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NetBeans 4.0 Release
An anonymous reader writes "Various news sources are reporting the 4.0 release of the free Java-based NetBeans IDE. You can read the anouncement, or proceed directly to the downloads. Perhaps the most significant improvement is that the IDE's native build system is the latest version of Apache Ant. I see this as a distinct advantage over its competitor Eclipse (and NetBeans is pure Java). If you create desktop applications in Java, you may wish to read up on the NetBeans 'platform' as well. Enjoy."
We're required to use NetBeans at school. I end up coding all my stuff in IntelliJ and copying and pasting. NetBeans is much too controlling in terms of all the code it generates for the UI and has always seemed very counterintuitive to me.
1. prior versions of netbeans auto-genned fugly code for the gui's you laid out.
2. Many people I know do visual coding by hand, similar to html to some degree.
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
They haven't improved the speed of the background compilation (that is used to update the code completion database). One of my more complex files (which contains 9 inner classes) still takes about 15 seconds to rescan whenever I change anything.
.WAR' option on individual files.
And theres still no 'exclude from
Is Betteridge's Law of Headlines Correct?
I was writing a small java program in a text editor for a class project a week ago, and I got stuck conceptually at one point and so I desired to step through the code.
Now not knowing anything about the java world, netbeans came to mind as an IDE that would let me step through the code.
So I installed this netbeans thing and pasted my code in, and I got so confused, it said I needed to have a "project", I tried making a dummy project, then it said all of my class files were missing even though they were right there in the same folder. After an hour of lost time I gave up.
My point? I guess is there anything I can use to step through code that is in-offensive and won't talk back to me? Just a paste your code and go kind of deal?
And a side question, why do my class mates get mad at me when I say I don't like Java?
I'm mostly doing C#/.NET stuff these days, but I still like to keep in touch with what's going on in the Java world, so I downloaded JDK 5.0, Eclipse 3.1M3, the latest IDEA, and a NetBeans 4.0 RC last weekend.
I like the interface of NetBeans and IDEA. Eclipse is just horrible. Why Eclipse developers won't put a new face on that monstrosity of menus, configuration panels, and project management is beyond me. But even with JDK 5.0 the Swing fonts look like dog barf. The menu fonts are all fubar and even with AA enabled in the text editor, the fonts look like crap.
Come on Sun, this is 2004, wake up. Give us native fonts in Swing for the major platforms.
does NetBeans require the Sun JVM or can it run on any JVM of proper version? can you get it running on a Mac? (Yes I know about XCode). What makes me wonder this is the debugger. I wonder if they used a lot of reflection, just interpret the source or take advatange of sun.* packages. Anyone know?
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
Actually, as far as Java IDEs go, i'm quite a fan of JCreator. NetBeans is a bit too large and slow in my opinion, though it is powerful.
Great! More NetBEANS bloat. Joy. Look, collapsing code is nice and all, but seriously, I really can't wait five minutes to spot check one app.
Just use crimson editor. Set java compile to F5, java run to F6 then '56' it! Get it! F5,F6!... Never mind. Suffice to say that Crimson Editor is the closest thing to EMACS for Windows developers.(except for EMACS obviously, but windows minds tend to melt when faced with the Meta Paradigm)
May the Maths Be with you!
NetBeans (Swing based) is from Sun. It is heavily challenged by Eclipse (SWT based) championed by IBM. Anybody knows of marketshare of user base on these 2 major IDE and alternative commercial IDE.
I'll just stick with Visual J#, thanks.
*ducks*
Is this a shameless plug of some kind? I mean, comparing NetBeans to Eclipse and saying that these two points give NetBeans an advantage, doesn't make sense to me.
Eclipse is pure java, too. Oh, unless you don't consider SWT to be pure java, and you prefer to have pure java Swing rather than the much nicer and faster SWT... so what if it's using the native OS interface instead of its own? I see that as an advantage, in any case.
Eclipse can use Ant to build a project. I don't know if it's the latest version, but for all basic purposes, the version included is good enough. I don't know if there's an Eclipse plugin that automatically updates build.xml or lets you handle it in a graphical way, but I think ant build files are meant to be hand edited, anyway. You can use XML buddy inside Eclipse to validate the XML.
And that stuff about using the NetBeans platform, sounds like the stuff Eclipse includes now with 3.0, where you can build your SWT apps using the same objects that make up the Eclipse IDE.
Go hug some trees.
I suppose I could have reinstalled my existing JDK and tried NetBeans again but if this was a sign of NetBeans' ease of use then no thanks. My time is worth more to me than that.
For me CTRL+L/CTRL+K was such a killer feature. It cycles forward/backward through a list of words which start with the same chars as you just typed. it's just wonderfull.. completion for any word, be it in code or comments.
while (!asleep()) sheep++
There is even a wizard to import hand edited ant files as project. the ant files aren't even changed for that. beautifull.
Netbeans can not only validate ant scripts it offers element completion for ant targets etc.
And that stuff about using the NetBeans platform, sounds like the stuff Eclipse includes now with 3.0, where you can build your SWT apps using the same objects that make up the Eclipse IDE.
while (!asleep()) sheep++
I don't know if you can fairly compare NetBeans and Eclipse, because Eclipse is more of an IDE platform where you can get scores of plugins related to different languages and tasks. There are plugins for C++, perl, python, PHP, XML, ColdFusion, UML, and a slew of others.
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The java perspective in Eclipse is great, and runs much better on my SuSe laptop than NetBeans ever did. I ran NetBeans for a while but switched to Eclipse and never looked back. Plus, I only have to learn the eccentricities of one IDE for all my programming tasks, as opposed to many different ones.
I know, token Tolkien reference comes to mind: One IDE to rule them all
In this house we obey the laws of Thermodynamics!
IDEs can be "rigid" in their way of doing things in the way that I say a person is rigid in that tasks have to follow a certain complex ritual or they are not done. You kind of have to accept some of them on their own terms and employ their "wizards" or procedures for generating projects and adding classes -- you probably have to generate a project, add a class, and then paste the code for your class into that file.
I always thought that Pascal (or the Borland Turbo and Delphi Pascal dialects) was quite IDE friendly in that the dependencies are indicated in the source code with the "uses" clauses -- this is an outgrowth of Modula 2 and Ada and the "from module bleen import bleenInit, bleenReport" business. C++ is the least IDE friendly in that the #include's are "non-hygenic" imports. What the IDE needs to do is build a dependency tree to construct its version of a make file, and in the Pascal/Modula family, that gets explicitly stated in source while in C++ you have to parse the #included'ed header files to sort of figure that out, and you may have to assist the IDE by telling it what source files are "part of the project."
I would rank Java as somewhere in between Delphi Pascal and C++ in IDE friendliness. But Java IDEs have creative ways in confounding people who just want to turn the key and take a drive around the block. In a proper Pascal or C++ program, there is a unique void main() where program execution is supposed to start where I believe a Java program could potentially have multiple entry points -- classes with the proper static main() method. In Eclipse, it is not enough to have a project loaded up, you have to designate a class containing a static main() method to run a program from the IDE, and that tripped my up for a long time. They also have some funky system for loading up collections of files making up a project from zip files and making sure you have loaded everything up to get an example project to work tripped me up to.
Not to be picking on Eclipse, but if Netbeans is anything like it, it may be perfectly obvious and reasonable to someone using it for a long time, but for someone coming from the text editor and javac world, I can see where you can be spinning your wheels with nothing moving.
Visual J++ was pretty much Visual Basic with a Java face on it. Just as there is nothing quite like VB in the world outside Windows, there is nothing quite like Visual J++ (or .NET and Windows.Forms) outside Windows either.
It is like people telling me that the source of the world's problems is the use of C-style null-terminated strings with the vulnerability to stack smashing attacks and string buffer overrun exploits -- they say everyone should switch from char* to C++ string class and the world would be in peace and harmony. C++ string is good if you live entirely in the C++ world, but if you cross languages, you are back to char* to move strings back and forth.
The Holy Grail of computing in the late 80's and 90's was some kind of OS "component architecture" and there were many attempts chronicled by Clement Syzperski's "Component Software." Of all the attempts, I think only two have had any kind of success: ActiveX and Java. ActiveX is fully multilanguage but you are stuck on Windows while Java is cross platform but you are stuck with, well, Java. Well Java is slightly cross language (all those languages coded to the Java VM don't really count) because you can script Java from Matlab.
ActiveX controls are just about impossible to implement or use outside of an IDE or scripting language designed for them (does anyone out there work with ActiveX using vi and a command-line compiler and make files?), and they are kind of crufty, but they are so compatible with stuff in the Windows world, they are so useful in packaging a lot of complex GUI code and just handing the functionality to someone, and .NET Windows.Forms controls just don't work in the same wide world yet.
Because ActiveX (don't get started on the business of ActiveX on Web pages, that is not what I am talking about) is so powerful and so universal in the Windows world, I could see where someone would stick with J++.
The deal is that SWT does not have the official stamp of approval from SUN, so you have to load a separate "SWT driver" (some .dll's or .so's) for your specific system, or if you distribute software, you have to bundle all those different drivers or tell people they have to download the one for their system themselves. Swing has the SUN seal of approval, so it is bundled with the Java runtime, and if you were able to download the Java runtime on your system, you got Swing. There is a different Swing "driver" for each different system, but you had to download a different Java runtime depending on whether you are running Windows, Linux, OS-X, etc, so you got the correct version of Swing when you did that.