perspectives are basically predefined arrangements of
views. So the "normally" the "Debug" perspective will give you the view
that lists breakpoints, and variables-contents, while the "Java"
perspective won't. But if you wanted to, you could add the "Breakpoints"
view to your "Java" perspective.

- Oliver

I find perspectives annoying as well.
NetBeans used to have some sort of the same idea in the past (maybe
called "modes" if i recall correctly). They got rid of them long time
ago (since NB 3.6 I guess). They must have realized how annoying they
were long ago!

 

[Mike Schilling]

Anyone have any recommendations as to nice alternative IDEs out there
other than the above mentioned? (I know of IntelliJ, will download the
trial later).

Do try IntelliJ. Lots of refactoring, and its code completion abilities
make Intellisense look sick.

 

[Monique Y. Mudama]

I generally don't like applications that don't *install*, but I
downloaded Eclipse anyways. It sounded very nice, especially since
it has C/C++ development tools. Too bad they're only for GCC (I use
Microsoft AND Borland compilers, but not the GCC). O well.

No visual designer, no support for web development. No built-in
support for applciation servers. I spent about 8 hours searching
for and downloading plugins to get something that was vaguely
comparable to what I am using for ASP/.Net development and ended up
deleting it in despair. The refactoring features are nice, but it's
alot less intuitive than VS.

It's funny; to me, Eclipse is much more intuitive than VS. I wonder
if "intuitive" means anything at all in the world of computing, or if
it all comes down to "whatever's most similar to what you've been
using."

 

[Nate the Capricious]

Intuitive as in easy to pick up.

Intuitive IDEs have features like Dynamic Help, collapsible
toolbars/panes, etc. in the likes of VS, Sun's IDE, Netbeans,
and JDeveloper. I can see how the Perspective system (or
view system as some call it) would be intuitive for some; but
I'm not *that* much of a noob that I need everything to be
sorted out in such a way. There is always a 2 second pause
while the JVM garbage collects and/or Eclipse switches
perspectives, it seems. And that's annoying.

Eclipse is kinda a "download and you're on your own" kinda IDE.

I like that the other IDEs have features that are mostly comparable
to Eclipse, but get all their updates from a single source.

That being said, I *DID* find the part of the Eclipse website that let
you download a bundle of all of the Enterprise Development tools
along with the core SDK, so I will play with those. I'm currently
evaluating JDeveloper and IntelliJ.

Putting a strain on my poor SourceSafe database. Hope I don't
corrupt it

Also, for the person who was talking about J2EE features and what-
not. My instructors demand that we properly document our projects;
design documentation, implementation, code comments, and end-
user documentation. That is why I like the UML features. It comes
in handy for putting some aspects of an application in a more visual
term; and I routinely round-trip code/etc. and use those in my docs.

It may be overkill, but I think following such a practice will teach me
more discipline when I graduate and enter the professional world. I
don't want to embarrass myself

Lata,
Nate.

 

[Timo Stamm]

I find perspectives annoying as well.
NetBeans used to have some sort of the same idea in the past (maybe
called "modes" if i recall correctly). They got rid of them long time
ago (since NB 3.6 I guess). They must have realized how annoying they
were long ago!

Annoying? I find this view managing system very useful for some
applications. In Eclipse, you can adjust sizes, or move a view somewhere
else, but you never have to position it yourself. You may find it
irritating to have less control, but I would find it cumbersome to
position all those windows by hand.

Cinema4d uses a similar view manager. I remember version 2 on the Amiga,
back in 1994. Raytracers had very awkward UI at that time, and Cinema4d
was a fresh breeze. I worked with version 5 for some time, and it
already had a view manager similar to Eclipse. Unlike Eclipse, you can
"undock" views to self-contained windows - very useful if you have two
displays. Eclipse can only open an entire new window with its own editor
view.

Cinema creenshot:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Cinema_4D_9.5_English.JPG


Timo

 

[David Segall]

I read that Eclipse is
going to integrate
Matisse into their IDE (Correct me if I'm wrong) and that would be
great.

I have only seen this for the subscription based MyEclipse
<http://www.myeclipseide.com/>.

 

[Chris Uppal]

It's funny; to me, Eclipse is much more intuitive than VS. I wonder
if "intuitive" means anything at all in the world of computing, or if
it all comes down to "whatever's most similar to what you've been
using."

Almost anything would be more intuitive than VS. However I don't think that
Eclipse manages to pull off even that trivial feat.

There's a theme that runs through the whole of the Eclipse design: there's no
clear mental model of what you are doing. Often that results in "things" (I
can think of no more precise word) which either have no name at all, or which
have no very meaningful name. "Perspectives", for me, are one example of this.
Another example is the little dance you have to do when you want to debug
something -- what the hell are those things you create called ? (The ones in
the drop list from the debug icon) My experience of Eclipse is that most of
the time I'm working[*] with "concepts" that don't map onto what I want to do,
or how I want to work, but which are just bundles of learned "Eclipse does
<something> when <something else>" rules -- much the way I'd imagine a 16th
Century peasant would feel if faced with learning to use a VCR.

([*] Via a UI which is not exactly well designed at the superficial level
either -- I spend far too much time squinting at icons trying to find the right
one, or shuffling through menus trying to find stuff.)

The only program I've used recently which matches Eclipse's frustrating and
confusing design is Windows Media Player. I'm not sure which one I'd award the
crown for shear badness to -- it'd depend on which I'd used most recently.

BTW, I do agree with you that there's an element of what you are used to in
this -- for instance Netbeans will be far more familiar to an MS VC6 programmer
than Eclipse is, and will be correspondingly easier to get into. But I think
there's another aspect of "intuitiveness" which goes beyond that, and that
there's some more-or-less objective sense in which a program can have intuitive
design. I don't think that a well-designed IDE would have much resemblance to
MSVC/Netbeans, it might well be at least as unconventional as Eclipse, but it
wouldn't (by definition) share Eclipse's approach to design.

-- chris

 

[olle.sundblad]

Just try IDEA found at www.jetbrains.com. Test for free for 30 days and
then you have to pay, it is worth it (I payed after a week.

I tried alot of IDEs before finding it (including Eclipse which I
really wanted to use since it is free) but in the end the price for
IDEA is cheap for what you get.

Note: If you are new to programming I would recomend BlueJ which was
mentioned above, but since you know VS I guess you are not.

 

[Jon Martin Solaas]

JDeveloper has so much Oracle stuff in it I didn't even bother to mess
with it.

Much the same way VS has MS stuff in it, I suppose. But you don't have
to use it, and some of it is redistributable anyway. But there is no
prob to make non-Oracle-ish apps. Also it has lots of the stuff you miss
in Eclipse.

Both Eclipse and Jdev miss the setup program, though. In my opinion that
is the best part. I can use the same installation directory for both
linux and windows, and it survives reinstallation of both os'es. Same
goes for about any java-app, by the way, and really saves me *a lot* of
trouble and work.

It's too high maintenance as far as getting it to work with
my existing M$ technologies. It looked a bit promissing though.

Hardly Oracles fault. Think you'll find the same issues with all Java
environments, whatever they are.

Now, I know there are alot of veteran Java developers who would say
doing it at the code level is great. But I tend to learn alot by
working with the visual designers.

Netbeans, Jdev and also Eclipse via plugins *has* that. But I'm also
frustrated by all the plugins in Eclipse so I don't use it. Others love
it, though.

I understand Eclipse has a visual
designer, but most of my interest is in web development; where Eclipse
sorely lacks in functionality. I don't feel like having to work with 2
separate IDEs (Sun), and I don't like software that slows my computer
down to a halt (Sun's AS, NetBeans). JBoss looks like a nice AS, if I
can get the Console to work. It still seems like there are no really
complete *non-vendor-specific* free IDEs out there. Maybe I'll just
save a few paychecks and purchase JBuilder.

You'll probably find that JBuilder has as much Borland "stuff" in it as
JDeveloper has Oracle "stuff" in it, but if you like Borland "stuff"
better than Oracle "stuff" go ahead

Anyone have any recommendations as to nice alternative IDEs out there
other than the above mentioned? (I know of IntelliJ, will download the
trial later).

Try to make a short list of requirements, then it'll be easier for
people to suggest.

I'd encourage you to take a look at the latest JDeveloper. It's true
it's full of Oracle stuff, 100% in fact, since it is an Oracle product,
but it has nice designers for JSP/JSF, Swing, UML, ER, Java classes etc.
It generates J2EE applications that doesn't need to depend on Oracle
technology unless you want it. Using ADF components really speed up the
development process, though, and db integration does work smoothest with
Oracle db (including Oracle Express).

Some people prefer eclipse, though, maybe because it is more modular
than JDev. But I prefer the monolithic approach so that I don't have to
hunt for all the plugins I need.

 

[Jon Martin Solaas]

You'll probably find that JBuilder has as much Borland "stuff" in it as
JDeveloper has Oracle "stuff" in it, but if you like Borland "stuff"
better than Oracle "stuff" go ahead

Ah, forgot to mention, if you'd like to spend money on other things
instead, JDev is free, full version for commercial use. But, enough
advertising ... good luck