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This is about tools, not languages.

Tools should make your life easier, not harder. Unfortunately, many Java IDEs fail to take this concept quite far enough.

I've used NetBeans for several years, but having finished a few weeks of C# work, I am now missing the IDEs code folding.

Yes, I know that's available in JEdit.

In fact, that's part of the problem. Anything feature you could possibly want from a Java IDE is out there. Some in NetBeans, some in Eclipse, some in JEdit, some in Idea, (the list goes on) but not all of them in one place.

-- Aumaden

Time to try IDEA

You mean a bit like Chat a multi-user IM plugin for Intellij?

Seems to be become a habbit since I switched to using Intellij. I will be talking to another developer and he will say "Wouldn't it be great if the editor would do xyz for you automatically." and I say "You mean like it does in Intellij?". Seriously give it a go, get addicted!

The short answer to your question is yes, you can really do in java whatever you might otherwise want to do with vb/vc. Most people's complaints at this point are unfounded, and usually based upon unfamiliarity with the latests versions of java, and the vast sea of tools that are available to make java development easy.

The long answer is yes, if you can choose to not support retardedly old jvm implementations. If you are going to try and support microsoft's jvm, then you are going to have a hell of time getting things to work well. I've found that if you support 1.3+ you are usually ok. What would be even better is if you were able to control the jvm under which your application runs, ie bundle the jvm with your application, and use it. That in general would save 99.9% of those types of headaches.

As far as examples of applications that are fairly large scale, and are implemented in java, you might want to look at Intellij's IDEA, or Eclipse. Yes I know that both of those are IDE's, but they are fairly large in scale, and have a fairly sophisticated windowing env.

The issue isn't that java was not on the machines. The issue is that it *was* on the machines in a deliberately broken form. So java applications either wouldn't run, or would run like crap. And your average user would be left with the impression that they had java, but the programs available for it rubbish.

Plus the shockwave/flash example isn't a good comparison - the JRE download is several times larger, and ok broadband is quite common now, but its not ubiquitous and it certainly wasn't a few years ago when most of the damage to the reputation of client-side java was done.

Add to that the varying ways of signing and embedding an applet depending on browser/platform version and you've immediately got to write three different versions of your applet just for windows...

And for those who think Swing is sluggish - you've just not used a well-written swing application. Check out intelliJ IDEA. The best IDE I've ever used, bar none.

Take a look at IntelliJ IDEA. It's the best (and moste impressive) IDE I've ever programmed in.

IDEA.

No matter... IntelliJ is eating Borland's lunch anyway. IntelliJ's java IDE is substantially better than JBuilder (I've used both for over a year), and it's only 1/3 the price.

.

Intellij IDEA

And no, I'm just a fan, I'm not associated with the company.

It looks like Eclipse doesn't support Objective C, though it apparently supports Mac OS X now.

Are there any other good tools for developing Objective C apps on Mac OS X (other than Project Builder and CodeWarrior)?

JBuilder is wonderful on Mac OS X, but Borland's licensing and support terms just suck methane -- $2999 for a new Enterprise license, but then it's $1899 a year to keep it updated. No significant volume discounts, and their tech support is next to worthless in our experience. Their free support option is a newsgroup staffed by "TeamB," which seems to be comprised of volunteer pre-teens who probably know a lot more about PlayStation 2 than they do about Borland products. Seriously, go read the newsgroup yourself sometime. It's pitiful. We've got a bunch of JBuilder licenses but we stopped upgrading them because the list of new features was so impressively weak for close to $2K.

I have friends who rave about IntelliJ IDEA, and there are lots of other options, like Together ControlCenter.

Anything written in Java will probably run on OS X, even if it doesn't say it on the box.

Have you tried using the developer tools that come with Mac OS X? ProjectBuilder is a decent Java IDE (though I miss JBuilder's Code Insight feature in a major way when using PB).

Try using salesforce.com, a web-based ASP of CRM software, costs about $60 per user/mo though but they host and operate the software and data for you, so you can access it from any browser wherever you are!

Name 10 applications written in Java that can be bought at the store.

I believe he was talking about business systems (database clients and like ilk). Java clients have been quite successful in that area, there are tons.

Even so, I'm going to give it a shot, just for fun.

1. LimeWire
2. JBuilder
3. Poseidon for UML
4. BugSeeker
5. IDEA
6. ???
7. Profit!

Dammit, just five, and using developer tools was kind of cheating.

* java IDE

Don't go netbeans - unless you have too much cpu + memory. Intellij IDEA is the far most kickass java IDE. The 3.0 beta builds are even better, available thru Early access program . On the other hand, it's not free, but well worth the price. For a free java IDE, people praise eclipse.

I used to think that Visual studio.net was the most intuitive and productive IDE around, but I was wrong. The only thing i miss from VS is it's speed - Sun really needs to fix the performance problems with java, especially the gui.

* java IDE

Don't go netbeans - unless you have too much cpu + memory. Intellij IDEA is the far most kickass java IDE. The 3.0 beta builds are even better, available thru Early access program . On the other hand, it's not free, but well worth the price. For a free java IDE, people praise eclipse.

I used to think that Visual studio.net was the most intuitive and productive IDE around, but I was wrong. The only thing i miss from VS is it's speed - Sun really needs to fix the performance problems with java, especially the gui.

As a Java developer there is one big thing missing CVS. Code refactoring support.

For example:

Lets say you are working on a large project 20 or so developers. And you create a little utility class for the area you are working in. You check in the code to your module (or package ) and use it. A few of you buddies are running into some problems that your utility can solve so the end up using the class. Now a few months later a large amount of code now uses your little utility, and the leads want to move your class to the global utility package. Tools exist that can quickly move the class and change all of the references that use that class. But to check in this change is a nightmare.

The thing is in Java this type of operation is common, and is good for the project (keeps the code clean). But until a version control system has proper code refactoring support it will always be hard to do.

You do it as soon as you notice the problem. If you have good tools, it will be simple and fun (yes, fun).

A refactoring browser like IDEA from IntelliJ makes it simple. Hilight a few lines of code, choose "Extract Method" from a menu, and the code is extracted into a new method with all the necessary parameters created and passed in and the necessary return type and assignment created. For example:

1: int a = 12, b = 9;
2: a += 43 * b + 12 / 4;

1: int a = 12, b = 9;
2: a += foo( b );

3: private int foo( int c ) {
4: return 43 * c + 12 / 4;
5: }

At what point do two functions approaching similar functionality need to be merged, despite the cost of digging through the source and making changes to call the new function?

It also has a rename feature which will rename a method or variable and change all references to it, but doesn't change references to different variables or methods that happen to have the same name.

It has lots mroe features, but you can read about them for yourself and download the program and play it.

There are other refactoring browsers out there too, like the free Eclipse from IBM. With the right tools, you can easily make your code less messy.

I was just like you. I spent almost a decade using vi (sometimes emacs) as my IDE. I became so fast in vi that nothing else seemed worth my time.

Then I starting working with other sr. developers who swore by their IDEs. Things that I would suggest are a lot of work were easy for them. (Like moving a class from one package to another.) It's easy because their IDE either did it all for them or it pointed out the problems in an easy way.

Of course the debuggers are incredible. Being able to walk through code and see what happens to my variables is great. System.out.println is a joke is comparision.

Now I can wrap things in try/catch/finally in .25 seconds, I can build a getter and a setter for a private var in the same amount of time.

My "beef" against IDEs was that they robbed me of a chance to learn. I felt like they wrote the code for me. That's no longer true. I good IDE will match your braces, wrap code in try/catch, create shortcuts for phrases, (do all the "physical labor") but it won't take away the real coding.

I like IDEA but there are a lot of IDEs that beat vi (according to me).

I know this is an eclipse thread, so this is slightly offtopic. Being a Java IDE topic, here are my responses to some posts I have seen.

Eclipse is faster than Netbeans because it doesn't use swing.

Hogwash. If you believe jave UI's (including swing) are slow, try giving IDEA a shot. Even if you don't like the IDE itself (many people swear by it), I consider the UI very fast, and much faster than Eclipse 1.0 on Linux, although I heard Eclipse was much faster on Win32.

A 21 day demo of IDEA is available for download. Try it in addition to Eclipse if you are in the market for a new Java IDE.

I don't work for them or anything, but am very satisfied user of their product, and am much more productive for server side things than on Netbeans. It doens't do everything, but it does what it does very well.

-Pete

The big problem however is that it does not account for programmer laziness and time constraints.

Larry Wall tells us that the three cardinal virtues of programmers are laziness, impatience, and hubris. It would be a shame to work with a methodology that doesn't support those virtues. Happily, I am a lazy man, and I love XP. The problem you describe isn't one of laziness; it's with short-term thinking and a lack of discipline.

If your tests are good, refactoring's pretty easy; you make the change you like and let your tests tell you if you've screwed anything up. (But it helps if you use an IDE with refactoring support like IntelliJ's IDEA; that takes care of all the donkey work.) If your tests aren't good, then you weren't disciplined in writing them.

If you keep things refactored and your tests are good, then adding new features is easy and low-pain. If you let your design rot and your tests don't cover anything, then adding new features takes a long time and hurts a lot. The truly lazy man will thus take the first path.

Think of it like cleaning the kitchen. The short-term lazy person will dash in, cook a meal, and leave the pans just sitting around. Next time he cooks a meal, the pans are all crusty, so it takes a long time to clean them. The master of laziness washes the dishes right away, as that is the path of minimum work.

Of course, this long-term laziness can be hard to acquire, but things like pair programming, a close team environment, and short iterations help a lot. If your partner notices your laziness right away or a team member will deal with your code next week, you're much, much less likely to write crappy code.

Granted, defining a language or technology to be syntactically based on xml makes it very verbose, but there are other consequences of this too.

For one, this allows for facilitated tool integration and automated manipulation and handling. This could be for a graphical or more concise textual represenation of the xslt "program" or for automated generation. And tool integration should not be underestimated.

Think of the refactoring support that editors/IDEs are starting to provide. AFAIK, Right now this is most prevelent in java environments (have a look at IntelliJ's iDEA), having its origins in SmallTalk. This will probably be extened to other languages and technologies over the next one to three years.

I highly recommend the book Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code by Martin Fowler. Also checkout the site refactoring.com.

I'm in my first open-plan office in three years, after having a private office. I'm also dealing with a bunch of type-a consulting types, who need their questions answered NOW NOW NOW. For them, I wear open-air headphones that fit over my ears, so they think I can't hear them. This encourages them to use IM (still an interruption, but they don't type as much as they talk) or email. It also leaves me able to hear peripheral conversations, so I can take the headphones off and jump in when necessary.

The only time I listen to music is to drown out excessive noise or lyrics-laden music from elsewhere in the office. The CEOs think music == good working environment, and have an amp stack in the corner of the main office area. When the music comes on, it's time to go home, because no work is going to get done. If the volume isn't high (rare), I crank up repetitive techno as white noise, so my brain doesn't kick into language parser mode when it should be in code generation mode.

The other big big big issue is tools availability. I've been using VisualAge/Java for years, and am in the process of switching to IntelliJ IDEA. Decent method, field, argument, class, keyword, and template completion, and a decent classbrowser with hierarchy browsing support, are essential for coding without having to switch context to look through javadoc, when you just need to find out if the method is toUpper(), toUpperCase(), upper(), etc.

Drink a lot of water, diet coke, whatever, so you have to take a lot of pee breaks, hopefully every 20-30 minutes or so. Gives the hands a rest, and gives you that essential "time away from the keyboard" so you can refocus on the problem and see it from another point of view. Sometimes it's hard to think of the solution if you're coding it up.

I'm beginning to see the light. 'til now, I'd only seen a very few (or recognized as such) real Java desktop apps. Poking around at Swing Sightings, I was surprised to find quite a few Java/GUI apps that look like fairly heavy hitters. I still have some reservations about the throughput of a busy Swing desktop application, but now I'm going to shut up until I've tried out a few more (IDEA looks good).

I'm a big VIM fan myself, and fanatically resisted any IDEs for quite a few years.

If you are into Java, however, you might give IDEA from Intellij a try. Refactoring support, for one thing, and quite a few nifty little things that make programming indeed a whole lot easier.

Nope, don't work for them, just really really like the product.

IBM's Software Donation: Move To Eclipse NetBeans?
NetBeans IDE 3.3 released
IBM to open source WebSphere tools
threads on Eclipse
threads on NetBeans
threads on IDEA

Eclipse is a product of Object Technology International Inc., which also produced VisualAge for Java.

And as the article "Refactoring with Eclipse" mentioned, "...Erich Gamma is the team lead for Java tools for Eclipse. Gamma was one of the Gang of Four known for creating the book Design Patterns...". I think that Eclipse will be a high quality software.

IBM's Software Donation: Move To Eclipse NetBeans?



NetBeans IDE 3.3 released



IBM to open source WebSphere tools



threads on Eclipse



threads on NetBeans



threads on IDEA

Eclipse is a product of
Object Technology International Inc.,
which also produced VisualAge for Java.

And as the article "Refactoring with Eclipse" mentioned,
"...Erich Gamma is the team lead for Java tools for Eclipse. Gamma was one of the Gang of Four known for creating the book Design Patterns...".
I think that Eclipse will be a high quality software.

Have you tried Intellij's IDEA?

http://www.intellij.com/

I was looking for a Java IDE and I tried both Eclipse 1.0 and Intellij IDEA. I strongly prefer IDEA 2.5 over Eclipse 1.0

TogetherSoft Together Control Center

One thing immediately noticeable about Together is that it includes a modeling tool, which is why it is often compared to Rational Rose. But while Rose (as far as I understand) is ONLY a modeling tool, Together is also a development/deployment environment, including a code editor, debugger, and--perhaps most useful--the brains to do J2EE application assembly and deployment, i.e. WAR and EAR files. This means that you can describe your EJBs--for example, using various dialogs to map entity beans to tables--and Together will write the deployment descriptors for you. This is especially useful for CMP entity beans, the deployment descriptors for which can get pretty hairy! Support is included for a number of applications servers, from JBoss to WebLogic 6.1. Another nice thing about Together is that it has a source code formatter built in: press a hotkey combination and it will format your source according to rules which you define. Yes, there are standalone tools that do this, but having it built in is pretty slick.

Together does have a few drawbacks: it doesn't support graphical Swing layout like a tool such as JBuilder, but if you're doing server-side development anyway, this isn't such a big deal. I also don't believe it helps out with JSP development either, although again for my purposes I don't see this as a big deal.

Borland JBuilder Enterprise
My other favorite--perhaps because I worked for Borland for two years--is JBuilder Enterprise. While it doesn't include the design tools of Together, it's a good all-around IDE nonetheless. One of its strong points is its Swing layout tool, which is the best I've seen (although lately I haven't kept up very well with the capabilities of other products). There's also a JSP editor/debugger, which I haven't used extensively. JBuilder 5 adds EAR assembly and deployment, although I believe it has support only for Borland AppServer and WebLogic (they may have added a couple more application servers).

An Alternative: IntelliJ IDEA
Both Together Control Center and JBuilder Enterprise are full-featured IDEs (Together is actually a design tool/IDE). If you don't need all the J2EE bells and whistles, or the Swing layout tools, and are just looking for a solid programmer's editor, I've heard great things about IntelliJ IDEA. In particular, Martin Fowler (of Refactoring fame, among other things) swears by it. It does have a number of good refactoring tools in it.

Conclusion
All of these are good tools with various strengths, weaknesses, and price tags. I believe all of them offer an evaluation version, and I believe Borland and TogetherSoft still offer basic versions for free (as in beer). Any one is worth a look.

Cheers,
Jeremy

I've used many Java IDE : JBuilder, Netbeans, Together/J, Code guide, CodeWarrior. Few months ago, i've found IDEA. For me, it's simply the best one. It isn't a RAD tool (who really loves RAD tools ?) but it is the most powerful Java editor i've ever seen.

I write EJB web applications for a living and having tried a variety of IDEs I have to recommend IDEA, by IntelliJ. It is the IDE for rapid development, every feature is right where you need it, and nothing is in the way. I find that with IDEA I write better/cleaner code than with any other editor. I particularly appreciate the integrated ANT and CVS integration. It is a java app and was a breeze to install on Linux, Win2k and MacOS X. I won't be going back to any other IDE!

I agree with the folks recommending IDEA from IntelliJ. I can't say I've had decades of experience, but I used Microsoft tools (VB, Visual C++, Visual J++) for 6 years, and was generally impressed by them. I started shopping around for a new Java IDE when Microsoft made it clear that it was not going to stay in the Java world. I tried IntelliJ IDEA, and only now realize how limited the Microsoft tools were. I've been using almost a year now, and it's easy to use, powerful, and not that expensive. Check it out at www.intellij.com

• ant support (if you haven't used ant yet for compiling your projects - have a look at it)
  
• outstanding jsp support - highlighting, code imports
  
• support for refactoring. If, like myself you have never really thought about refactoring, it's great when you decide that you need to improve a class or method name late in a project. In IDEA that's one click.
  

I've tried several. Here's a rundown of what I've experienced. All of these have syntax highlighting, code completion, popup parameter help, can jump to the place a class or variable was defined. The all have a debugger.

Codeguide This was my first java IDE. I used it for a while. For a java IDE it's not so slow. Real-time compilation shows any code mistakes (it underlines them red), even stuff that others miss. Free evaluation version. Not terribly expensive. Relatively poor debugger. Nice autoindenting and code formatting. Virtually nonexistant CVS integration. Closed source.

JBuilder : Slow. Does a lot. Has excellent plugin support, so it can be extended a lot. Nice project management. The Enterprise version has excellent CVS integration. Has a visual editor if you do a lot of Swing programming. Fairly poor real-time error detecting. The best "enterprise" tools of these I mention. If you're doing j2ee stuff maybe you can use that stuff. Nice debugger. Library support for editing classpath is great. Autoindenting and code formatting a little weaker. Frustrating memory leak under linux has been plaguing it for years. There is a free version, closed source.

NetBeans SLOW. Reall, really slow. Has a ton of plugins. Ant integration is cool. Project management is a little hard to get used to. Etrememly flexible.I gave this one a real chance but the speed and bugs finally drove me away. Weak CVS integration. This is whas Sun's Forte is based on. (Think Mozilla/Netscape.) Open source.

Idea Excellent IDE. The refactoring support is 2nd to none in any IDE for any language I've ever seen. Code formatting is excellent, I've never seen so many options for how to format code. Code templates are cool. Library support is a little weaker than jbuilder and codeguide - that's one of its few weaknesses. Decent CVS integration. (Not as good as JBuilder, nothing I've seen is.) I code faster with this IDE than any I've used. UI to override methods, implement interfaces, move methods (and fix all the dependencies in your project), rename methods/classes. Lots more. Try it. Closed source.

IntelliJ IDEA is the best IDE for Java that I've used. The code completion and refactoring are incredible, especialy the automatic package import. Large feature list, features that actually work and work well. Project setup is simple and unobtrusive and does not force a bunch of configuration files into the codebase. Ant integration is also helpful. I switched after trying Jbuilder and VisualCafe. I was never an IDE fan before this product. (I am still a bit of an EditPlus fan)

I am especially fond of highlighting a block of code and choosing "suround with->try/catch" to auto generate a catch statement for each checked exception generated by that code. very nice.

Check out IntelliJ IDEA at http://www.intellij.com.

IDEA is an excellent fully-integrated IDE. It supports (among many other things):

• Full syntax highlighting of Java and JSPs
• All the smart editor functions you would ever want
• Configurable coding style pretty-printer
• Integrated debugger, CVS, ANT, and extensible with an "External Tools" interface
• Shortcuts galore- you can do everything with the keyboard if you choose.
• The big thing: Built-in support for a whole mess of Refactorings
• And a whole lot more

IDEA is written in Java, so it works on the main platforms (I personally use it on Solaris, Linux, and occasionally Win NT/2000). Despite this, performace is good.

It costs something like $400US and I think it is worth every penny.

Grant

My recommendation is IDEA from Intellij.

http://www.intellij.com/

There is an early access edition of the next release, so download it and give it a go. You'll be pleased you did. Among its fans are Martin Fowler (author of well regarded books on UML and code refactoring)

I've tried Visual Cafe, JBuilder, Forte, Together, JDeveloper, Visual J++--pretty much every damn IDE you can think of. The best out of all of them is Idea from IntelliJ. It's fast, has a great interface, and tons of features.

Check it out. http://www.intellij.com

As I sit here cursing JBuilder, I look forward to the end of the current project so I can try out IDEA

I've also used Codewarrior for Java, and have been pleasantly surprised. It's a top-notch environment. Metrowerks has done some fine work.

Forte/NetBeans has a way to go. What a pig. 3.0 has some nice speed and stability increases...

If you don't need a really fancy setup, try jEdit. It's an open source text editor with syntax coloring(60 file types!), and the plug-ins avaliable give you plenty of project management features.

And a dark horse: IntelliJ. I really like it. Lots of "enterprise" features bundled in a relatively cheap package.

Java is a good way to get O.S. software running on you Windows PC.

Check sourceforge.net for java based softwares (mostly dev. tools).

Please, don't say java is not yet ready for real app.
Look at the GUI and performance of products like
together http://www.togethersoft.com/
IDEA http://www.intellij.com/
They are real fast, and user-friendly (esp. IDEA)


Another even easier way is java WebStart
- an application-deployment technology -- gives you the power to launch full-featured applications with a single click from your Web browser. You can now download and launch applications, such as a complete spreadsheet program or an Internet chat client, without going through complicated installation procedures.
If you have a fast access, having installed on your PC is just a mattre of minutes.

Once it's installed on your PC, you are 1-click from installing and launching full applications in 1-click. Just find a link to their server, click, and watch :
- it downloads from a server all the application required files, cache them on your PC, and launch it.
- later calls will use the cached files.
- when a new version of the application is available, the system will offer you to install automatically.


WebStart apps repositories :
http://www.up2go.net
http://www.connectandwork.com/external
http://www.puzzlecode.com/puzzlecode/jnlp

Alain Ravet