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Eclipse 2.1 Released
insomnia writes "Eclipse 2.1 has been unleashed to the world today. Eclipse is an open-source Java IDE environnement and I highly recommend it; developing under your favorite text editor feels like comparing Eclipse to the dinosaur age - I can't live without refactoring now. You can see what's new in this release here."
The bank where I work (30000 employees) uses only mainframe (PL/1) and Java. Gradually mainframe functions are moved to very large (partitioned) Sun servers running solely Java software and Oracle databases.
All business logic for this large enterprise is being developed (or redeveloped) into Java. This has been going on for 3-4 years, and has already proven itself very much.
For "enterprises" the fact that you need 50% more RAM and 20% more CPU compared to C++ is insignificant. UNIX hardware is very cheap compared to mainframes, and especially compared to people. If you get better code that is easier to develop and maintain, it is by far worth it. Also Java offers lots of rich standard API's (in J2EE) that "everyone" uses, avoiding difficult choices and gambles if you base your software on the 'correct' standards.
Since banks often rely on 3rd party software/components (e.g. that implement some reporting according to international banking standards) and all vendors offer components that fit into the std. Java frameworks, there is hardly another option.
> You can have a better IDE [gnu.org.] doing refactoring [xref-tech.com.] as well.
You cant really compare that - Xrefactory isn't even free-as-in-beer.
XEmacs sure is nice, but neither its code completion support (filling in whole method names while you type) nor its support for refactoring come anywhere near Eclipse. And don't let me get started about "Quick Fix".
Actually i would be delighted if anyone could show i'm wrong and tell me how to do it - XEmacs really has a steep learning curve (imho).
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Another advantage is when your company gets bought out and the hardware politics change. The company I work for develops large scale server solutions for transactions (I won't mention the industry). Up to now we have been running on Sun machines. The new parent companies now insists that all servers be Intel based. They originally mandated the OS should be MS-Windows, but they ended up accepting Linux. Having already had to bang my head in the past porting C/C++ code from one Unix to another, moving the Java code was a godsend in ease.
As I once said to someone else, porting code is hard work and expensive. In relative terms upgrading the hardware to the best out there without caring for your porting issues is very cheap. Not only that but you also minimize downtime.
Use what you want and understand everyone else's reason for using what they want.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
The new version of eclipse (2.1) does a better job than 2.0.*. Or at least the latest stable RC builds are :)
:) jEdit takes longer to load because of this. Eclipse has much better ANT integration in this release as well. So you can do XSLT on just the XML that changes with ANT. You'll have to rely on yet more plugins to Eclipse to get any language other than XML, ANT's xml, HTML, and other Java related file formats. I don't think it supports JSP out of the box, but I could be wrong.
:) When you open anything {,(,",' it will automatically make the closing tag where you would expect as well as try to keep you on the right tabbing. All this is configurable by the default coding style settings under Windows->Preferences.
Comparing jEdit to Eclipse is difficult though. jEdit has so many friggen plugins it's almost detrimental
CVS support is slightly better in this release as well.
The actual Java editor has reduced my keystrokes for symbols by a factor of 1.8 or so
Eclipse is a wonderful IDE in it's own right, but I wouldn't through away a good editor as well. You may find yourself only using jEdit for things not supported by Eclipse, since Eclipse is the easiest to use between the two.
Basically, my suggestion to people in your class is give Eclipse a good few days of work. Let it manage your classes for a while. Once you have a lot of classes, you absolutely can't live without the refactoring support. You can tell Eclipse to rename a class, and every class it has control of that uses that class will be changed to use the new class name.
Eclipse is by far the best IDE I've seen in a long time. The Netbeans people are working hard to catch up. They are making leaps of progress on their performance issues. I think before long we'll have some competition in the Open Source Java editor market.
For those of you who don't know why SUN isn't working with the Eclipse people, it's because they are working with the NetBeans people. It's an Open Source editor that rivals with Eclipse. Eclipse is part of IBM's WebSphere product as well, so IBM has a very real reason to want their editor to be the best. If SUN helped out the Eclipse project, they would be playing favorites pretty much.
Karma Clown
If I want "a sea in which a gnat may drink and an elephant may bathe," I'll play chess. And a monolithic tool that needs a 2,560-page manual and a 17-week qualification period is no fun. Give me robust but lithe and agile tools that I can string together with a minimum of grunting and get out of my way!.
Years (decades?) ago, I was one of the fringe-warriors in the various editor holy wars, but as I grew older and wiser I realized it had less to do with the tool and more to do with the craftsman. Now, I prefer to craft my code myself, not let an IDE do too much for me. (How much is too much? "I can't define it but I know it when I see it" [Quoting Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's comment on obscenity.] As soon as the tool spends less time helping me and more time being in my way, it's out of here.
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