Tim Boudreau On The Future of NetBeans

maffstephens writes "With the release of NetBeans 4.0 set to reignite the open-source Java IDE war and all sorts of cool developments on the horizon, it seemed like a very good time to talk to one of the key senior NetBeans developers. In this interview, Tim Boudreau (co-author of NetBeans: The Definitive Guide) speaks candidly about his views on rival IDE Eclipse, the future of NetBeans, and the thinking behind its new Ant-based projects system."

Comments

Is election year mudslinging contagious?

[weeksie]

It's so frustrating when you read an article about someone's product and they can't stop talking about what is wrong with their competitor. I'm sure Netbeans is much improved since the last time I tried it. I'm sure it has wonderful virtues as an extensible platform. But nothing about slamming my current IDE of choice makes me want to try it.

I think the reason that a lot of developers get so religious about their platforms has to do with how much value we put on our intelligence. To insult our tools is a roundabout insult to our intellect. At least that's how some take it and I'm sure that it makes it all the much worse when the project/tools are also your baby. Still feelings aside if he wants to do Netbeans a favour he should probably lay off the Other Platform Bashing.

Netbeans Eclipse Emacs - the saga

[tod_miller]

I started using Netbeans waaay back in the day, I had a few problems, but I liked the interface. I made the arduous chance to Eclipse, and it took a while, but slowly I got used to Eclipse.

I always wanted to go back to Netbeans to see what they had, but always Eclipse was good enough - now!

And the refactoring blew me away, and speed, and SWeeTness.

The CVS integration was quirky since the beginning (when I used it) then matured. I have been using a 2003 build until about month ago, and I was almost lost again using it.

Well, I thought that was time ot check out Netbeans again, but I started developing some code out of office, and found myself using a twisted up machine at a local university - I smacked emacs and cygwin on, and after a couple of days hitting [End] instead of C^e I got into it...

Now I use emacs at work... it is like having a colonic for your mind... it cleans out all those things you were thinking about, and gets you back to the code level.

I still love eclipse and have about a million templates that go az, azz, azzz, qaz, qazza, zxc, zxczxc for doing all sorts of wierd and wonderful shortcuts. I love the accessibility of the information I need about libraries and attaching source to a .jar you have on the classpath. [rather than *mounting* source in netbeans.]

I have had about ~4 crashes in my workspace in one week when using some large projects (on a nightly I just happened to get):

so my dir looks like:

workspace
workspace_
workspace_backup
workspa ce_bust
workspace_working_ :-)

I think using C^x-f and finding the source you need quickly, search the method name, read the method, is a bit more holistic then using the f3 all the time in eclipse...

So in one sense I love Eclipse, and always will, I shed many a tear for Netbeans, and promise myself to reinstall it. I hate JDeveloper 9, JBuilder I only used at The Big U, and EditPlus never fails!

For now I use emacs.

JFluid code profiler

[Armhold]

I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Emacs and shell guy, but the feature that has me salivating over NetBeans 4.0 is the upcoming code profiler previously known as "JFluid". Have a look at http://profiler.netbeans.org/index.html.

That, and the potential for using refactoring tools has me seriously considering an IDE for the first time in my life. The question is: can I make all of this work with Emacs?

Which is more useful?

[Zach Garner]

From the interview, it seems that they are saying that Sun's NetBeans came up with the great ideas first, but had a bad implementation. So bad, that many who tried NetBeans until after 3.5 (there on 4.0 right now) had such a bad user experience that they wouldn't consider using it again.

Meanwhile, IBM properly funded eclipse, properly marketed it, attracted a strong user base that provides many plugins, and as a result has become the winner of the two.

Trying not to sound like flamebait, but this sounds like a few other things Sun has done. For instance, Swing is not a bad idea, but long standing bugs, missing components and an initially buggy and slow product have led many to never consider Java for desktop development.

So, a question for those that have used a recent version of NetBeans: Despite all of the flaws that were mentioned in the interview (many/most of them were mentioned only to say "it's been fixed in 4.0"), is NetBeans more useful than Eclipse?

Are there plugins for Ant, Checkstyle, FindBugs, Bugzilla, etc, like there are for Eclipse? What about subversion support?

Without that support, NetBeans will not be useful to me, unfortunately.

NetBeans is NOT Open Source

[maxgilead]

NetBeans is NOT Open Source software. While parts of it may qualify as such, the IDE as distributed by http://www.netbeans.org/ is not.

Below I cite sample parts of NetBeans license. There is "Binary Code License Agreement" which gives us no rights to redistribute and "Supplemental License Terms" for each part, which, basically, allows us to redistribute it in binary form only, unchanged. And such terms are repeated in almost exact same way for all other parts.

As far as I can tell it's not even close to open source. However, if someone knows better I'd like to be proven wrong, but facts, please, not opinions.

Here is first paragraph of NetBeans license:

1. The following software products found in the NetBeans Build are governed by the Binary Code License Agreement including its applicable Supplemental Terms and Conditions ("BCL"):
* XML Parser v.1.1 (jaxp and parser)
* JavaHelp v.2.0
* JavaC Compiler
* J2EE Deployment APIs 1.1
* J2EE Management 1.0
* EJB Enterprise Java Beans 2.0
* JMX 1.2
* J2EE Editor
* XML resolver 1.0
* JMI 1.0

Here are two first paragraphs of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Binary Code License Agreement:

1. LICENSE TO USE. Sun grants you a non-exclusive and non-
transferable license for the internal use only of the
accompanying software and documentation and any error
corrections provided by Sun (collectively "Software"), by the
number of users and the class of computer hardware for which the
corresponding fee has been paid.

2. RESTRICTIONS Software is confidential and copyrighted.
Title to Software and all associated intellectual property
rights is retained by Sun and/or its licensors. Except as
specifically authorized in any Supplemental License Terms, you
may not make copies of Software, other than a single copy of
Software for archival purposes. Unless enforcement is
prohibited by applicable law, you may not modify, decompile, or
reverse engineer Software. You acknowledge that Software is not
designed, licensed or intended for use in the design,
construction, operation or maintenance of any nuclear facility.
Sun disclaims any express or implied warranty of fitness for
such uses. No right, title or interest in or to any trademark,
service mark, logo or trade name of Sun or its licensors is
granted under this Agreement.

Of course there are supplemental license terms for each part mentioned above, let's see what rights they give us for "JAVA(TM) DEVELOPMENT TOOLS JAXP.JAR AND PARSER.JAR ARCHIVE FILES FROM JAVA API FOR XML PARSING, VERSION 1.0":

1. Internal Use and Development License Grant. Subject to the
terms and conditions of this Agreement, including, but not
limited to, Section 3 (JavaTM Technology Restrictions) of these
Supplemental Terms, Sun grants you a non-exclusive, non-
transferable, limited license to reproduce internally and use
internally the binary form of the XML JAR Files Software for the
sole purpose of designing, developing and testing your JavaTM
API for XML Parsing compatible parsers (the "Programs").

2. License to Distribute Software. In addition to the license
granted in Section 1 (Internal Use and Development License
Grant) of these Supplemental Terms, subject to the terms and
conditions of this Agreement, Sun grants you a non-exclusive,
non- transferable, limited license to reproduce and distribute
the XML JAR Files Software in binary code form only, provided
that you: (i) (a) either distribute the XML JAR Files Software
complete and unmodified in their original Java Archive file, but
only bundled as part of your Programs into which the XML JAR
Files Software is incorporated, and do not distribute additional
software intended to replace any components of the XML JAR Files
Software; or

Re:NetBeans is NOT Open Source

[Anonymous Coward]

Those licenses are for libraries NetBeans uses, not NetBeans itself. The NetBeans source code is open source. It does use some libraries that are freely redistributable (like the java compiler), but not open source. That's all this is.