IBM Releases VisualAge for Linux Preview

KilgourTrout writes "The original story was released earlier this month, but IBM has put a new spin on things - From an IBM newsletter: "Now, it's time to vote with your mouse finger. Download the code today and you'll do your part to convince us that there is a market for this product."" You can visit the web site and download it if you're interested in that whole Java thing.

Comments

All Java IDEs are bad

[Anonymous Coward]

I've tried many of them. Visual Age, Symantec, JBuilder, etc.....

Visual Age was solid, but it is EXTREMELY slow. You need a monster to run it confortably. It's also a little overkill when you don't need any RAD features.. you know, when you just want to code? :)

Symantec Cafe... yuk. My least favorite. Crashes all the time.

JBuilder was the one I used for the longest while, but I got really tired of being able to see only one window at a time. Plus the UI for its RAD features is really crude, although I don't use that.

Now, I'm using Ultraedit, my partner is using Textpad, two fine editors. We compile and debug directly with the JDK, and we've never been happier! I must say though that we're not the people that do the bean development/testing on our project. We write the low level stuff, so good editors are enough.

Can't wait to see if Visual Age is faster on Linux (from what I've heard it is). It really seemed to be a solid IDE, just so slow...

On Windows, there is still not a Java IDE that matches the equivalent of VC++ for C/C++ (my personal favorite).

Peace!

Re:jfc 1.0.3, they must be kidding!!!!!!!!!

[bdrasin]

It is not possible to use swing1.1, however the API has not changed much from 1.0.3 which is included. You should try the following (which worked for me):

in VisualAge Java, make a project called "JDK1.2 kluge". In this project, make empty projects called
javax.swing
and
javax.swing.event.

Then, after the
import javax.swing.*
statements in your code, add a line:
import com.sun.java.swing.*

[ditto for the swing.event package]

then try to import the package, and chances are it will work. To compile the same project using JDK1.2, you will have to export from VisualAge (obviously). Again, make dummy packages

com.sun.java.swing
and
com.sun.java.swing.event

This will allow you to compile the same code base with either VM.

hope this helps.

bye-Ben

Large systems in emacs/vi

[Stu Charlton]

While I really like emacs, vi, gcc & gdb, can someone please tell me if a large business Java or C++ system has been developed with these tools?

I hear lots of "all Java IDEs suck, use emacs or vi", but I don't know if this is C-programmer machismo or not. Maybe you have to appreciate Smalltalk to understand why VisualAge is the way it is, and why so many people are effective in it.

Sure, it's not a great GUI designer, but I don't think Symantec Cafe generates clean GUI code either.

When not using VAJ, I use Emacs (in Viper mode :) for my Java development because it IS a great editor - however, I still find I miss the packages/classes/methods interface (and the one for Emacs wasn't very usable), as well as the incremental compile and automatic method-level version control.

I guess what I'm saying is - the typical VisualAge user probably comes from a different world from the Linux C hacker. But, they both have one thing in common: most hate Microsoft. :) VisualAger's are going to be VERY happy to use VisualAge on something other than OS/2 or AIX...

So, I think it's going to be interesting to see hordes of experienced OO developers flocking to Linux because their tool of choice has freed them from Windows. (Since object oriented design is often shied away from in the community at large..)

my 2 cents

Registration required

[alhaz]

You must first go HERE to register before you can download it.

Re:Which JDK are they using?

[bdrasin]

It uses its own VM, because it has to. VisualAge is dynamically compiled, which means that changes to the code are automatically parsed into the running application, rather than save-compile-run like most tools. For this reason, the tool needs to have special hooks in the Java engine.

Re:I wonder how long until VAC++

[sterwill]

Have you tried XEmacs? Read through some documentation on gdb and pick up a good Emacs tutorial and you'll be hacking away.

A busy session with "make", "gdb" and some interactive source-level debugging can look like this screenshot. XEmacs parses gcc's output and with a click you jump right to the warning or error.

Best yet, you can do everything with your hands on the keyboard, or you can use the mouse if you feel like it. XEmacs 21, the new beta series, also has a very nice package management system. Select a package source from the Options/Manage Packages menu and it'll retrieve them from the net and install them--modes for every language known to man.