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Oracle Outlines Plans for Sun Products, Casts Doubt on NetBeans

An anonymous reader writes to tell us that a recent FAQ released by Oracle outlines the plans for many of Sun's popular products like GlassFish, MySQL, and NetBeans. Many are worried at some of the possible avenues the decisions outlined could lead to, especially with respect to NetBeans. "What should have happened, Oracle should not have missed a beat and should have announced work on Oracle plugins for NetBeans and active Oracle support of NetBeans. This type of announcement would have brought a large and some-what skeptical NetBeans community much closer to Oracle. It would have been a big win for Oracle. NetBeans will continue to grow either way - but Oracle has missed a big chance to really change perceptions and at the same time move their tools to another level. What JDeveloper lacks is buzz, a wealth of community developed plugins, a wealth of support for other languages and a very, very large community. And of course it does not offer a platform in the NetBeans and Eclipse sense of the word. This is a huge missed opportunity for Oracle."

151 comments

  1. NetBeans? Really? by qoncept · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I wasn't aware anyone seriously used it. I used it for school and I've been on Eclipse since I started doing real projects.

    --
    Whale
    1. Re:NetBeans? Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      for j2ee it is the best ide...

    2. Re:NetBeans? Really? by jDeepbeep · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      and I've been on Eclipse since I started doing real projects.

      And the dogma wars begin. I would mod you flamebait if I had points left for the day.

      --
      Reply to That ||
    3. Re:NetBeans? Really? by PotatoFarmer · · Score: 1

      Ease up on the throttle, buddy. GP was likely contrasting his current "real" projects with his "fake" school projects, not making a comment about other people's IDEs/projects.

    4. Re:NetBeans? Really? by qoncept · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Really? That's lame. I stated nothing but facts. I used NetBeans in school, I use Eclipse now that I do real projects. And the original point was I didn't realize anyone used NetBeans for real projects. Not that I've been paying attention.

      --
      Whale
    5. Re:NetBeans? Really? by vvsiz · · Score: 1

      Why to comment then if you were not paying attention and just producing just random nonsense about things you have no real knowledge?

    6. Re:NetBeans? Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      dbag

    7. Re:NetBeans? Really? by gilesjuk · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's slower than Eclipse but it does quite a few things Eclipse doesn't do well. A visual Java swing application designer that works for starters!

      It's more stable too.

      Given Oracle's Java procedure support in Oracle they're missing a trick, they should integrate SQL Developer and NetBeans to create a really good Java/Warehouse/BI tool.

    8. Re:NetBeans? Really? by qoncept · · Score: 0

      I asked a question.

      "Really?"

      --
      Whale
    9. Re:NetBeans? Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yay for assumed sarcasm and such.

    10. Re:NetBeans? Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A visual Java swing application designer that works for starters!

      Like this? (Actually, last I checked, that was horrible for Swing GUIs, but that was a long time ago.)

    11. Re:NetBeans? Really? by AlbertinaJane · · Score: 0

      My Qentium Multo has no problem with that JavaScript. I see Preview before I even hit it.

    12. Re:NetBeans? Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The company I work for uses it seriously. It's okay, though it could be faster.
      I tried Eclipse a few years ago. It's just confusing. Me be dumb, but I don't like it.

    13. Re:NetBeans? Really? by LDoggg_ · · Score: 1

      Is that a fact?

      When you say J2ee do you mean strict Sun implementation?

      I find that eclipse webtools with the spring IDE plugin does a good job for developing server-side java.

      --

      "If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
    14. Re:NetBeans? Really? by Hognoxious · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      Shut up. You're obviously an emacs user and as such are an inconsequential twat.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    15. Re:NetBeans? Really? by Bill_the_Engineer · · Score: 4, Informative

      I use both. I like Netbeans since 6.x, and I still use eclipse on some legacy projects.

      Eclipse is snappier at times, but it reeks of being created by a committee of competitors and a pain in the ass at times to setup for anything more substantial than editing (Subclipse or Subversive as a case in point). However, once you get it working, it works fairly well.

      The latest incarnation of Netbeans has more features out of the box and a whole lot easier to install and get to work with your SCM and etc.

      Both work sufficiently well as an IDE.

      --
      These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
    16. Re:NetBeans? Really? by kaffiene · · Score: 2, Insightful

      As a Java developer of many years experience, I've been using NB since about version 5. That's when it started being better than Eclipse and Eclipse starting turning into a plugin nightmare.

    17. Re:NetBeans? Really? by Hurricane78 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Uuum, you mean that huge slow mess of co-dependent modules and shit, that you have to wade through for weeks to get to anything usable, that is called Eclipse?

      Really! as a Java, J2ME, Haskell and web developer, I stopped after two fucking weeks! It's even worse than the Miranda IM! Hell, it's worse than installing Gentoo from Stage 1! And that means something!

      Sorry for the hate. But sometimes, hate is deserved.

      I'm happy if you are happy with it. And in system administration, I can also be a bit that way.
      But I... well... in programming... I just want to code...

      I can do with Kate, or any basic code editor, and a reasonably scriptable shell, if I have to. No problem.
      But when I get the possibility to get more without a big hassle, I go for it.

      Before NetBeans, I used JBuilder, because I was used to Delphi, which I got to from the old Pascal days. (Man, was Turbo Pascal a great environment, or was it?)

      Conclusion: Everyone has its own motives, interests and tastes. Everyhing is relative. Stop being so egocentric, and acting like we don't do "real projects" like the oh so great guru that you think you are. Because with that narrow view on the world, I seriously doubt you even understand real "guruness". :)
      (But hope you'll get there. And me too. :)

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
    18. Re:NetBeans? Really? by SnapShot · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I agree. I used Eclipse for years but I've started using Netbeans 6.7 for more and more. The problem we have where I work is that we do PHP projects and Java projects. Six or eight months ago we were having real trouble getting getting PDT to play nice and, so far, NetBeans just works and switching between projects is very easy.

      Anyway, they are both great IDE's that continue to get better and better. If I have to switch back to Eclipse is won't be a major sacrifice, but I'll be unhappy that there won't be a free IDE competitor to keep the Eclipse devs motivated :-)

      --
      Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
    19. Re:NetBeans? Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you hit on the main point. Oracle gives very luke-warm support. If it moved SQL Developer to NetBeans they would have a great combination.

    20. Re:NetBeans? Really? by upuv · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I have to agree. Eclipse has become an un-usable mess.

      I actually went back to a decent text editor. When I went back into the repository I found I wrote more code with the text editor than I did with Ecilpse by shear line count. I also had less bugs. This I completely did not expect at all. I also billed less time to "life cycle" AKA bug fixes. I guess looking back at it now I can attribute it to having less distractions and being required to actually research the interfaces I was using.

      Now I definitely want to get a decent IDE. I believe it would make my code better. But Eclipse is not it.

      Seriously how the hell does an editor/ide require over 1Gig of ram to run efficiently. That's just crazy. Can't even run it on a 32bit machine.

      Maybe I'll take a look at NetBeans again.

    21. Re:NetBeans? Really? by leenks · · Score: 1

      Sorry, but IMO you are talking rubbish. We run Eclipse on 32bit P4's and it uses significantly less RAM than that - a typical session doing JEE or PDE work uses 200-300MB, running on Java 6 (on Win2000).

       

    22. Re:NetBeans? Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh we do. I use Intellij IDEA at home and Netbeans at work. For PHP, Netbeans is much more reliable than Eclipse PDT. For example, it can index changes to a file in less than 5 minutes. The terrible syntax indexing is my biggest complaint with Eclipse. I don't see a point using a big, bloated IDE that doesn't perform basic code completion and error checking in a reasonable amount of time. Perhaps I was just spoiled by IDEA and even Visual Studio.

      Netbeans isn't perfect, but 6.7 is a lot better than previous releases. I think anyone who hasn't tried a 6.x release, should give it a go. I used to hate Netbeans with a passion, but it's usable now. As others have pointed out, there isn't a lot of setup time because you don't need 5 copies of it with different plugins to do different projects. There's even a git plugin that works now.

      The reason netbeans users are hostile is because we're sick of getting told to use eclipse. It's like getting told to use windows instead of any other system. Just because it's defacto standard doesn't mean it's good.

    23. Re:NetBeans? Really? by munctional · · Score: 1

      Check your firewall log. You'll see connection attempts from Slashdot on various ports making sure that you're not a Tor exit node, open HTTP proxy, etc. :-)

      --
      Functional programming... for real men!
    24. Re:NetBeans? Really? by devman · · Score: 1

      I don't know about the GP, but J2EE is old hat, its been Java EE for while now, and Eclipse has some nice tools for working with Jboss (Red Hat even releases a customized version of Eclipse). To the parent though, Glassfish is Sun's Java EE baby now and its much better than the former "strict SUN impl".

    25. Re:NetBeans? Really? by acidrainx · · Score: 1

      You should consider giving it another shot. NetBeans, in my opinion, is by far the best free Java IDE out there right now. As everyone has already pointed out, Eclipse is a plugin nightmare. The NetBeans UI is incredibly polished and while it might be slower at doing some things (e.g. autocompletion), it has a few features that I can't live without.

      Check out the "Find Next/Previous Matching Word" keyboard shortcuts. I think it's bound to Ctrl+K and Ctrl+Shift+K by default. I never have to type more than 2 or 3 characters per word in my code. It's almost a complete replacement for the slower Ctrl+Space autocompletion. I really only use Ctrl+Space for reading Javadocs these days.

    26. Re:NetBeans? Really? by Florian+Weimer · · Score: 1

      I wasn't aware anyone seriously used it. I used it for school and I've been on Eclipse since I started doing real projects.

      Apparently, some people use it productively, but I've always found that hard to believe. Some things are just annoying (like nested dialogs that don't show your previous location when you open them again). Other things appear to be more fundamental, like the lack of a single window (or file) listing all (and I mean all) compiler errors and warnings for a project.

      And it's really strange that Netbeans development requires Java 1.5, even though that version has recently reached end-of-life.

    27. Re:NetBeans? Really? by fusiongyro · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I started professionally programming Java about two months ago and hadn't had any experience with it before.

      First impression of Eclipse: it's slow, there were display artifacts. It's versioning scheme was clearly designed with pride rather than usability in mind (which is newer, Galileo or Ganymede, and how can you tell?). I could never find the correct Subversion plugin (was I supposed to be using Subclipse or Eclipse Subversion?). Both of them seemed to depend on other plugins which I was supposed to choose between or manually install. Ran into similar issues with Maven integration. The plugin had a clever name and once installed I never really figured out how to make it "go." I only have so much time to spend any given day on configuring my editor. Both coworkers who used Eclipse also helpfully assured me that I'd have to reinstall it every six months or so, because it tends to "go bad" after a while. Not a great sign.

      On a whim I downloaded NetBeans. Nobody in my software group was using it, apparently older versions had turned them off completely. Out of the box, it opens Maven projects and the integration is seamless, and it has Subversion and Mercurial integration out of the box. For a new user, the out-of-the-box experience with NetBeans today beats Eclipse hands-down. Especially coming into a professional environment with many moving parts integrated.

      The story isn't perfect. NetBeans takes forever and a day to start up. It also can get unresponsive from time to time. You can sink your whole day into configuring it. Plugin integration seems to in general be better than with Eclipse (at least to me) but configuration is a bit worse; everything seems to get thrown under that one tab in the preferences. It tries to manage Tomcat for me but I usually wind up manually force-quitting it (our app probably has a memory leak) because NetBeans' Terminate option doesn't ever seem to do anything. And there have been plenty of confusing issues. Tab completion worked in EL in our JSF facelets, but only inside in a valid XHTML file; figuring that out took an afternoon. I'm still not altogether sure how to get the relationships between multiple projects right.

      If I were going to summarize my opinion of NetBeans as a two month user, I'd say: usually it just works but when it doesn't, it's hard to figure out how to fix it. The situation with Eclipse seems to me to be more like, there's a plugin out there that does what you need, good luck figuring out how to get it installed and use it.

      Prior to using Java and NetBeans, I mainly did PHP and Ruby plus some other miscellaneous on a Mac with TextMate, Emacs or Coda, depending on the situation. From a usability perspective, Coda in particular but also TextMate are wonderful tools. NetBeans and Eclipse both do some space-age cool stuff but their usability isn't quite up to par. Lots of things are slow that don't seem like they should be, like switching tabs and opening files, and fundamentals tend to be screwy. For example, in NetBeans, if I'm debugging an app and have an SQL window open, there will be three green play icons on my screen. One of them runs the app in not-debug mode, one of them continues from a breakpoint, and one of them runs the SQL command. None of these have particularly memorable shortcuts and their icons are too similar. NetBeans will happily run and deploy the app while I have it at a break point in a debugging session, though the exact intended meaning of that action would be hard to guess.

      All in all, if you have a day to throw at it, I recommend giving NetBeans a shot. Two of my three coworkers wound up switching. It also has better Vim integration, if that's relevant to you.

    28. Re:NetBeans? Really? by xtracto · · Score: 1

      I have used both for some time (I saw Eclipse grow from the old versions when it crashed every 5 minutes).

      Right now I am using mostly Netbeans as it is used in my current project. However, I personally like more Eclipse. For example, the availability of FatJar is a godsent. Also, NetBeans does not let you order packages in a hierarchical way (i think that changed in the last version) and UML support is better in Eclipse.

      Both can do subversion, but I find it more difficult to set it up in Eclipse.

      Oh, and for some reason, Netbeans does not differentiate between Javadoc and normal comments (FtLo God!)

      --
      Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
    29. Re:NetBeans? Really? by l3v1 · · Score: 1

      Man, was Turbo Pascal a great environment, or was it?

      Oh, memories... Nice ones too.

      --
      I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
    30. Re:NetBeans? Really? by daem0n1x · · Score: 1

      I used Eclipse for years, but gave it up because of the plugin mess and the horrible bugs in the JEE Tools. I gave Netbeans a chance, and now it's my IDE for Java.

      JDeveloper, on the other hand, last time I used it it was a huge, bloated, slooooow, proprietary piece of shit.

    31. Re:NetBeans? Really? by MemoryDragon · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It is not that much slower and the things it does well are pretty important like having a decent JEE Plugin, heavens even after 4 years and 4 releases Eclipses WTP still refuses sometimes to deploy and does not even tell you what is wrong. For heavens sake how hard is it really just to jar something and deploy it?
      Anyway I have given up on both platforms and am fully on Intellij, it combines the flexibility of Eclipse with the ease of use in Netbeans and adds its own set of excellent tools on top of both platforms.

    32. Re:NetBeans? Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Look here, college boy.

      You've NEVER done a "real project" in your life. Your big project in school was maybe 10K lines of code. Woo.

      I'm wrapping up a 42KLOC Java project in NetBeans. It's got a dozen packages, 40 GUI screens, and an embedded database. It'll be used by about 20,000 people shortly.

      Come back when you've actually worked on production code. Until then, you're a kid trying to teach his grandma how to suck eggs.

    33. Re:NetBeans? Really? by Guy+Harris · · Score: 1

      Ever eat beans and then take a shit and see some intact beans in your shit, sorta like corn? That's Netbeans.

      Those are gross beans, not net beans.

    34. Re:NetBeans? Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You must be joking... I use Netbeans 8 hours a day (often more), and I can assure you it's far more productive then Eclipse. Plus, most of it's plugins are free and of very good quality. Best IDE I've ever worked with :D

    35. Re:NetBeans? Really? by El_Isma · · Score: 1

      I find Netbeans VERY superior to Eclipse/PyDev for python development. Netbeans at least tries to help you, PyDev just stares at you... Also, considering that Python support on Netbeans is very new and already has loads of features... I find it very promising in the future.

  2. not interested in the near valueless crap by rubycodez · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    still waiting for Oracle to decide on the substantial Sun product's direction. the ones that were worth billions, now in limbo, even losing value without an announced plan

    1. Re:not interested in the near valueless crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well since Sun is still a separate company, Oracle can't announce anything specific. When the EU finishes being stupid about MySQL then they can talk.

  3. Oracle Palns. by CannonballHead · · Score: 4, Funny

    http://www.infoq.com/news/2009/11/oracle-sun-palns

    I don't know what palns are or why Oracle/Sun thinks they are important, but ...

    1. Re:Oracle Palns. by Icegryphon · · Score: 4, Funny

      They are obfuscated plans I assume,
      I guess they are going to try to give IBM a run for there money?

    2. Re:Oracle Palns. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except when it's slothe!

    3. Re:Oracle Palns. by ozbird · · Score: 1
    4. Re:Oracle Palns. by What'sInAName · · Score: 1

      Just a typo. It was supposed to be http://www.infoq.com/news/2009/11/oracle-sun-pains

    5. Re:Oracle Palns. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I count two errors in your parenthetical. Is that your way of doubly confounding the Nazis? I've identified one of your grammatical errors in my query. There, now I have shown you the other.

      On a side note, I don't see anything lazy about using tools (in this case, contractions) that are available. If using tools appropriately is lazy, then what are you doing using a computer? You should just be doing a bunch of calculations in your head. Perhaps the GP would have been more appropriate had he said "ignorant" instead of "lazy" but, in my experience, one begets the other.

      Ooops, just found two more. Your first two "sentences" are not sentences at all, yet you still use periods.

    6. Re:Oracle Palns. by sconeu · · Score: 1

      Ha! More proof that security by obscurity doesn't work!

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    7. Re:Oracle Palns. by Hurricane78 · · Score: 1

      Losers. I tapped the here money, and now can relax all day long in my grammar nazi deckchair. :D

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
    8. Re:Oracle Palns. by Nerdfest · · Score: 1

      No, there's a vowel in there, and it's not in all caps.

    9. Re:Oracle Palns. by Red+Flayer · · Score: 1

      OK, I give up, anonymous coward. You win.

      You win the General Internet Douchebag Award for Excellence, in the category of Grammar Douchebaggery in a Tech Forum.

      Here's your prize... happy now?

      (Besides which, my first sentence is a complete sentence. The direct object is the blockquoted text, the subject is "the man who is too lazy...", the verb is "says".) Perhaps some remedial classwork would be of some benefit?

      --
      "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
    10. Re:Oracle Palns. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's another lazy-bastard mistake. Speaking of lazy bastards, I would not be the least bit surprised if the people who make these mistakes are more likely to be obese than the general population. Sloth is sloth, whether it's mental or physical.

      Says the man who is too lazy to spell out "that is" and "it is". Glass houses and all that. You do know that when you write a grammar troll, you should ensure your own post is free from grammatical error? (Of course, you also need to seed your post with one, and only one, intentional and blatant grammar error in order to confound other grammar nazi's.)

      You do realize that there is nothing grammatically incorrect about using a contraction, right? The laziness is evidenced by an inability to use your own native language in a grammatically correct fashion. "It's" versus "it is" is a purely stylistic matter because both are correct. Nice try and thank you for playing.

    11. Re:Oracle Palns. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, I'm the douchebag. You were the one trying to pick apart a (very justified in my opinion) rant on the poor state of the use of the English language for using contractions. You may have assumed here that I was the original AC who ranted on their/there, but I'm not not. I was simply giving you a taste of your own medicine, which you seem to need pretty badly. I don't like hypocrisy.

      Nice attempt on saving one of your many errors, but if you intended "Says the man..." to be a sentence, you would not have capitalized "says". Again, you fail.

    12. Re:Oracle Palns. by Muad'Dave · · Score: 1

      ...but I'm not not.

      Pot, meet Kettle.

      --
      Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
    13. Re:Oracle Palns. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fair enough. I can accept that I made a mistake. I'd probably categorize mine as typographical and not of a truly grammatical nature, but it's a mistake nonetheless. I don't need to get all defensive about it and start lashing out simply because I'm in the wrong. All that would truly do is make it clear that I knew I was incorrect anyway, but also make it clear that I am incapable of admitting that I was so in any sort of appropriate manner.

      P.S. Would I be able to get away with claiming that it was a double negative in an attempt to create confusion? My guess is probably not, but I'll put it out there. What about the aforementioned intentional seed to confound the "Nazis"?

  4. Netbeans just isn't there by mapnjd · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Unfortunately for Netbeans zealots, it has never caught up with Eclipse. It may have surpassed it temporarily for certain apps (think Grails support - but look at STS 2.2.0). It's also not as good as IntelliJ IDEA (previously, always non-free).

    Yes, both Netbeans and Eclipse are also RCP platforms, but how many real Netbeans platform apps are there? (The Nokia one on the web site is vapourware - yes it shows a real customer RAN - without their permission, I should add! - but it's never been a product delivered to customers). Real Eclipse RCP apps do exist (XMind, Lotus Smartsuite...). Realistically, they both over good RCP platforms (one pure Java, one SWT) but Oracle won't really care about that.

    As for JDeveloper - well it's a typical Oracle product - if you're in an Oracle house, it's pretty good, but no, it's not got a large userbase or community supporting it.

    Oracle should let Netbeans drift off into open source land. Perhaps it'll thrive? I don't know. JDeveloper's functionality should be ported to Eclipse (along with SQL Developer, while we're at it).

    Oracle are great at giving you tools once you've signed up for the ride, and why not rebase your products on the best? Which in my opinion is Eclipse.

    --
    Bus error in your favour. Collect 200kB
    1. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by Yacoby · · Score: 2

      Given that nothing has caught up with Vim or Emacs in terms of the speed one can edit a text file, I think we should ditch all other programs than can edit text as there is obviously no need for them.

      I think Oracle pushing Netbeans would be a good thing. More competition is good and I have no problem with having more choice.

    2. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are forgetting one veeeery important thing. I dont remember the stats exactly but only about 5% or 20% of all software is publicly available. All the rest is software developed based on contracts for specific use at a specific company and you cannot know how many such apps were developped on NetBeans platform. If you dont use it, it does not mean nobody else does and trust me there are plenty of apps being deployed based on NB platform.

    3. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by Deth_Master · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Hmm, as a java development platform (and as a C/C++ development IDE) it is unrivaled by Eclipse. Things seem to work so much smoother in netbeans. You don't have to configure the shit out of it to use it. Most stuff follows the convention over configuration principle. At least that's the way it seems to me
      Every time I use eclipse I'm surprised at the exceptional amount of options there are to do something simple. I rarely use them. Most of the options could be done with a couple bits of typing anyway.
      As for the RCP stuff, I don't particularly care about that. I think eclipse has the upper hand in that stuff, as that's what it was designed to be in the first place, unlike Netbeans, which was designed to be a Java IDE.

      --
      find ~your -name '*base* | xargs chown :us
    4. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by trendzetter · · Score: 2, Informative

      Netbeans is real cool for webdevelopment. While I have been wrestling for days to get Eclipse installed with the right plugins I just got going in less than then minutes with Netbeans.

    5. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by characterZer0 · · Score: 1

      Lack of platform applications means little. The point of an IDE is to create applications with it, not on top of it.

      --
      Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
    6. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by binarylarry · · Score: 1

      You should check out Eclipse for your vim/emacs pangs.

      Eclipse: There's a plugin for that!

      --
      Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
    7. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by Deth_Master · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think that might be part of the reason I don't like Eclipse. I don't get the functionality I want without customizing the crap out of it. That might be useful for some, but not for me. I like power, but I also like convention, so long as it follows the convention I use.

      --
      find ~your -name '*base* | xargs chown :us
    8. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know I was always a IDEA guy and then switched to eclipse, well I did a project that required us to do some JAX-RS work and they where using Netbeans, Wow just wow, I was converted, I think allot of people have overlooked Netbeans a a web development platform and it is ashamed. With it's tooling for JAX-RS and support for the major JavaScript tool kits building a AJAX front end that communicates to REST services is as easy as RAILS, PHP, Dijango or Groovey or any of the other rapid development frameworks yet uses Java for the service back end.

    9. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by multi+io · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yes, both Netbeans and Eclipse are also RCP platforms, but how many real Netbeans platform apps are there?

      Well, with Eclipse, the IDE is pretty good, but the RCP platform -- not so much. It's quite obvious that this thing was designed to write Eclipse (IDE) plugins. For writing standalone applications, the whole approach seems overengineered. OSGI doesn't buy you much in that context, and one doesn't want to turn every small standalone app into a kind of mini-Eclipse, with simple things like command shortcuts and editor selection synchronizations being handled by 5 plugins interacting in complex ways. And then the whole SWT/native-UI-toolkit thing is bound to bite you at some point, e.g. if you're trying to have a table control with varying row heights, for God's sake.

    10. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by binarylarry · · Score: 1

      True enough, which is why they've started distributing Eclipse "distros" tailored for certain purposes.

      Like Java, Java EE, C/C++, PHP, etc, etc.

      The great part is if you end up need one of the other feature sets, it's only a click away.

      --
      Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
    11. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, both Netbeans and Eclipse are also RCP platforms, but how many real Netbeans platform apps are there?
      Well, apart from VisualVM which is a very nice profiling tool (and even included in the JDK these days) you also have the Java ME SDK (version 3.0).

      But most of all, if you would have bothered to check the NetBeans website you would have found the platform showcase. So to answer your question about how many real applications: dozens, as you can see for yourself.

      Not to flame; but your comments about Eclipse vs. NetBeans would have had much more impact if you would actually have done some real investigating of your own.

    12. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by binarylarry · · Score: 1

      Equinox (the osgi implementation) and the core runtime is pretty lightweight. Not tiny mind you, but you're talking like a megabyte or so.

      I'd be interested in seeing a better plugin application framework, I work with Eclipse's and I think it's pretty damn perfect.

      Oh and my eclipse application doesn't include SWT/JFace or any of that stuff. :)

      --
      Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
    13. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by Joseph+Lam · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Netbeans isn't there in terms of industry backing and support (which is what we hope Oracle will provide). As far as the software itself is concerned I find it to be at least as good if not better than Eclipse. It's been significantly improved over the last couple of years from version 4.x to 6.x. There are two things that I like it better than Eclipse:
      - it's 100% Java and runs fine on anything that has a JVM (Eclipse's SWT has platform specific dependencies which prevented me from using it on 64bit machines, it took ages for it to have proper x64 support)
      - better developer experience because of a cleaner and sensibly chosen set of plug-ins that all work out-of-the-box with no dependency hell (Eclipse plug-ins is a mess unless you pay for commercially packaged versions like MyEclipse)

    14. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, IGV seems to be partially a netbeans app - and I've been using that at work.

    15. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by Joseph+Lam · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There is a Vi bindings plug-in for Netbeans
      http://netbeans.org/kb/55/vi-integration.html

    16. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I for one welcome this approach. First thing on the list to dump, MS Word. Let's follow that with Word Perfect, Works, etc...

      The only thing in the same sort of vein that I'd leave alone is Adobe Illustrator. Though Scribus is getting closer, they're really the only way to do real print work. And if you're not printing it, keep it all text. in 90% of cases, there's no reason for the extra heft that is Word, it's just used 'cause it's what people think they need but it's a heck of a sledge hammer for normal text docs or even HTML work (notepad and vim are still my favourites for HTML/JS/CSS editing, both professionally and personally.

    17. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by kaffiene · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      That's just rubbish. I moved to NB from Eclipse because NB works better for me (and not just for J2EE, either, most of my work is client-side)

    18. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Unfortunately for Netbeans zealots, it has never caught up with Eclipse.

      It depends. In terms of how easy it is to create, say, an UI application, NetBeans is much better out of the box than Eclipse, especially its awesome visual Swing designer. I've also found J2ME development to be more of a breeze in NetBeans compared to Eclipse offerings.

      The problem with Eclipse, it seems, is that it overemphasizes extensions to the point that, to do anything useful, you need some mix of extensions. And often there are several extensions available that do the same thing differently, so you have to pick. So it's kinda like Linux - it's pointless to debate it in general, because the specific experience really depends on one's set of extensions used.

      NetBeans is much more of a "turnkey" approach - you download the full version, install it, and everything that it can do, is there and working. If you want web or J2EE development, you get the full stack of servers, too. In that, it's much closer to Visual Studio in approach (which may be a good or a bad thing depending on your perspective).

    19. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by jma05 · · Score: 1

      > Oh and my eclipse application doesn't include SWT/JFace or any of that stuff. :)

      Then your application probably isn't an RCP application but rather an OSGi application.

    20. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by Hurricane78 · · Score: 1

      Who came up with all that "platform" and "framework" shit? Someone with the motto "less modularity, less freedom, more lock-in!"?

      I refuse to use everything that calls itself a development "platform" or a "framework". Please give me plain properly modularized and separated libraries!

      I would never even come up with using my coding IDE as a runtime-library-kinda-thing! I mean how fucked up is that? If it were Microsoft, we would all smite it in the "two minutes hate" each day! ;)

      But I see it positive: I have the freedom to not use it. And thereby gain an advantage over all the "enterprise consultants" who use that stuff. Which is pretty nice of them, actually... :)

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
    21. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by blind+biker · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I like Netbeans because it's easy to use. Perhaps Eclipse is useful for super-uber-professional programmers, but I do think Netbeans is the IDE for the rest of us. I like how everything seems to be self-explained and intuitive.

      --
      "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
    22. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by Zalbik · · Score: 2, Interesting

      ost stuff follows the convention over configuration principle. At least that's the way it seems to me

      I think you may be misinterpreting the "convention over configuration" principle. It is exactly the principle that Eclipse follows.

      Convention over configuration means that if you are doing standard stuff, no configuration is required. If you want to do non-standard stuff, you need to configure it. This is why there are so many configuration options in Eclipse. 99.9% of them you don't need unless you are doing something unconventional.

      Netbeans seems to follow the "My way or the highway" principle. You either squeeze yourself into the Netbeans box, or don't use it.

    23. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by rho · · Score: 1

      Who is using Netbeans?

      Is there any major Internet site or technology that relies on it?

      This sounds like the kind of announcement that will make two or three dozen Netbeans programmers gnash their teeth, and everybody else go, "....so?"

      --
      Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
    24. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > How many NetBeans RCP platform apps

      quite a lot. some examples are found at :
          http://platform.netbeans.org/screenshots.html

    25. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lack of platform support means quite alot. It means that you can't leverage/use the same underlying substrate that the IDE itself uses - all those services that allow you to create an IDE.

      Bottom line if you don't have the platform part is that you have to build all that stuff yourself.

      That's why you see so much support for other languages in NetBeans. They can re-use the underlying platform and use the editor, syntax highlighters, various property sheets, storage mechanisms, etc.

      That's the advantage of having a platform - your app can use the same facilities as the IDE if you want.

    26. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by farble1670 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Unfortunately for Netbeans zealots, it has never caught up with Eclipse.

      that's an opinion that i'm guessing has either to do with how you use your IDE, or the fact that you haven't used netbeans in a while. i use both. i use netbeans for java / java EE development, and eclipse for android development (since netbeans doesn't have officially blessed android plugin).

      leaving out the lack of an official android plugin, netbeans beats eclipse in every way. ease of use, plugins, stability, ease of install, flexibility, standards. the only thing i can say bad about netbeans is that it uses more resources that eclipse ...

    27. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by HalWasRight · · Score: 1

      Emacs key binding support in Eclipse is part of the standard distros, no plugin required. It isn't perfect, but its good enough when combined with Eclipse's awesome autocomplete and xref features.

      --
      "This mission is too important to allow you to jeopardize it." -- HAL
    28. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by binarylarry · · Score: 1

      Nope, it uses the eclipse plugin system and other core resources.

      --
      Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
    29. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by Max+Littlemore · · Score: 1

      JDeveloper's functionality should be ported to Eclipse

      I'm sorry, I'm going to have to shoot you.

      --
      I don't therefore I'm not.
    30. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unfortunately for Netbeans zealots, it has never caught up with Eclipse.

      Do Eclipse advocates REALLY have enough room to throw 'zealot' around?

    31. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by devman · · Score: 1

      I agree with you on the point that Eclipse can be complicated, but if there is one thing in Eclipse that really shines its Mylyn and Issue tracking integration. Being able to "switch tasks" and have it remember what you were looking at is pretty awesome, or being able to tag a bug with a Mylyn context, its pretty cool.

    32. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by Bacon+Bits · · Score: 1

      If 99.9% of the time I don't need to configure Eclipse, how come whenever I try to use it I have to mess with the configuration for an hour or two and even then I'm still fighting with the damn thing to get it to behave in a manner I consider sane? Grandparent knows exactly what he's talking about when he says Eclipse doesn't correctly favor convention over configuration. Time was I thought I hated IDEs and swore by plain text editors. Turns out I just hate Eclipse. The IDE should not be more arcane than the language I'm trying to program with.

      Hey, maybe things have changed in the last 5-6 years, but somehow I really doubt it.

      --
      The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
    33. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by smartr · · Score: 1

      If by convention you mean always using CVS and having some flashback to the 90's, then yes, Eclipse has a wonderful convention. Setting up svn on Eclipse can be a royal pain in the ass, and don't even dare delve into fancy Maven plugins. Ant builds will always be the one true way. Throw in IBM's nightmarish fleecing of java swing for swt, and little conspiracies will start to flare up in your head. There are some very powerful plugins on Eclipse that Netbeans won't match like BIRT, but there is a painful path to serious development on Eclipse. Netbeans pretty much gets you up and operating in no time. The plugin architecture for Netbeans is straightforward and crossplatform. IMHO, the bottom line is Netbeans is vastly better when it comes to convention, while Eclipse provides better customization after you blindly jump off several cliffs.

    34. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by l3v1 · · Score: 1

      Oracle should let Netbeans drift off into open source land. Perhaps it'll thrive? I don't know.

      I fear that a Netbeans drifted into opensource land would become another Eclipse. Nothing wrong with that except I don't like Eclipse and I do like Netbeans 6.x, and I'm not alone.

      --
      I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
    35. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Take a look at http://platform.netbeans.org/screenshots.html and some of the vendors building NetBeans RCP apps - Boeing, Northrop Grumman, U.S. Army Ballistics Research Laboratory. These are not organizations you make stuff up about and post on the web.

    36. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Yes, both Netbeans and Eclipse are also RCP platforms, but how many real Netbeans platform apps are there?"

      http://platform.netbeans.org/screenshots.html

      That's the tip of the iceberg, since most companies don't like talking publicly about their software architecture.

    37. Re:Netbeans just isn't there by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ok, so *how* can it be flamebait to mention that I moved to NB from Eclipse? That's just a simple statement of fact.

      That's just abuse of moderation.

  5. That's the power of open source by iamacat · · Score: 3, Informative

    If Oracle is not interested, other people/companies will carry on the development. In general Sun customers should be applauding the foresight of the company to make pretty much every peace of their hardware and software Open Source and compare their situation to that of Peoplesoft or Siebel customers. Even if everything Sun is killed off tomorrow, it would still be possible to manufacture Sparc-based servers running Solaris and with applications developed using Java and Netbeans.

    1. Re:That's the power of open source by krelian · · Score: 1

      In reality the only free IDE's that manage to rival Visual Studio (at least to some extent) are those that are backed by big companies: Eclipse (IBM) and Netbeans (Sun). Your average sourceforge IDE project (and there are many) offer no where near the functionality of those two. With lose of the backing by Sun it is very likely that Netbeans will stagnate behind.

  6. JDeveloper is great... by wandazulu · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...if you want to interact with Oracle products. I tried really hard to use it, even using it as both a Java IDE and a PL/SQL IDE and, while yes, it does work, I found it too slow and clunky to just "bang out some code" when you need to write up a throwaway program really really fast.

    But, like I said, if you want total interaction with your database or app server (assuming that app server is oc4j), then I suppose, if you have to use only a single tool, I guess, well, shrug, I guess it's better than nothing...I guess.

    1. Re:JDeveloper is great... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why the fuck would you use Java to write throwaway scripts?

      Is it because, as a Java developer, you don't know Perl, Python or even Ruby?

    2. Re:JDeveloper is great... by fbjon · · Score: 1

      Because throwaway != script.

      --
      True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
  7. It's the database, stupid. by Animats · · Score: 1, Insightful

    MySQL matters. NetBeans, not so much. Most of the web runs on MySQL. There aren't that many good open-source alternatives. (Oracle owns BerkeleyDB, too.) PostgreSQL is about it, and because that's Berkeley-licensed code, not GPL, it can be forked and the open version abandoned.

    Oracle has to dump something. I'm surprised they kept the SPARC line alive. It just doesn't seem to be necessary any more, and it was a money drain for Sun.

    1. Re:It's the database, stupid. by mbrod · · Score: 3, Interesting

      They shouldn't be allowed to own MySQL. Europe should shut that down and they should spin it off.

    2. Re:It's the database, stupid. by shogarth · · Score: 3, Insightful

      SPARC is still quite relevant; there are few things as nice as running a multi-threaded set of applications on the Sun Niagara chips. If I were a database software outfit I would want to make sure there were two architectures out there (IBM POWER and something else) focusing on enterprise performance rather than media creation/encoding.

      Take a look. Is there anything in the Intel or AMD product pipeline that will get you 2 x 10 Gb ethernet, 64 thread pipelines, and 128 GB of RAM in a 1U box? Even better, the price is really competative with buying the same performance worth of x86 gear in multiple boxes by the time you think about rack space, cooling networking and all the rest of the data center head aches.

    3. Re:It's the database, stupid. by CannonballHead · · Score: 1

      They shouldn't be allowed to own MySQL

      Er, why? And from what I understand, the code is GPL'd, right? So they own it kinda in the same way RedHat owns RedHat Linux? (the answer to "why" may be found in educating me just what Oracle owns now, too, hehe...)

    4. Re:It's the database, stupid. by dingen · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm surprised they kept the SPARC line alive. It just doesn't seem to be necessary any more, and it was a money drain for Sun.

      Well actually, the most common platform for Oracle deployment is Solaris on SPARC. So it doesn't seem so strange to me that Oracle isn't ditching their most used hardware platform now that they own it.

      --
      Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
    5. Re:It's the database, stupid. by petermgreen · · Score: 1

      Er, why? And from what I understand, the code is GPL'd, right?
      Right!

      So they own it kinda in the same way RedHat owns RedHat Linux?
      Wrong!

      Redhat probably have complete ownership of some apps (not sure what their contributor rules are like for say rpm) but most of them they either don't own any of the code in an app at all or they only own some of the code (which doesn't really get you much except the ability to reuse the code they own in other projects). So afaict other than the brand and it's associate reputation they own little of significance.

      Mysql (the division of sun and before that the company) takes pains to make sure that all the code in mysql (the database) is either owned by them or by third parties they have propriety licensing agreements with. This means that they are the only company who can sell (or in some cases give, see php for example) you a license to link the mysql libraries with non-gpl software*. Afaict selling such licenses is mysql's main revenue source. So a fork would struggle to make any income and could not be used for propietry apps.

      *This is based on the FSFs interpretation of the GPL but unless we see court cases in a number of countries showing otherwise the safe thing for a buisness to do is to follow said interpretation.

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
    6. Re:It's the database, stupid. by SEE · · Score: 1

      And Europe just did.

    7. Re:It's the database, stupid. by CannonballHead · · Score: 1

      So you might argue that the inability to power proprietary apps with MySQL's GPL code is encouraging non-proprietary apps to be created, instead? ;)

    8. Re:It's the database, stupid. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't forget about Firdbird. A more open license than MySQL, easily embedded like Sqlite except with way better performance.

      Actually, I haven't found any database that's as efficient as Firebird at b-tree indexing (it's the fastest I have seen at creating/dropping indexes and they take up very little space).

    9. Re:It's the database, stupid. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >>you a license to link the mysql libraries with non-gpl software*

      Who links to a database? There may be small database driver (which I assume could be replaced with non-gpl'd code), but isn't most of the work done over at the other side of a network connection? Using that logic alone, if there was a GPL'd web server only GPL'd web browsers would be allowed to connect to it. I'm not trying being snide, but I've never heard of the viral nature of GPL'd code extending between two different client and server apps across a network.

    10. Re:It's the database, stupid. by petermgreen · · Score: 1

      At least with mysql the normal way to communicate with it is to link with the client libraries they supply.

      I guess someone could write alternative client libraries and/or a bridge process to some other protocol so the app didn't have to link against any mysql code but i'm not aware of any such projects.

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
  8. Consider the source. by tomhudson · · Score: 3, Insightful

    TFA is quoting Gartner. When is the last time Gartner got something right? It's full of weasel words. Lots of "If ..."

    Read what Oracle wrote. They're not abandoning NetBeans.

    What are Oracle's plans for NetBeans?

    Oracle has a strong track record of demonstrating commitment to choice for Java developers. As such, NetBeans is expected to provide an additional open source option and complement to the two free tools Oracle already offers for enterprise Java development: Oracle JDeveloper and Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse. While Oracle JDeveloper remains Oracle's strategic development tool for the broad portfolio of Oracle Fusion Middleware products and for Oracle's next generation of enterprise applications, developers will be able to use whichever free tool they are most comfortable with for pure Java and Java EE development: JDeveloper, Enterprise Pack for Eclipse, or NetBeans.

    Fuck Gartner. Fuck them in the heart.

    1. Re:Consider the source. by Deth_Master · · Score: 1

      I think that's fairly non-committal, which is what the slashdot summary stated.
      Most of the comments state that they're missing out on something by not throwing their full weight behind Netbeans.
      Then again, Oracle could just be waiting to see what they're gonna do...

      --
      find ~your -name '*base* | xargs chown :us
    2. Re:Consider the source. by tomhudson · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What's non-committal about "NetBeans is expected to provide an additional open source option and complement to the two free tools Oracle already offers for enterprise Java development"

      They say the same thing about OpenOffice, They expect netbeans to continue to remain a viable tool. Their history shows that they don't just throw tech out after spending money to buy it. Example: They didn't kill off InnoDB. they said virtually the same thing for OpenOffice

      Oracle has a history of developing complete, integrated, and open products, making integration quicker and less costly for our customers. Based on the open ODF standard, OpenOffice is expected to create a compelling desktop integration bridge for our enterprise customers and offers consumers another choice on the desktop. After the transaction closes, Oracle plans to continue developing and supporting OpenOffice as open source.

      NetBeans, OO, and MySQL are going to be open source projects under Oracles' roof. Being open source, it's not like Oracle can kill off any of them. They may not throw much financial or other muscle behind netbeans, but they don't have to for it to continue. If it were a closed-source product, that would be a different story. It's not. The only thing that can kill it is user disinterest.

      In other words, Gartner are just trolling, like always.

    3. Re:Consider the source. by Joseph+Lam · · Score: 1

      The only thing that can kill it is user disinterest.

      But Oracle's lack of R&D commitment can cause user disinterest.

    4. Re:Consider the source. by Red+Flayer · · Score: 1

      In other words, Gartner are just trolling, like always.

      It's not "just" trolling... some of their "analysis" is bought and paid for. You think companies get into their "leaders quadrant" without laying out the substantial subscription fees to Gartner?

      --
      "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
    5. Re:Consider the source. by tomhudson · · Score: 1

      The only thing that can kill it is user disinterest.

      But Oracle's lack of R&D commitment can cause user disinterest.

      If users stop contributing, then it dies out. As long as users are still interested in netbeans being an active open-source project, it will continue whether Oracle contributes R&D or not.

    6. Re:Consider the source. by tomhudson · · Score: 1

      Very true - they got caught hyping technology as being "best-in-breed" when it wasn't even released.

      What amazes me is that anyone still listens to them, or Yankee Group, etc. Then again, the incompetent WOULD listen to the incompetent, since birds of a feather flock together ...

      Just goes to show that the Peter Principle is alive and well, I guess.

    7. Re:Consider the source. by Hurricane78 · · Score: 1

      Seconded! They are the kind of people called "opinion creators". Usually they work for someone who wants to twist reality to his favor.

      So fuck them! With a spoon!

      Why a spoon?

      BECAUSE IT HURTS MORE! ^^

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
  9. TFA misses the point. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is not their first acquisition of a Java IDE (Or even their first JDK for that matter...)

    Post-purchase they found themselves with two different Java IDEs, didn't see themselves supporting both, and picked the stronger of the two.

    *shrug*

  10. What JDeveloper really misses.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ..is some effing stability. Try using it, it's the biggest POS in the history of excrement. It caches all sorts of things it shouldn't cache, requires frequent restarting and even requires manual deletion of forgotten files every once in a while. No one in their right mind would want to use this for anything. Ever.

  11. IDEA is now open source by TheOldBear · · Score: 1

    Back in October, JetBrains announced that they were making Idea 'Community Edition' open source, covered by the Apache 2.0 license.

    --
    Caution: Do not stare into laser with remaining eye.
  12. Re:Netbeans has tons of platform apps by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    It looks like someone didn't bother to check the NetBeans platform application showcase where there are so many platform apps that they had to categorize them:

    http://platform.netbeans.org/screenshots.html

  13. Re:Oracle has declared war on IBM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oracle has declared war on IBM:

    http://www.oracle.com/features/suncustomers.html

    I wouldn't be surprised if Oracle announces that they will invest more money in NetBeans than Sun currently does and put less focus on their Eclipse plugins.

  14. As if Oracle cares... by Angst+Badger · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I hate to belabor the obvious here, but Oracle is not terribly concerned with what developers think about them. There are two reasons companies buy Oracle licenses: they either absolutely have to have them, or someone much further up the chain than the developers -- at least in most companies -- thinks that they do. From the altitude in the org chart where those decisions are made, there's no difference between us and the janitors.

    --
    Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
  15. Am I the only one... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've been using Netbeans since about version 5, exclusively over Eclipse. It is far simpler to set up, a hell of a lot less buggy, and handles remotely hosted projects far better, and blew away over Eclipse's web development plugins in a single version or so (from 5 to 6.5 it took over Eclipse's web plugins, some of which aren't free, and have been developed at for years and years), where as before it had nothing. Even larg-ish webapp projects can kill Eclipse if they aren't local, code completion and lookups lead to outright halts for up to minutes, where as Netbeans seems to happily index the remote files in the a background process and thereafter code completion is very snappy, it's depth of lookup is better than Eclipse as well.
    Netbeans is far and away a better managed project than Eclipse, which gets more out of hand with every version, and it shows, it's far more polished. Also Netbeans runs faster, and looks nicer on any system I've put it on, despite being not SWT(which is an un-needed mess in itself) like Eclipse. I know it will never, ever, have the extensibility or community of Eclipse, but that's not the be all-end all of an IDE.

    1. Re:Am I the only one... by durdur · · Score: 1

      Early versions of NetBeans really, really sucked. It has come a long away. But I think it was too long getting there and Eclipse and other IDEs got mindshare and market share. Right now there are virtually zero Oracle customers who are going to defect to someone else because they don't have NetBeans support. There are some that want Eclipse very badly (mostly those that are not pure Oracle shops but use WebSphere too). So it's a no-brainer for them. There's no payback to them supporting 3 IDEs (NetBeans and Eclipse and JDeveloper, until/unless they converge).

    2. Re:Am I the only one... by mrcleaver · · Score: 1

      I agree with everything you said except the 'speed' part.

      Eclipse in my experience is consistently faster than Netbeans (at least for small projects, any big project I do in Netbeans).

  16. Oracle is a big Eclipse supporter too - OEPE by jambay · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Disclaimer - I work for Oracle and came from the BEA Systems acquisition.

    My personal opinion is that Oracle is very dedicated to the entire Eclipse ecosystem as well as to JDeveloper. It's about choice. There is an entire free download product that is continually being enhanced called the Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse (Oh-Pee is how we say it within Oracle). In fact I believe it was one of the first, if not the first commercial IDE to support the latest Eclipse 3.5 Galileo. http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/enterprise-pack-for-eclipse/index.html OEPE is targeted for Java and JEE developers and is mostly about supporting the Java standards. Additionally, the majority of the TopLink code was donated as the EclipseLink project and is currently the JPA reference implementation. Just take a look at the presence has at the next Eclipse conference and I think you will see that Oracle is committed to Eclipse. http://www.eclipse.org/eclipselink/

    When you get into the "upper-stack" components like SOA Suite for integration and WebCenter Suite for enterprise portal development, and Oracle's Application Development Framework (ADF) that Oracle strongly recommends JDeveloper. Those products have been based on JDeveloper for a long time and the user-experience developing for those products is extremely smooth because Oracle can influence everything about the IDE. If you want to do Java and JEE development in JDeveloper, you can do that too. It's your choice.

    1. Re:Oracle is a big Eclipse supporter too - OEPE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Look, when we're bashing someone around here you're not supposed to drop by and defend yourselves. Those are the rules, and by breaking them you're disrupting the entire bash-orgy, ok?

    2. Re:Oracle is a big Eclipse supporter too - OEPE by binarylarry · · Score: 1

      Don't worry about it.

      The only thing that's ever stopped an orgy is a bigger orgy somewhere across town!

      --
      Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
    3. Re:Oracle is a big Eclipse supporter too - OEPE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is dedicated - but JDeveloper is not Eclipse.
      NetBeans support Java EE (5 & 6), SOA, UML, etc
      I am unaware that it supports ADF ... but then who uses ADF ... only Oracle.
      NetBeans goes beyond merely supporting Java EE - it also supports a bunch
      of non-Java EE frameworks - like Hibernate, Spring, Struts, etc.
      and of course there is a Visual Web (JSF) framework.
      Lots more....

  17. Either? Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    IMO both Netbeans and Eclipse are a waste of time. What is the point of an IDE that can't even get basic text editing UI right?

  18. IDEs out-competing each other for bloat by syousef · · Score: 1

    If you ask me all the IDEs are getting bloated to the point where I think in 2-3 years you're going to need a 64 Bit environment with 8GB or more of RAM just to develop. (Where I am we find Weblogic development using Eclipse is getting slow on 32bit machines with 2GB RAM is getting...difficult) There is some attempt to address this with each IDE by making the platform extensible, and component/plugin based. Unfortunately to do even basic things you end up finding yourself stuck needing a long list of plugins, so whilst this is theoretically a fantastic move, in practice you're still left with a bloated environment. If you need support for multiple languages or environments you find the plugin architecture is no help at all for preventing bloat. (It's still great for adding features).

    --
    These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
    1. Re:IDEs out-competing each other for bloat by fusiongyro · · Score: 1

      I think (as a new Java developer) that a big part of Java's success lies in the IDE. We have to put the complexity somewhere. Some languages put it in the library, some into the language itself, and Java definitely puts a lot of it into the IDE. I find it hard to imagine needing or wanting or even being able to provide this kind of experience to a malleable language like Ruby or a terse language like Haskell. But for Java it really makes a big difference to use a bloated IDE.

  19. Java Plugin? by HRbnjR · · Score: 1

    Oracle plans to not only broaden and accelerate its own investment in the Java platform, but also plans to increase the commitment to the community that helps make Java an ubiquitous, innovative platform unified around open standards.

    Does that mean Sun will now stop reneging on their promise to open source the new Java plugin? http://blogs.sun.com/darcy/entry/openjdk_and_the_new_plugin

  20. What are you talking about? by jotaeleemeese · · Score: 2, Informative

    Do you know what the high end Sparc machines can do?

    I am sure that the terminology does not even exist in Intel-AMD processors, because they simply can't scale in the same way. You would have to look perhaps at IBM or HP.

    Certainly an SPARC desktop will be soon a thing of the past, but in the high end arena SPARC can't be touched.

    --
    IANAL but write like a drunk one.
  21. Maisons du verre by Hognoxious · · Score: 0, Troll

    Says the man who is too lazy to spell out "that is" and "it is".

    You think he's bad? I went to France once. What a bunch of lazy bastards with all with all their cheesy l' garbage. Perhaps if the socialist bastards would work more than 20 hours a week maybe they'd have time to spell out le and la in full.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  22. Calling Bulls@#t on this. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Netbeans wont die. Not today, not tomorrow. If Netbeans would die tomorrow, it wouldnt move to a new infrastructure now ...

  23. Re:NetBeans? Really? I tried it, it's decent stuff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've taken a peek @ it in my return to Academia this year to learn more "modern stuff" beyond .NET, which I have used in the workplace professionally, & I went the "JAVA ROAD", to mainly "see how the other 1/2 lives" AND most importantly, to learn something NEW!

    (Which makes it harder on me, by far in doing a "new language" & one that STRONGLY reminds me of C++ which is probably HOW I am "surviving it" (lol, it's hard, but A+ in 1 class, & C+/B- in other JAVA section (taking 2 @ once, not easy really, especially with no direct JAVA experience before on my part)), but it's worth doing because @ this point I actually LIKE Java (not for performance, but rather for the fact that "you write it once, you can run it anywhere" that it is largely about, alongside data protection in objects since it is "OOP"))

    Anyhow/anyways:

    Usually, in class? Well... we do projects & labs programs using tools like JGrasp &/or TextPad (which are PRIMITIVE by comparison to other dev environs of course, but, they do "DO THE JOB" of course) usually.

    Now, some of the "younger folks" (who are OUTRIGHT AMAZING imo, because the young programmer of TODAY is a HELL OF A LOT BETTER THAN THE GUYS WERE MY AGE TYPICALLY, when I got into this stuff 15++ yrs. ago - then again, they've also (a couple of them) been @ it for 15++ yrs. already too, starting from the age of 5-6 from what they have told me... amazing really, ah.. anyhow). Those same "young guys", who impress the hell out of me in class, have "turned me on" to NetBeans... & know what?

    I LIKE IT!

    (It's as close to doing what I am used to, which was RAD tools like Borland Delphi, Borland C++ Builder, VB 3-6, & .NET in Visual Studio is why - not THAT "far apart" as far as learning to build GUI style apps in JAVA, vs. doing charactermode/consolemode/tty terminal type apps in JGrasp or TextPad only (man, that's like returning back to 1990 & below imo, but, it is how the coursework is implemented, & I am just a "rookie" in JAVA too, so I have to start w/ "the fundamentals" I suppose, anyhow!)

    Anyhow - it'd be a shame to see what amounts to a pretty "well-polished tool" in NetBeans, imo @ least, just "fade out into the nothing" & disappear... because though you guys may know better about JAVA & what IDE's + tools are out there for it? I think NetBeans is pretty damned impressive, & especially for a FREE PRODUCT!

    APK

    P.S.=> It happens though (good things 'dying off'), this is life, after all... I'd just hate to see it happen! I've seen Eclipse, but I have not "put my hands on it & used it", so it very well MAY be "all that" as those of you here who 'raved on it' seemed to give me that impression of, but... again, haven't used it myself, but I have used NetBeans & it's really decent imo! apk

  24. Yes, true. by gbutler69 · · Score: 1

    But, you do realize that something that is BSD licensed can also be forked into a GPL version? Simply keep the BSD license notifications and ALL future additions to the fork are licensed GPL/LGPL, GLPv3 etc. You now have a GPL fork. So, if someone (who by the way?) abandons the BSD licensed version and begins solely working on a proprietary fork, the rest of the community can simply take the last BSD licensed version, create a GPL fork, and lock-out future proprietary forks and prevent the proprietary company from using the now GPL contributions to the GPL fork in their proprietary product.

    --
    Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
  25. Re:NetBeans? Really. by Max+Littlemore · · Score: 1

    Yeah, NetBeans is not used all that much. Eclipse is used a lot more in the real world where consultants get paid more if they spend longer doing basic project/environment setup and waiting for the UI to come back.

    Of course for anyone who wants a quick and feature rich IDE, you can't go past newer versions of NetBeans. I am thankful that more recently I have been in a position to say "I am using NetBeans, even if all you idiots settled on Eclipse" and it has worked out quite well.

    Of course, Eclipse will drop off in popularity, developers will look at critisism and improve it and in another 5 years Eclipse will be the better IDE with smaller market share.

    JDeveloper should be dropped, IMO. It doesn't offer any real advantage over anything else out there, and suffers in comparison to NetBeans and Eclipse for most tasks. Oracle could be missing a great opportunity here...

    --
    I don't therefore I'm not.
  26. Zembly by fatp · · Score: 1

    Seems zembly is the first victim...

    http://zembly.com/static/suspend/index.html

  27. Why is this a shocker? by Eskarel · · Score: 1

    Oracle is internally, as I understand it, an eclipse shop. They always have been. They've got Jbuilder for some specific applications, but for the most part it's eclipse all the way. Sun has tried a number of times to change this, but it's never worked, Oracle just doesn't like NetBeans much. When you combine that with the fact that it's not a hugely popular product(it's a lot more limited and a lot less powerful than eclipse) it's not really a huge shocker they're not going to pour resources into it. They're already working heavily with the eclipse project(including donating a rather large chunk of source code to them) and of course JBuilder as well. Maintaining a third IDE which they don't believe in and don't seem to particularly like and which isn't tremendously popular wouldn't really be terribly sensible of them.

    On the plus side for all you NetBeans fans out there, it's all open source and it's all written in Java so you can all get together and maintain it yourself(if you're using NetBeans you're almost certainly a Java developer so there's no excuse). If it's not worth it to you, learn to use Eclipse like everyone else. It's a bitch to set up, but it's incredibly powerful.

  28. Re:NetBeans? Really? I tried it, it's decent stuff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    dude, everyone of your posts is a nightmare to read. There are words for signs like & that you can use, you know? Use them.

  29. Re:NetBeans? Really? I tried it, it's decent stuff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't have trouble reading what he wrote. You should take your medication for treating your reading disability.

  30. If you think you compete then go ahead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Setting up a company to compete with an open source based company isn't trivial.

    Shuttleworth had poured millions into Canonical and Ubuntu. Now, close to ten years down the line things are looking good. If you think that it is a simple task to take the GPL'd code and get support contracts for your 'new' product then go right ahead and do it.

    The GPL provides just a basic mechanism to help ensure a competitive market place. Branding will keep you out of the race. Ownership of the company which owns the process behind the product offers another huge hurdle. You also need laws to prevent anti competitive practice. Oracle owning the company mysql is anti competitive and it should be stoppped.

  31. Re:NetBeans? Really? I tried it, it's decent stuff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why dont you learn to read instead of handing anyone here a pile of steaming maneur that is only merely your personal opinion. I read what he wrote perfectly and I understood it perfecty too. It is apparent that you cannot recognize that it is you with the problem here or that you have nothing better to do than troll others. Take your pick, and good day.

  32. Ohhh Nooo - Software Terrorism NOOOO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is sad, I hope you all see this as a very negative move. As a Java developer and fan of the Sun set of java products, I am deeply sadden.

    Sun and Netbeans were already going downhill after they stopped supporting great features such as IceFaces Visual Design integration, and development of woodstock. If you think this was bad, wait for Oracle to do what they do best. I feel even worse for some of the other products such as MySQL. This is Software Terrorism at its best. (I am sure many of you follow Oracle CPU updates for it's DB product, this will give you an indication for what's ahead)

    Rob.