Which is best IDE for development 1

[Alkesh]

I am working on J2EE platform. Using WebLogic 6.1 as a Application Server. But i need a standard IDE for development ejb, servlet, jsp, Html, Script...
So friend which IDE you suggest..?
Jbuilder
JDeveloper
Visual Cafe
Or any other you are useing ...
I like to know

Regards
Alkesh Barot

 

[wushutwist]

JBuilder:
Personally I am a big fan of Jbuilder. Version 5 comes packaged with support for WebLogic 6 and a few other App Servers. JBuilder has great code insight and has less of a memory footprint than both Visual Age and Visual Cafe. It is written entirely in Java so it runs on pretty much any platform. Jbuilder has it share of quirks but at least I have never had it crash on me.

Visual Cafe:
I really dislike Visual Cafe. It is very flaky on large projects and crashes seemingly at random. Maybe it will be better when they do the rewrite in Java but right now it is a beast. It also comes equipped to work with WebLogic (considering BEA owns something like half of WebGain). Oh yeah, code insight in VC is a joke.

JDeveloper:
I haven't used this IDE since Oracle broke away from the Jbuilder codebase. Though from what I have heard, it is very good if you are working on Oracle Application Server. I doubt that it has any integration with WebLogic, though I could be wrong.

My feeling is that Jbuilder is by far the best Java IDE, though that statement may get me flamed.

Wushu "Putting on my Flamesuit now" Twist

 

[venkyboy]

Hi buddy,

Try FORTE4Java. even though it works very slow on a standard 64mb ram machine. iam very sure it will work fast on much faster machine. better than the visual cafe very much. try it out.

 

[llucifer]

Try IDEA from ItelliJ (

http://www.intellij.com).

It niclely integrates with ant and junit. For EJB development I suggest XDoclet (xdoclet.sf.net) which integrates nicles with ant and therefor with idea. Try it for yourself, the provide a full featured evaluation version. IDEA really boosted my productivity.

 

[axtec]

I like Forte 4 Java as well. The community edition is free. It is based on NetBeans, which I also like. NetBeans is an open source project. Thanks.

 

[jeanpierre]

Check this out

http://www.pramati.com/corporate/press/pressstudio25.htm

I have only played around with it. It looks positive. I will post a new thread - to gauge response of more experienced users.

 

[Guest_imported]

JBuilder 6 Enterprise
I've been using this since it was released recently having used Forte, Visual Cafe and a number of other environments.

The Borland of old had a reputation for providing the best environment and the best tools. This IDE renews that reputation in my view.

Very slick with loads of tools and wizards, excellent debugger, good layout and lots of help. Lots of things built in like XML, JDBC, J2EE AppServer, Tomcat, EJB, JSP, CORBA, JINI & RMI.

If you want a free IDE then the Forte IDE is very good, but not in the same class as JBuilder. You get what you pay for.

 

[meadandale]

Yes but don't you think that $3k+ per seat is a little excessive for a development tool?

I've been a big fan of JBuilder and use JB5 Enterprise but I can't justify upgrading even if I like the new features. It is just too damn expensive. Even the academic version is ~$500.

IMHO they would sell alot more units if they priced it more realistically. If I have a shop with 10 developers do they really expect that we are gonna shell out 30 grand for an IDE? Most of are developers will use vi and the JDK anyways.

 

[jeanpierre]

Is Forte an IDE for Java?

I could not find much documentation online - thanks.

 

[sigrney]

Here is a link to Forte For Java, a Sun product, and yes, it is definitely for Java:

http://www.sun.com/forte/ffj/overview.html

Also, I have heard some good things about an IDE from IBM called Eclipse:

http://eclipse.org/

My personal favorite right now is IDEA by Intellij:

http://www.intellij.com/

 

[jeanpierre]

Hi:

Thanks for your post.

Which edition of Eclipse do you use as the IDE for Java? I had not heard of the Eclipse consortium before - is there much vendor backing beyond the PR?

 

[rajarajan]

Hi,
Is there anyone out there to comment about IBM's VisualAge?

Regards,
Rajarajan

 

[RareJunk]

If anyone has evaluated the new Pramati Studio3.0.
Pls give ur opinion on it. Its very cheap than Jbuilder but
they boast of better features.

 

[Hattusas]

Rajarajan:
I have been developing code in Visual Age For Java.When you find out the special tricks by having experince,it is very comfortable.
But there are some serious problems
1. When you have large projects it works very slow.
2. There is a workspace file (ide.icx).This file after sometime decreases the overall perfomance.So you will have compact your repository.
3. There is the worst :I think it is impossible to upgrade the jdk version of the VM of its own.So by the time passes it will be worthless tool.A good software should allow that.

But I am wondering too.What kind IDE must I use?
I have 6 statements and the candidate software must answer all of them "YES".
Here are my statements
1. Can JDK version of the IDE be upgraded?
2. Can it be used as team (As in Visual Age)
3. Has a test envoriment to run J2EE,JNDI,Connection Pool
examples etc.?
4. Is constructing an applet or modifying a previously
built applet (even built in other IDEs) easy?
5. Does it allow us to see the classes in JDK subsystem?
6. Saving utilities.It must provide me the possibility to
return to my older versions of my java classes.It MUST
NOT overwrite.

Any recomendations will be much appreciated

Salih Sipahi
Software Engineer.
City of Istanbul Turkey
openyourmind77@yahoo.com

 

[meadandale]

Hattusas,

JBuilder does all of these things that you require.

1) JBuilder has support for different VM's. It is currently supposed to support 1.4 (has support for assert, etc).

2) JBuilder has team support via CVS integration.

3) JBuilder has Tomcat integrated and usually comes with Borland app server. This makes it easy to test your servlets and beans on the fly in your IDE.

4) JBuilder has a GUI designer tool that lets you drag and drop components and modify their properties via property sheets (using the bean aspects of the components). It is not Visual C++ but it is better than coding by hand, especially if you use GridBagLayout alot.

5) JBuilder allows you to browse source files for classes by right clicking. This includes JDK source. I use this feature ALOT to verify the contract that library classes make (i.e. how they handle NULL).

6) JBuilder has automatic backups with a variable number of backup files to save. I've had this feature save my butt before even considering the fact that we use RCS. RCS is only valuable if you are checking in your files between changes (which I usually don't do during the day).

Regards,

Charles

Of course for number 6 I think you mean java source files not compiled classes.

 

[iSeriesCodePoet]

I am trying IDEA right now... seems to work pretty good so far. I seem to like it. I will know more as I work on my program. But so far I am thinking that I might just have to buy it. Mike Wills
AS400 Programmer

Please, if you find my post useful, let me know.

 

[Hattusas]

What about eclipse?Anyone heard of it?By the way meadandale.Thanks for your help.I will try it too.But I think I will have to pay dollars if I decide to use it. Salih Sipahi
Software Engineer.
City of Istanbul Turkey
openyourmind77@yahoo.com

 

[iSeriesCodePoet]

Yes, I am using Eclipse now. I like it so far. If not a bit better due to the price of the program vs. IDEA. I am using the stable build of Eclipse. However all of the packages that can be downloaded are a bit confusing.

I don't know a lot about the package, but I do know that IBM was developing it, and then they turned it to open source. And rumor has it that Eclipse will be replacing Visual Age for Java. Mike Wills
AS400 Programmer


Please, if you find my post useful, let me know.

 

[Hattusas]

I have started to use IBM Websphere Application Developer Studio.It covers all of the plug-ins of Eclipse and it is simple to develop J2EE applications.The only thing I didn't try the team enviroment yet.But team repository seems to be different than Visual Age.
I don't know the price exactly because my company is enterprice memeber of IBM so we can download it from the site.
But it is sure to replace Visual Age. Salih Sipahi
Software Engineer.
City of Istanbul Turkey
openyourmind77@yahoo.com

 

[Guest_imported]

I'm still not ver clear about choosing between IBM VisualAge
and Borland JBuilder. I need an IDE that:

1. should be robust
2. Eases total J2EE development. especially EJB, JMS and JCA.
3. Should have considerable designing support
4. Supports Team development
5. Should have seamless integration with BEA Weblogic6.1, IBM WebSphere 4.0, iPlanet and last but not the least Tomcat-JBoss

** We are developing an enterprise product. So it is imperative to have integration with multiple platforms.