[buug] Single male programmer ISO decent Java IDE

Will Sargent will_sargent at yahoo.com
Fri Jun 7 14:43:02 PDT 2002


--- Brian Sobolak <sobolak at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> 
> hi
> 
> I'm sure everyone has their religious preferences here, but since many of
> us write code, I'm seeking some ideas for finding a decent IDE.  I know,
> I know, they all suck.  Fine.  But the one I'm supposed to use for work
> (Websphere) sucks extroidinarily hard. 
> 
> The primary goal for this tool is to write Java code.  Anything else is
> gravy.  I would like the following features:
> 
>  - ability to tell me which class/method I'm in (must have)
>  - color-coding:  highlights keywords (must have)
>  - brace/paren matching: shows me visually which braces are matching
>  - decent search functionality (must have)
>  - auto indent (must have)
>  - code-folding:  expand/collapse blocks (nice to have)
> 
> Debugging capability from within the tool isn't needed.
> 
> I'm open to anything, even if it means totally learning a new tool.  My
> current honey is Komodo because it does all of the above except tell me
> what method I'm in.  XEmacs bombs because the source files I'm looking at
> (24,000 lines of code) blow up the regex engine.  I've tried jEdit and
> didn't have a lot of luck - the java support was buggy.
> 
> Anything I'm missing here?  Anything I should look at and haven't?

It's kind of ironic reading this, because I'm sitting in a class listening
to an Eclipse evangelist.  Eclipse has the advantage of being free and
reasonably complete, but the package and library manangement isn't quite as
good as JBuilder (although the differences are mostly academic unless
you're dealing with a bazillion little projects like I do.)

Personally I like JBuilder Professional best.  JBuilder personal doesn't
really cover what JBuilder can do; the best features is that the libraries
will encapsulate javadoc, classes and source code and then deal with it
transparently, and make libraries depend on each other.  You can even plug
in a JAD decompiler to see code from complied classes.  But it costs real
money.

jEdit is an editor I have a soft spot for, but I use it for everything
EXCEPT java programming.  I typically use it for the *ML langauges and
properties files and the like.

I have a deep seated dislike of Forte, which is another free Java IDE.  I
think the user interface sucks.  So I think your best choice is probably
Eclipse.

Yes, I know vim and Emacs have been around for 20 years.  They're hacks. 
Plain and simple.  Admit it.

Will.

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