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It's a decent IDE, refactoring tools are a bit crap though. Personaly I use resharper plugin for my VS 2008, which makes VS work a bit more like IntelliJ (the bestest Java IDE ever), but it's dotnet only. However, there's a free tool for VS out there called Refactor. Never tried it so cannot say if it's good, but migt be worth a try.

That is an excellent point. In fact, rather than make large acquisitions of the type like Yahoo and Sun, Microsoft would be better served by consolidating their divisions to concentrate their research efforts and eliminate unprofitable also-rans like the Zune. Their continued investment in Windows 7 probably is a wise long term move, provided that they can price it competitively. The $300 price point is just too expensive for an non-server OS these days. Microsoft really needs to hit the $100 or less price point with Windows 7 if they want to remain competitive going forward. They should also do more to encourage open source efforts like nAnt, nUnit, nDoc, and nHibernate on their .NET platform and address the niggling issues with Visual Studio (it is already a good product, but it could really be great if they included the sort of features that one now has to buy ReSharper to get). This will be especially important if a combined Oracle + Sun step up the competition with the Java platform (personally I would like to see BOTH succeed going forward because competition has always delivered better platforms and products in computing).

Java developer here... and I completely agree. I'd rather use NetBeans than Eclipse any day. Though if I had my choice (and I do) I'll take IntelliJ.

Java IDE's don't compete with Visual Studio

Um, excuse me sir but I call shenanigans on that. And unlike you, I actually have a source. Here is a list of the VS ReSharper plugin compared to plain VS: http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/features/ComparisonMatrix_R4.html

Be aware that these are the features VS is missing that Intellij IDEA (a java IDE) comes with out of the box. And when you're done with that, you can head over to the Intellij IDEA feature list to see what it has over ReSharper: http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/features/index.html

Please, show me your list of what VS has over Intellij IDEA. I'll settle for what it has over Eclipse. I really, really, really want to see this list. I ask in every slashdot thread where someone gets modded up for comments like this.

PS: Yes, I'm aware these two tools are made by the same company.

Java IDE's don't compete with Visual Studio

Um, excuse me sir but I call shenanigans on that. And unlike you, I actually have a source. Here is a list of the VS ReSharper plugin compared to plain VS: http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/features/ComparisonMatrix_R4.html

Be aware that these are the features VS is missing that Intellij IDEA (a java IDE) comes with out of the box. And when you're done with that, you can head over to the Intellij IDEA feature list to see what it has over ReSharper: http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/features/index.html

Please, show me your list of what VS has over Intellij IDEA. I'll settle for what it has over Eclipse. I really, really, really want to see this list. I ask in every slashdot thread where someone gets modded up for comments like this.

PS: Yes, I'm aware these two tools are made by the same company.

Idea http://jetbrains.com/ (It's the best Java IDE and had a good refactoring long before Eclipse)
There are some good OCR software firms.
Heroes of Might and Magic V

I haven't used Eclipse in a few years, but I'm willing to give it another shot. Tell me, though, does it have the features (either natively or via a plugin) of the ReSharper Visual Studio plugin? I've been using ReSharper for awhile and it is so useful (the ability to quickly find a specific class by name is especially helpful) I can't believe how long I lived without it.

Well, when changing back from Eclipse to VS (luckily, this project won't last forever, though), ReSharper was the only thing that gave me some comfort.

For me, ReSharper was a way of bringing just a little bit of Eclipse to VS.
Shortcuts are different, but very easy to learn, and follow a logic.

Plus, somehow Eclipse works more naturally at following references/inheritance. Refactoring is unbelievably solid, too. Incremental search works exactly how it should, file searches are very fast.

For anything professional, I think Eclipse is the way to go. I have been trying NetBeans in order to be able to work with less experienced people not willing/able to learn Eclipse in an adequate timeframe. The combination of both seems very promising to me for diverse teams.

I haven't used Eclipse in a few years, but I'm willing to give it another shot. Tell me, though, does it have the features (either natively or via a plugin) of the ReSharper Visual Studio plugin? I've been using ReSharper for awhile and it is so useful (the ability to quickly find a specific class by name is especially helpful) I can't believe how long I lived without it.

It looks like any other amateurish RSS/atom/blah reader with three pane view and a "newspaper" view only not finished.

The plugin page even says it barely a prototype and that storage and features will be broken in the next iteration.

The roadmap clearly state that they have not much clue where to go next. My suggestion would be to look at software who are already trying to do the same and figure out their strong ideas and mistakes. e.g.: http://www.jetbrains.com/omea/

If I needed information about unreliable software implementing 5 years old concept I'd be browsing sourceforge not slashdot. -5 Flamebait

If you are using your computer right, it does not only enable you to do things, it does the boring things for you, automatically.

Exactly. Use the tools.

In the .net world, check out
fxCop: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb429476(vs.80).aspx
StyleCop: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/sourceanalysis

These can both be used to prevent code building if it doesn't meet standards. Sadly, the first task for me is usually to turn on "warnings as errors" and get the code up to that minimal standard.

Also check out Resharper: http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/
for flagging some code problems.

The problem with code standards is that your best coders are probably using a standard already; and the while the worst can be dragged onto a standard, they will write bad code even with it.

If the market would be dead no one would be buying software tools which is simply bogus. Just look at IDEA and the way they still manage to expand despite the heated competition from both NetBeans as well as Eclipse. So dead? Nonsense.
Only real change I do see is that its getting harder and harder to become a new serious player on the market since it would take quite the investment. Its cheaper to develop something through an open source project than to hire your own programmers.
But depending on the license being used its even cheaper to fork an IDE project, add your own super-duper extensions to it and try to sell that. Or hasn't anyone looked into that option because they gave up prior to actually trying?

I don't know what you consider a very long time but at least for VS 2005 you're wrong. It highlights your errors after you try to run your code. That's in no way closer to "real time" error highlighting than compiling my code manually.

I feel that VS is great at doing very high level things. For example, designing a UI or mapping tables to objects, etc. But when it comes to the BASICS, VS pretty much sucks ass. If you compare it to even the shittiest java IDEs, it falls flat on its face in this department. For a list of what VS CAN'T do on its own (that a lot of java IDEs can), take a look at this: http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/features/index.html (This is a feature list of a plugin for VS made by the same guys that make my Java IDE of choice. I am in no way affiliated with them, I just like their product a lot).

Personally, I care MUCH more about the basics than I do the high level stuff. If given the choice between the features in that link and a real slick UI WYSIWYG, I'd choose the former. I respect others who feel the opposite; I understand its just my opinion. But fact is, some of these IDE features have existed in other IDEs since 2001. Can we get a little embrace and extend here, Microsoft?

And also IntelliJ IDEA. The best IDE in my opinion. Of course... it is not free but it's really worth the money. check it out: http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/

And is Linux supported :D

Because I think that's very much the case for Visual Studio too. Stock VS2005 is usable, but look at some of the "plugins" made by jetbrains (ReSharper and dotTrace -- from the same guys that Make IntelliJ), devexpress (Refactor! and CodeRush), wholetomato (Visual Assist X) and a bunch of others.

I haven't seen such great plugins for any other IDEs.

What version of Visual Studio are you comparing against? Visual Studio 2005 (which is the basis for the free Express versions, so you can try it out without risking any cash) has all of the features you claim are lacking.

First of all, the free versions are lacking many of the advanced features, including support for refactoring.

Secondly, while I haven't tried VS2005 for C#, I'm pretty sure you're misunderstanding the kind of features he's talking about:

with C# the IDE will catch syntax errors, auto-complete for you if you wish (use ctrl+space to bring up intellisense), stub out methods and interface implementations (ctrl+F10 to open the SmartTag-like dropdown), allow you to easily refactor code into methods or wrap variables into Properties, declare "using" tags if you reference something from an assembly in the project references without declaring its namespace (you can alternatively tell it to use the fully-qualifed namespace if you don't want to add it to your "using" list), etc.

Will it do the following things that eclipse does:

* Given a line of code with an undeclared identifier, give you a menu option to automatically declare that identifier?
* When a method call doesn't match the types of existing versions of that method, does it automatically offer to create a new overload of the method with the types you specified, or add missing parameters to an existing overload?
* When cutting and pasting code, will it automatically add any namespace imports that are necessary to support that code?
* If code in a method can throw an exception that isn't handled, can it automatically add a declaration that the method will throw that exception? Automatically wrap the method in a try/catch block customized for the exception type?
* Can it automatically generate interfaces with declarations that match selected methods from an existing class? Superclasses?
* Will it extract selected statements into a new method, automatically declaring any necessary parameters and determining the appropriate return value?

I have heard people say that these features are available before, but they normally suggest you need additional plugins to achieve them (e.g. resharper). These features are all available with a default install of eclipse.

Finally, someone that knows how to use VS.NET. I asked on freenode's C# channel and got responses that suggested most people there were ignorant of answers (as opposed to me be being an annoying n00b). I come from IDEA and that has some features that are very nice to me. One that I find essential in an IDE is that it gives you immediate feedback on your errors. For example, the instant I type a newline I'll be told that I forgot a semicolon the line above. VS.NET seems to either be EXTREMELY slow with this feedback or only tells you errors when you compile.

My second favorite feature is I can find my files in a brain-dead way without using the mouse. If I type ctrl-n, it pops up a tiny text box that has focus and I can type the name of a file I want to use to immediately start working in it. I don't have to check if there's already a tab open for it. I don't need to find it in a little explorer. The text box does pattern matching and camel casing (ie: I can type in IOU and it'll suggest the file InputOutputUtil if it exists in my project). Does VS.NET have anything like this?

A dangerous lack of warnings: It seemed to me that VS.NET doesn't warn you of some stupid things you're doing. Now my memory is hazy, but I believe it doesn't tell you about unused variables for example.

Lack of useful highlighting: If I recall, VS.NET does not highlight local and instance variables differently. Is there any way to turn this on in VS.NET?

Code navigation: If I'm looking at some code that says "foo.bar();" and I want to know the implementation of bar(), I can ctrl-click on it or ctrl-b with the cursor over it and it instantly jumps not only to the file where bar() is defined, but the bar() method. Does VS.NET have any capability like this?

Now, I'm going to answer my own questions here by saying VS.NET can do this with a plugin made by the same guys that make IDEA. It's called resharper and you can get it here: http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/features/index. html But the thing that confuses me is that most VS.NET users think it's the best IDE ever without using this plug-in so I want to know if VS.NET can already do this stuff out-of-the-box.

Well I moved from C# to Java a couple of years ago when a client wanted to be able to deploy to AIX. I found the transition dead easy. If you fancy taking a look at Java and want a good starter IDE you could do worse than look at Sun's Java Studio Creator which has a lot of the same look and feel as Visual Studio and is free and open source. If you want something that rocks and don't mind paying for it IDEA is easily the best IDE I've ever used for anything. Ruby on Rails is where all the hype is at the mo, of course, but I'm not much of a fan myself mainly because Ruby is so damn slow.

This url is for a VS.NET plugin called resharper. Every feature it has comes with IDEA in one form or another and most come free with eclipse. You might say this hurts my argument because one could just pay for resharper and get all these features too. Well 1) I've never met anyone who says VS is the best and uses this (do you?) and 2) using resharper + vs is waaay slower than using IDEA.

Have you actually used visual studio? it degrades to a useless piece of rubbish after a few months.

This is news to me, since I've been working off the same Visual Studio 2005 installation for almost 10 months now. Only time it got dreadfully slow was when I tried using a refactoring tool called Resharper. Since I uninstalled that, VS has been zippy. Before switching to VS2005, I believe I had a VS2003 installation that was several years old.

Eclipse ? Try Jetbrains IntelliJ/IDEA. Far better than Eclipse.

but Visual Studio 2005 is without comparison.

Which is why it still needs third-party tools for refactoring? Using a non-refactoring IDE is living in the stone age. Give me IntelliJ or give me death, I say.

I need more information to offer much more advice than this but one of the many things that Java is pretty good at is calling native code. So if I were you I would start by writing a bunch of wrappers onto your existing C++ libraries and start doing new development in Java. As you need to add/modify functions you can port that portion of your library to Java and so on. Its a nice language and pretty easy to pick up from a C++ background. Get hold of a copy of Thinking in Java by Bruce Eckel as a starter tutorial and look out for a new addition of Effective Java by Josh Bloch.

The big plus point you'll get from Java whatever you are doing are:

    1) Decent refactoring support in all the major IDE's makes it a lot easier to avoid your current problem in future. Check out Jetbrasins IDEA for a start.
    2) Garbage Collection easy memory management.
    3) Threads a real joy when writing multithreading apps. The implementation is minimal and elegant. The simple way that methods can be protected from concurrent update, the equally simple semaphore and critical cod mechanisms, the very easy way of creating a rendezvous between two threads, all combine to make this a good language feature.
    4) Exception Handling. Main thing here is the finally block in Java. Every try block can have a 'finally' clause. Any time such a block is exited, regardless of the reason for that exit (e.g. execution could proceed out of the block, or an exception could pass through it) the code in the finally clause is executed. Checked exceptions are more controversial but I like them and think they tend to lead to more robust code. At least they force you to consider error handling as you go.
    5) Amazing collections of open source libraries Jakarta common is a good place to start.
    6) Huge vendor support.
    7) Seriously cross platform. All my Java code is developed on Windows machines but runs on Linux, AIX, Z/OS etc. I haven't had a problem moving from one to the other in years.

Having said all of this no tool is ever going to fix poor practice so you might want to think about why your code base ended up being (by the sounds of it) such a mess in the first place.

Visual Studio is usually considered one of the best if not the best IDE for development

OK I take issue with this. I program windows code for a living. I spend most of my programming time in Visual Studio (the rest in Textpad and Query Analyszer). Visual studio is ok, but it is only good if you haven't seen something better. And by something better, I mean Eclipse.

I personally haven't used it, but the other programmer who works has used it extensively. And VS.Net just doesn't have the features. To get the features you need to pay another $140 (US) for Resharper. This is to add basic features like:

- Highlighting member variables in different colours to varaibles declared in the body of a function
- jumping to the correct overloaded function when you click "Go to Definition"
- displays redundant/uncessary using statements in grey (and can automatically remove them)
- rename all instances of a variable (Search and Replace has limits and I' can't be stuffed to write a regex every single time I want to replace a variable)
- Decent refactoring tools

The reason I mention all these is because they are all things that Eclipse has that VS.Net 2003 doesn't have.

VS.Net is OK, certainly better than any of the VS6 apps (although VC++6 was pretty good), but it is still lacking.

The core of the .NET Framework, and what has been patented by Microsoft falls under the ECMA/ISO submission. Jim Miller at Microsoft has made a statement on the patents covering ISO/ECMA, (he is one of the inventors listed in the patent): http://web.archive.org/web/20030609164123/ and http://mailserver.di.unipi.it/pipermail/dotnet-ssc li/msg00218.html.

Basically a grant is given to anyone who want to implement[sic] those components for free and for any purpose. [emphasis mine]

Note that they also regularly offer half-price personal licenses for people just doing their own thing.

And if you are going to use it for an open source non-commercial project then you can get a free Open Source Licenses too. Check out http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/opensource/opensourc e.html

IntelliJ IDEA is available for a free 30 day trial. Just download it and try it out, and you should be able to answer your own question. I did and decided that while IDEA is good, Eclipse has more compelling price:performance.

There are other free options as well:
Oracle JDeveloper
Borland JBuilder

And maybe a few others if you search Google for "free Java IDE".

• Ctrl-Q: show definition (and docs, if any) of symbol under the cursor
• Ctrl-B: jump to definition of symbol under the cursor
• Ctrl-Alt-Left Arrow: back to previous location (like back in your browser, it has a stack of visited edit locations)
• Ctrl-N: find class by name
• Ctrl-Shift-N: find non-Java file by name
• Ctrl-Alt-Shift-N: find any method by name
• Ctrl-Alt-V: extract highlighted expression as variable
• Ctrl-Alt-N: Inline highlighted variable or method
• Ctrl-Alt-M: extract highlighted block as method
• Ctrl-F6: global symbol rename (does it via the parse tree, so variables or methods with the same name in different contexts won't be touched; if you rename a class or package, it takes care of all filenames and related import statements)
• Ctrl-Shift-F6: change method signature (again, global based on the parse tree)

So, I wonder if Eclipse is more complex than I need. I have never used IDEA before. Is it more straight-forward? Has anybody here migrated from Eclipse to IDEA? How steep was the learning curve?

Why was this modded insightful? It's just namecalling and has no information.

Honestly, I would like to know why you think IntelliJ IDEA and the other IDEs are better than XCode. What features do you find important that are missing, or was there some unliveable annoyance? What language do you code in, and what level of debugger support are you expecting? IDEA doesn't seem to support C, so while I would get the benefit of less suckage compared to Xcode, I would have to switch programming languages.

Your post had potential...

The write once, run anywhere "Promise" is a big lie. Try to write a swing app and run it on windows, linux and OSX to see what i mean.

Azeurus
IntelliJ IDEA

And while not Swing-based... Eclipse??

It's not a big lie, but it's not perfect. And it's arguably more pervasive that other so-called "cross platform UI toolkits", which if you'll recall in the late 1990's, were pretty rare...

How could someone who is so right about SWT (Swing, like democracy, isn't perfect but it is better than the alternatives) be so wrong about IDEs :-) Eclipse is free, cross-platform, and much better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick

Now that's damning by faint praise. "Better than JBuilder"? Joy.

If you've never tried jEdit, perhaps you can see your way clear to forgiving me for avoiding such sharp sticks in the eye. If you can see past the stick, that is. :-)

I don't mind feauture bloat so much if it stays out of my way. But in Eclipse it doesn't--IMHO Eclipse lacks the "conceptual integrity" we've known is important since before Brooks gave it a name in "The Mythical Man-Month". "It's free" isn't a reason to turn a blind eye (maybe the one with the stick) to its flaws. Also, Eclipse *is* an SWT app, and inherits all *those* problems.

My own toolset is: jEdit for tactical use, with IntelliJ IDEA as a strategic WMD, suitable for surgical strikes on large legacy code bases while causing limited collateral damage. Add to this SQuirreL for mucking about in the DBMS. yEd is handy for diagramming things. All kinds of things.

In fact I usually keep a copy of jEdit running *alongside* IDEA to use as a lightweight file system browser, Beanshell framework, and GUI tool for the grepping of things ungrokable by IDEA. All these tools will run in any Java GUI environment without sweating how SWT will run on Platform X. And they're all free, (except for IDEA...if you're willing to run beta code, you can get that free too).

"Grepping the ungrokable"... I like the sound of that. :-)

As big a fan as I am of open source software, Eclipsoids drive me batty. Some software is worth buying if you have the cash available, and I think IDEA is a perfect example.

But the original poster specified "programming as a hobby", and jEdit should be perfect for that.

To paraphrase Jonathan Edwards, I used to be a language bigot and now I'm a tool bigot.

(And yes Smalltalk had a great IDE (and framework) in it's day (and Squeak is still fun, fun, fun), but for building non-trivial web apps, the tooling on the Java side beats anything else I know of...)

What I'd like to see is an editor that combines the best of Emacs and Eclipse. You'd never have to take your hands from the keyboard. You'd get the attractive UI of Eclipse without the Visual envy. You'd get an editor that makes you more productive and happy than any other.

Try downloading the evaluation version of IDEA IntelliJ. It has lots of fans. One of their stated goals is that you should never have to reach for the mouse, sensible keyboard shortcuts for everything. Looks nice too, shows what you can do with Swing.

I was impressed with it. The only drawback is that it is not open source... and the hefty pricetag.

Depends on your project and status:
http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/opensource/opensourc e.html
http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/buy/academic.html

Depends on your project and status:
http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/opensource/opensourc e.html
http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/buy/academic.html

I guess there are more reasons than these, but those were the ones that came to mind at the moment.

I guess there are more reasons than these, but those were the ones that came to mind at the moment.

I used to be of this opinion; up until a few years ago I thought most IDEs were worthless. The one that changed my mind is IntelliJ's IDEA, a Java IDE. It turns the code base into a giant linked hypertext document, and has a lot of other nice things to make life easier.

But the real killer feature is automated refactorings. The most basic is rename; you can safely rename a class or method without disturbing other things that have the same name. But there are many more, and they take a lot of the drudgery out of programming.

I keep hearing that Eclipse is just as good, but last I did a project with Eclipse (about 18 months ago) the UI wasn't nearly as well made. Nothing major, but a lot of minor differences that really added up during extended usage.

http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/ Refactoring for C# from the guys who developed IntelliJ IDEA

Also, apparently MS is catching up with VS.Net 2005. At least I've heard that there are some more advanced built-in refactoring tools available there. But since it's not released yet, I'm not considering it. We'll see when it gets done.

I recommend using ReSharper with Visual Studio. Resharper is a plugin for Visual Studio, made by JetBrains that make the IntelliJ IDEA IDE which I think is way ahead of Eclipse in features.

ReSharper adds all the features that we Java developers have learned to love in eclipse/intellij to Visual Studio for C# developers: http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/

Basically:
1. Lots of things would be better expressed in DSL (domain-specific languages), but...
2. DSLs are hard enough to create, but DAMN it's a pain to maintain any product developed in one!

So LOP's goal is to make it easy to develop tools (refactoring IDEs and debugging facilities) for DSLs. Then you create the solution in the DSL.

For a great discussion of its possibilities, I recommend the article describing it by the founder of JetBrains:
http://www.onboard.jetbrains.com/is1/articles/04/1 0/lop/

JetBrains is getting into this area with a new product called Meta Programming System, a beta of which is available through their Early Access Program. Find out more about it here:
http://www.jetbrains.com/mps/

Basically:
1. Lots of things would be better expressed in DSL (domain-specific languages), but...
2. DSLs are hard enough to create, but DAMN it's a pain to maintain any product developed in one!

So LOP's goal is to make it easy to develop tools (refactoring IDEs and debugging facilities) for DSLs. Then you create the solution in the DSL.

For a great discussion of its possibilities, I recommend the article describing it by the founder of JetBrains:
http://www.onboard.jetbrains.com/is1/articles/04/1 0/lop/

JetBrains is getting into this area with a new product called Meta Programming System, a beta of which is available through their Early Access Program. Find out more about it here:
http://www.jetbrains.com/mps/

The winner is...
I think DSLs are going to radically change the way that people code. DSLs potentially provide the meta-prgramming ccapabilities of LISP with the transparency and idiot-proofing of a language like Java. We may even see a hierarchy of software engineeringh develop, with one type of hihg-level coder deveoping DSLs and others able to use these languages easily within their own areas of expertise. For more, check the following links:

http://www.jetbrains.com/mps//
http://www.martinfowler.com/articles/languageWorkb ench.html
http://intentsoft.com/

Sorry but IntelliJ IDEA blows it away.
(oh and it does run on linux)

Resharper.

It adds real-time syntax highlighting, additional keyword coloring, superb code navigation features, and code refactoring features, among many other very useful items.

If you are using Visual Studio and doing any C# coding at all, you need to check out Resharper, from JetBrains... http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/. I frankly don't know how anyone lives without it (or at least something similar).

Version 2.0 (due out late this year) will also support 2005, Visual Basic, and ASP.Net coding

FYI, features 1, 5, 6, and 9 are all supported in VS.Net by using Resharper. I couldn't imagine using VS.Net without it...

just a caveat: I'm all for continuous integration. I'm just not convinced that cc.net is the tool for the job.
Also, check out VS.net 2005. For better or worse, almost all of these tools are provided by Microsoft in the next Visual Studio Release.
For starters, it includes:
MSBuild (so long NAnt!)
Unit Testing (so long NUnit)
Build Automation (so long CruiseControl)
Refactoring (so long Resharper )

It sounds pretty cool but I would like to see a tool that deals with email, documents, and other stuff as well as web pages. Perhaps something along the lines of Omea