On 12 Apr 2006 21:21:28 -0700, "xian_hong2046@hotmail.com"
<xian_hong2046@hotmail.com> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone
who said :

see http://mindprod.com/jgloss/ide.html

I recommend NetBeans or Eclipse.  I enjoy them both about equally, but
I'm leaning towards NetBeans now which is what I've been using for the
last few weeks.

The first IDE I used was JGrasp.  Easy to use but I found it sluggish.
Eclipse was the second IDE I learned how to use, tremendously powerful,
although I've heard other people complain about the learning curve, I
was able to get up and running and doing my usual coding within a
couple hours.

NetBeans gave me the most trouble, but now that it's working fine I
love it.  The problem I encountered was that after installing, the "New
Project" options didn't have the option for Java Application or Java
Library.  I had to update the program first before those options were
available.  Maybe just a minor detail but it stumped me for a bit, that
a Java IDE by default had no option to create a simple Java Application.

There are many, I use JDeveloper from Oracle, so that's my
recommendation. But it depends on your need. For just plain java
programs it may be a little heavy.

Microsoft provides Visual J# (part of Visual studio 2005).

The express edition (of the compiler/ IDE) is free (can be downloaded
fromMS website).

also, the professional or enterprise editions can also be downloaded as
evaluation versions for 90 or 180 days. you just need a high speed
connection (more than 1 to 3 Mbps)

1) Eclipse

I suspect that Eclipse is the most widely used IDE for Java development.
 Since it is free it is probably widely used by what you describe as
"home users". IBM sell a commercial version, so I guess that, as well as
the free Eclipse, may be widely used in commercial organisations.

2) Netbeans

Another significant IDE is Sun's Netbeans. This now has a GUI designer
(Matisse) which I find quite tempting. I may be wrong but I think of
this as the number 2 IDE for Java in terms of developer mindshare.

3) The others

Roedy's page lists a large number of other Java IDEs.

4) None

I find it is easy enough to develop small Java applications using the
command line compiler tools with a decent programmers editor (e.g. vim)
possibly supplemented by build tools like make or ant, and maybe a
version control system such as CVS.

I have a list of comparable IDEs here
<http://profectus.com.au/ee_JavaIDE.html>.

If you're calling MSVS a good IDE, I don't know if my opinion will do
you much good.

On Linux, Mac OS X, and MSWxxx, NetBeans works quite well. (We would
assume it works well on Solaris, too. One of these days I'm going to
have to get Solaris booting up here to take a look at it.) Even with
Matisse, however, it still doesn't work the same as MSVB, but for me,
that's a plus.

On Mac OS X, I've been using Apple's XCode. Haven't played with the GUI
stuff yet, however.

I don't have much experience with Eclipse, but friends who use MSWxxx
say it works well there.

Every time I try to use Eclipse on Linux I get segment faults and stuff
like that. I'm sure that's because I have left the gnu java stuff in
place. (Fedora Core.) Eclipse integration with Mac OS X is also
lacking, I suppose I could help there, but I find NetBeans good enough
for my current uses. Really like the "refactoring" tools.

But, as has been pointed out, a simple text editor and a command line
(and ant) combine to make a pretty useful IDE, especially when you're
trying to figure out the language instead of the framework.

Hello Xian, I would have several suggestions:

First if your moving from Microsoft IDE to another IDE, you'll feel
you've been missing out for a long time because I'm *never* seen such a
bad product.

First issue is cost, and I would recommend you pay for your IDE!
Although I'm a huge fan of the open source movement and a massive
contributor, when it comes to being a 'user' of open source projects,
I'm often dissapointed.  They seem to offer a million and one feature,
but often they are just half completed and everything seems
inconsistant from plugin to plugin.

A small fee (<$200) will pay for itself over time in productivity!

Second issue is buzz words!  Don't go for any IDE which promise to
support stuff like UML and object modeling and are made for
'Architects' and this and that.  A great IDE will consentrate on
'development' issues, such as 'auto code-generation', 'code
beautifyer', 'code-completion', 'code refactoring' (important),
run-time 'code-analysis'.  Will allow you to organize your code
efficiently.  Anything which will help you in writting code is a plus,
anything else is just a selling point (but consider them as a second
option).

An IDE can't be everything!  Your architect will probably want to use
his own tools, the designer another tool and you, well your going to
code it, so who cares about seeing nice little graphs and boxes about
your objects and classes.

Third issues is 'plugins'!  If they have a great plugin support (both
binary and API), you will have the option of installing and using
everything I told you not to consider in the paragraph above.  Whats
the difference you ask?  Well instead of the IDE company concentrating
on all of these little plugin tools, others do.  So the IDE company
spends their time and energy on what matters... the IDE!  And not on
architecture modules and UML modelers, etc., etc.

Thats it!  So which IDE do I use?  Well that would be IntelliJ IDEA.
Why?  Because of its great refactoring tools, it's speed, cost and
last, plugin API (I code my own).
The 'personal' edition is only a hundred dollars or so (reasonable).

Hope this helps.

Jeach!  (www.jeach.com)