Java IDEs?

Billy the Mountain asks: "In the startup company I'm in, we just got a new president and she asked us about ways of increasing developer productivity. We develop Java applications, servlets and JSP. I don't use an IDE. I use an enhanced text editor, EditPlus, because I like its color coding of keywords. I guess what I'm asking is what Java IDEs do you use and what features do you like best?" If you were to build a Java IDE from the ground up, what features would you include?

Comments

Forte.

[DGolden]

Um, I think Forte/NetBeans and IBM VisualAge/WebSphereStudio/Eclipse/Whatever have the serious Java IDE market pretty much sewn up between them. Borland used to be a player, but aren't now.

It's been months since I've met anyone who doesn't use Forte/NetBeans, although people targetting IBM Websphere server tend to use VisualAge for Java.

One feature I'd like to see is a "see-through" source pane, showing superclass code with a muted background in the same pane as the class you're editing, so that you don't have to hold so much state (remembering the superclass) in your head, perhaps with a configurable depth to which to walk back up the class hierarchy. This would make working with inheritance easier for dolts like me.

I use

[nebby]

Slickedit, hands down the best balance between Notepad and a full fledged IDE I've seen. Think emacs, but with a better GUI and without all the extra crap and ridiculous key combos.

I've cranked out many lines of Java code with it, so it's lasted the long haul for me.

Re:I use

[hattig]

Is that you, Roy? :)

Seriously, SlickEdit appears to be amazing, but I am an emacs man, and I like my mode of operation: [edit stuff]
ctrl-x v v [cvs comment] ctrl-c ctrl-c

SlickEdit doesn't do CVS, but it does other code repositories.

It also has emacs emulation.

It is a lot for an editor. And I have only seen badly formatted code generated using it - sure programmer disfunction, but annoying.

You have to get comfortable with your editing environment. Once comfortable (say, a few weeks regular use) then you can evaluate it.

One thing - I hate editors that restrict you to Courier. That is a crap editing font.

kate (KDE editor) is also nice as well, and configurable. Built in console option, and multiple files open at the same time in a good GUI. Multiple highlighting modes (not as advanced as the 'old' KDE Advanced Editor though), not restricted to a fixed-width font, etc. I like it.

I used to like the old Amiga editors as well. BED. GoldED. CygnusEd. They were solid and good as well. Not relevant to the topic, but interesting anyway.

Omnicore CodeGuide

[rodbegbie]

Codeguide from Omnicore is absolutely outstanding. Its automatic code help feature is incredible. You can see the errors in your code before trying a compile.

I use Forte, and find it painfully slow, but its Swing forms designer tool is superb (it's a piece of cake to do GridBag layouts!)

CodeGuide is the best I've used in terms of quick, easy code development.

rOD.

Re:Turing-completeness (slightly OT)

[jacobm]

1. Java is Turing-complete. As is every programming language you're ever likely to run into. Rule of thumb. How the implementation happens to run the code (VM, compiled to assembly, hand-evaluated with pencil and paper) is irrelevant.

2. Sun's Java compiler is written in Java.

Re:IDE - Editor or round trip engineering tool?

[mj6798]

Using an automatic tool to generate/maintain UML is a bad idea. UML should represent stuff in your head, stuff that you consider important. The exercise of drawing it by hand is an important part of the UML design process (you are supposed to remember all those methods; if you can't, your system should probably be simplified). And too much detail is just as bad as too little detail.

In practice, I have also found the various "enhanced" IDEs (with support for roundtrip UML or refactoring) to be too sluggish. I prefer a fast editor, a fast compiler, and some simple linking between error messages and source code any time