JAVA IDE

[munnanext]

Can any body tell me which is the Best Editor to use for writing Basic Java Programs. Right now I am using Notepad but it is not that User Friendly. Would appreciate if you could direct me Good IDE Tools which are free to Down Load.

I Down Loaded NEtBeans but when I try to install the Product it says " A Suitable JVM not found. Please run the program again using the option -isjavahome <JAVA HOME DIR>

Appreciate your help on this.

 

[jemminger]

http://www.eclipse.org

=========================================================
-jeff

http://www.jeffemminger.com

try { succeed(); } catch(E) { tryAgain(); } finally { rtfm(); }

 

[stefanwagner]

I agree to jeff about eclipse (for intermediate and big projects).

For really small projects SciTE is a very nice editor.
JCreator is a small ide for intermediate projects.

However, setting JAVA_HOME in your environment is useful in general. i.e.:

set JAVA_HOME=C:\yourPath\j2sdk1.4.0\

(msconfig: autoexec.bat).

seeking a job as java-programmer in Berlin:

http://home.arcor.de/hirnstrom/bewerbung

 

[timmay3141]

Yes, eclipse was a little confusing for me at first and has a few annoying features, but it is still very good (and free!). Unfortunately I have yet to find a Java IDE that is as good as Visual Studio .NET is for C++/C# (maybe VB, never used it). If you can get a hold of VS.NET, you might consider writing and testing your code in J# because of the excellent IDE, (J# is pretty much Java), then just compile the code as actual Java when you are finished. I have about 10 minutes experience using J# though, so there may be differences that I am unaware of (could someone let me know if there is?).

 

[sedj]

Textpad or vi all the way - IDE's suck !!!

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http://www.primrose.org.uk

 

[jemminger]

IDE's suck??? can textpad or vi jump to a method definition from a call in a separate class? can it refactor for you? provide context-sensitive help?

IMHO, purists might think they're cleaner and more hardcore for not using an IDE, but a good IDE can reduce the risk of error by allowing you to choose methods from a list of valid options for your object vs you making a typo, eliminate monotonous manual boilerplate code like getters/setters in beans, provide error checking before you even compile etc...

BTW, i'm a "leet" purist too sometimes, never using a wysiwyg for html, but i love my java IDE



=========================================================
-jeff

http://www.jeffemminger.com

try { succeed(); } catch(E) { tryAgain(); } finally { rtfm(); }

 

[chiph]

I agree with timmay3141. The VS.NET IDE is incredibly productive. When I have to switch over to work on Java stuff, Eclipse is the only editor that comes close, and even it is lacking some important usability features.

Chip H.


____________________________________________________________________
If you want to get the best response to a question, please read FAQ222-2244 first

 

[k4ghg]

I find that Eclipse is too complex and has more that what I need for a simple program. I like JCreator, its good for a beginner. The IDE that I seem to keep on going back to is DrJava. Its easy and Free to use. The Java IDE by Kinabaloo Software is prety good and more colorful that DrJava. Good luck...

 

[LAMski]

You can download the java SDK + netbeans bundle in the download options for the lates J2SE SDK downloads.

Eclipse and Netbeans are decent enough for most types of development. And they're free.

 

[Diancecht]

I think that an IDE is good as long as it doesn't make things more complex than they are.

I love code completion, error checking and so on, but I sometimes need my notepad or emacs for simple things.

Dian,

 

[Custom24]

I use JDeveloper, which is not free, but then neither is VS.net, which I also use. In my opinion JDeveloper is almost as good as VS.net, and seems to have less bugs than VS.net.

Mark

 

[Exie]

I started with WSAD which is bacially the same as Eclipse (just extended a bit I think) and it's awesome. Particularly as I'm a crap programmer, it picks up all my syntax errors, does everything jemminger mentioned above.

I simply couldnt have built the 13-14 applications I done, without it. I still dont think I could use Notepad to save myself! The IDE is just too valuable. Not only for getting the job done, but also learning. I've learnt truck-loads about java syntax, struts and swing frameworks just from using the IDE.

Heck, I should probably buy a book one day, but if I can get the job done (with some help from here of course). Then I'm learning all the same.

I've never used VS.Net or J#, but thats purely because I'm microsoft hater. It may not be too bad apart from the lock-in and the bugs.

If you want to make life hard for yourself, you may as well use assembler!

 

[toolkit]

I was a complete vi evangelist until I tried Eclipse. Very good. Plus I find the JBoss IDE plugin extremely helpful:

http://www.jboss.org/products/jbosside

Cheers, Neil

 

[EBGreen]

I think there is a VI plugin for eclipse. At least there used to be.

[red]"... isn't sanity really just a one trick pony anyway?! I mean, all you get is one trick, rational thinking, but when you are good and crazy, oooh, oooh, oooh, the sky is the limit!" - The Tick[/red]

 

[haslo]

Eclipse just did huge leaps forward with 3.0. I can just join the choir of praises here...

haslo@haslo.ch - www.haslo.ch​

 

[sedj]

I use vi/textpad (depending on OS) for this reason : Years ago, when I was a noobie, IDE's did not teach you the language, and hid you from the real code. You learn better without an IDE, as it makes you THINK.

Three years on, I still think they do [hide you from the language]. "Intellisense" - whatever - its in my head - I don't need an IDE to tell me the methods in a classs - I know what I'm going to write before I start typing. IDE's just abstract you from what you are doing - and if you need intellisense or some other tool to help you package your code, then you are either too lazy, or do not know the langauge well enough. Done now !

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http://www.primrose.org.uk

 

[haslo]

Heh, yes. You're right, in large parts. I agree wholeheartedly that it is really necessary to plan before you code. And while you code. And after you have coded, and while you're testing.

However, I am developing an application right now that has several hundred classes in several dozen packages, each of these classes having dozens of methods, and the development started 1999 (and stopped 2002, actually, but there's more and more features that people request, and since it's an in-house and rewarding tool we have a monopoly on, we keep developing what the users request).

While I know the structure of "my" part of that code, and I know what I intend to do, sometimes I just don't know if I implemented a function that returns, say, something the other class has a pointer to. So basically I don't know if I have to call myVariable.getOtherClass().getOthersElementList().get(i) and cast it or if I simply can call myVariable.getOtherClassesElement(i). In such cases, having the code pop up is a tremendous help.

And I have to admit I have not always kept to the same strict naming schemes, and refactored some stuff in the meantime, so sometimes I just don't remember how a particular function was called, just that I know the reference I'm looking for has to be in that structure somewhere. Still planned, and way faster than if I have to look at the JavaDoc.

Also, when I know that function I am looking for is in the API somewhere (like, parsing a String into an int (which is a stupid example because I know that by heart by now)), and I can guess what class it is, I can either go into my browser, look up the API documentation and read the information there, or I can simply pop up the classe's functions in my IDE and look at the JavaDoc in there.

I guess as every tool, it can help, and it can harm. It depends on what you make of it...

haslo@haslo.ch - www.haslo.ch​

 

[sedj]

haslo, I see what you are saying, and can sympathise, but I still think its an easy way out.

I guess I'm just the kind of guy that wants to knwo EXACTLY what a method is doing && returning - not just what it is returning. If I don't know, then I find out. Otherwise, you just end up making mistakes (especially if you have a huge code base).

But then, I'm the kind of person that reads the source for the java.whatver package just to see, then decides that I don't like part of the URLConnection class, and recodes it, and recompiles the SDK.......... and then realises that whilst this is an improvement, its just made my code unshippable for anyone outside of dev, so undoes the changes, and .... ah, lets leave it there !!!

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http://www.primrose.org.uk

 

[haslo]

I actually created a class JTableWithoutHeightBug ;-)

Another nice feature of an IDE is that you can jump at the Ctrl-Click of a mouse to a function in another class, and that you can (in the new Eclipse) have every occurence of a variable highlighted ina class. But well, that's possible in vi with proper plugins as well

haslo@haslo.ch - www.haslo.ch​

 

[sedj]

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Free Database Connection Pooling Software

http://www.primrose.org.uk