"Hal Rosser" <hrosser@augustatech.edu> said:

Did you already read what Google Groups has about this?

Hi,

I have used NetBeans for about 1.5 years and then switched to Eclipse using
it for about 1 year now.  I like both IDE's much. The reason I switched was
the capability in Eclipse to use the re-factor option used for re-locating
packages (or source files) to different places.  It changes all the import
entries accordingly saving me a lot of time.  I also like the debugger of
Eclipse more than the Netbeans one.

I would like to have a debugger option wich is "variable break point", which
means that the program suspends when a "watched" variable changes it's value
(it's a feature that JBuilder has, but this one has more dis-advantages, so
I'm not using it any more).

Any way I think it's hard to say which one is better and depends on your own
personal needs, now I'm used to Eclipse and as long as it does the job and I
stay satisfied with it I will continue to use it.

Hope it helps....

Regards,

Frank.

I choose netbeans.  It seems easier to use.  I looked at Eclipse, but
it looks so complicated and so never get further with that.  On a side
note, JBuilder is the worst IDE I've ever used.  It's so stupid and it
thinks it's smart, just simple things and it can't do right like
indent your code.  I think using notepad is better than JBuilder.

I used NB3.6 before switched to Eclipse. I'm not an expert in any of
them though.

In my opinion Eclipse is certainly superior. With NB I managed to get
error messages quite often - most were related with additional modules
like Suggestions View.  Eclipse seems to be much more stable. Also I'd
say that Eclipse has everything that NB and maybe even more (like built
in refactoring support).

About ease of use I'd say that they are quite equal.

Hal Rosser <hmrosser@bellsouth.net>
wrote on Sat, 28 Aug 2004 23:51:01 -0400:

 I've used most of the major IDEs, including NetBeans.  I now use
Eclipse, and I'm unlikely to change again.

 NetBeans is *slow*, and consumes insane amounts of memory as it runs,
especially if you try to use the debugger.  Adding more memory and
telling it to use more memory did not help.  Beyond that, the editor was
nice (though often lagging a second or more behind my typing!), but the
lack of basic refactoring tools made it almost useless; the only reason
to prefer it to Vim or JEdit would be code completion, and it was often
faster to just keep a browser window open to the javadocs rather than
try using the code completion.  The CVS support is inadequate at best,
and just does not work in many setups.  The debugger is pathetic; I
haven't seen an IDE with such a weak debugger in over a decade.  The UI
also just looks bad.  It's not just that it's Metal by default, the
entire multi-window design is a pain to manage.  NetBeans is a wonderful
thing for Sun to work on and give away, because it's so bad that it
drives innovation elsewhere in the industry.

 Eclipse, on the other hand, is fast.  It uses a lot of memory, but if
you have at least half a gig of RAM, it runs fine.  The UI is fast and
responsive and looks and behaves like a proper GTK application on Linux,
and the single window with multiple "perspectives" makes it easy to
manipulate.  The editor in 3.1 is still not the most powerful I've ever
seen, but it's hugely improved from 2.x.  The refactoring tools work,
and solve a lot of problems.  The CVS integration is unbelievably good;
in a team environment, I'd hate to even try any other IDE now.  The
debugger works and is responsive; it's not as advanced as I'd like, but
it's tolerable.

 I've heavily used JBuilder, which is superior to NetBeans but is still
very slow.  JBuilder's CVS integration is minimal, and doesn't work for
every setup, but it's usually adequate.  I'd recommend at least trying
the free version of JBuilder, and there are areas where JBuilder is
ahead of Eclipse.  I still prefer Eclipse for speed and for the plugins,
and it's catching up on features rapidly.  If you do Swing layout
graphically (which I don't), JBuilder's by far the best IDE on the
market.  The debugger is adequate.

 I only briefly tried IDEA; wasn't terribly impressed or appalled,
though it was unpleasantly slow.  I love refactoring tools, but IDEA's
few additional refactoring tools over Eclipse are *not* worth $500 to
me.  The behavior of the more vocal IDEA fanboys (including their own
developers) really drove me away from spending more time trying it out,
too.

<http://kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu/~kamikaze/doc/fixyersig.html>

 The correct .sig delimiter is "-- ", not "---".