Eclipse vs. JBuilder, evaluation

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Maciej Katafiasz - 21 Mar 2005 04:56 GMT

Hi,
I need advice on choice of tools for my project. What I'm considering are
JBuilder and Eclipse. The project is Uni assignment for DB class, carried
out by team of 6 people, with me being toolsmith. So here I am, trying to
decide.

Bunch of specifics: The project is usual small/medium-scale assignment,
yet is required to be complete wrt. all the steps, from design docs to
deployment at client's site. Coding language is Java, DBMS used is
Firebird/Interbase. This part is fixed and not subject to evaluation.

Actually, JBuilder is also recommended tool, but I also installed Eclipse,
and after some (skin-deep, obviously) playing around I seem to like it
better. So, given that I would like to use Eclipse, is that feasible to
use it instead of JBuilder?

Advantages of Eclipse are:

- SWT, it's nicer and with better looks/integration than Swing
- being free/open source. While I can fool around with Enterprise trial
version of JBuilder (project is strictly non-commercial, so it's OK),
Eclipse being fully free is much easier here, and also I prefer using open
source tools to closed ones. However, while this concern is valid, it is
only of secondary importance compared to how much I value ease of work :)
- lots of plugins I can easily use for various little tasks
- general niceness, I simply feel more comfortable with Eclipse than with
JBuilder, but I also don't have any real experience

JBuilder's strong point is particularly good DB integration, which seems
important here. So, bottom line of my question is, can I reasonably
quickly create environment with Eclipse that would be comparable to
JBuilder in terms of features interesting for me? Are JBuilder's DB
components as good as advertised? If I can, say, save month of work by
using JBuilder, then all other points pale in comparision. However, if I
can invest 2 days into creating something that would match it in Eclipse,
I am willing to do that. Investing week of work into setup I consider too
much, though.

I'd greatly appreciate advice from someone with experience in said tools,
preferably in both, so that I have good comparision.

Cheers,
Maciej

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IchBin - 21 Mar 2005 06:46 GMT

> Hi,
> I need advice on choice of tools for my project. What I'm considering are
[quoted text clipped - 39 lines]
> Cheers,
> Maciej

For Eclipse Plugins that may resolve your problems go to:
http://eclipse-plugins.info/eclipse/plugins.jsp;jsessionid=5BB5DC6850A0BE45B091E
12F1D62BF24
or
http://www.eclipseplugincentral.com/

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Thanks in Advance...
IchBin
__________________________________________________________________________

'The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical
substances:
if there is any reaction, both are transformed.'
- Carl Gustav Jung, (1875-1961), psychiatrist and psychologist

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Pat Farrell - 23 Mar 2005 06:35 GMT

> I need advice on choice of tools for my project.

The most important criteria is the experience of the team with the tool.
If any significant number of them know one tool, use it.

> JBuilder's strong point is particularly good DB integration, which seems
> important here.

DB integration is really about mapping relational database items to
OO instances. I've written at least a dozen OO <-> RDMBS packages
over the last 30 years, it isn't a big deal, and nothing does it
well for the hard cases. Doing it for the easy cases is easy.

Why not just use something like Hibernate and divorce
the OO <-> RDMBS persistance argument from the IDE tool
argument?

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Maciej Katafiasz - 26 Mar 2005 18:10 GMT

On day Wed, 23 Mar 2005 00:35:41 -0500 looked the Lord upon his prophet,
and the prophet was numbered among those called Pat Farrell. And thus
spake the prophet:

>> I need advice on choice of tools for my project.
>
> The most important criteria is the experience of the team with the tool.
> If any significant number of them know one tool, use it.

Sure, that wasn't the case however.

>> JBuilder's strong point is particularly good DB integration, which seems
>> important here.
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
> the OO <-> RDMBS persistance argument from the IDE tool
> argument?

Why, yes, thank you. That has put me on the right track. Seems like with
Hibernate and EssentialData we will be able to bind app to DB contents
without too much trouble.

Oh, one thing. We will need reporting component too. As it will be lots of
perhaps-not-strictly-tabular-data (the app deals with university classes
schedule, so parts of it can be overlapping, or some classes can be
carried out only every other week, and generated reports need to visualise
that), what would be the right thing to use here? Eclipse has BIRT
project, is that the tool I'm looking for?

Thanks,
Maciej

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"Tautology, n.: something tautological"
Mathrick <mnews2@wp.pl>
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Mrx - 28 Mar 2005 01:21 GMT

> Hi,
> I need advice on choice of tools for my project. What I'm considering are
[quoted text clipped - 39 lines]
> Cheers,
> Maciej

The first thing I should ask is; Is your project going to be a Web based
Servlets / JSPs' affair in which case I would use JBuilder[1].
Eclipse, while being very very good for certain types of project, just
isn't as tidy as JBuilder for j2ee projects.
In my experience, The WebTools project just isn't mature enough, and
requires a considerable amount learning.

[1] Assuming the licensing cost is not an issue

--
[damn I need coffee, word speling error rate > 30%]

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Mladen Adamovic - 28 Mar 2005 18:38 GMT

> The first thing I should ask is; Is your project going to be a Web based
> Servlets / JSPs' affair in which case I would use JBuilder[1].
> Eclipse, while being very very good for certain types of project, just
> isn't as tidy as JBuilder for j2ee projects.

AFAIK Eclipse with support for Servlets and JSPs have name - IBM WebSphere
. Commercial product.

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Maciej Katafiasz - 29 Mar 2005 00:49 GMT

On day Mon, 28 Mar 2005 02:21:57 +0200 looked the Lord upon his prophet,
and the prophet was numbered among those called Mrx. And thus spake the
prophet:

>> I need advice on choice of tools for my project. What I'm considering are
>> JBuilder and Eclipse. The project is Uni assignment for DB class, carried
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
> In my experience, The WebTools project just isn't mature enough, and
> requires a considerable amount learning.

No, it's normal fat client type of app, nothing web-related.

> [1] Assuming the licensing cost is not an issue

It was one of concerns too. I have now decided to go for Eclipse, thanks
for your advice.

Cheers,
Maciej

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"Tautology, n.: something tautological"
Mathrick <mnews2@wp.pl>
http://mathrick.org

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Eclipse vs. JBuilder, evaluation

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