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Best Java Editor

 
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To All,
I am just learing about coding in Java, again. Meaning I took it as a class in college but writing the code at 5 AM didn't help to keep it in the brain! :-)
Though, nowadays, there are several freeware editors that are out there for Java. I was just wondering if anyone has used any of them and can they tell me the Pros and/or Cons of these editors.
This insight would be greatly appreciated. I guess I must have gotten spoilt in my VB class with the keywords being highlighted in another color. Notepad is so bland!
Thanks.
 
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This topic is discussed a lot around here. You may want to check out the IDE forum, as well.
You might want to check out this recent thread, as well.
You'll probably get a lot of responses from people saying that you should use something like notepad and a DOS prompt in order to really learn what's going on. IDE's tend to hide a lot of details and can somewhat hinder your learning. Personally, I agree with that concept. Using a text editor is probably the best way to really learn Java.
However, notepad is pretty bland. My editor of preference is UltraEdit. It's still a pretty simple text editor, but it does syntax highlighting has some other nice features. You can get a trial version at: http://www.ultraedit.com/.
Best of luck with Java,
Corey
 
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I use dos prompt and a text editor called textpad. Its very good. You can get it on www.textpad.com
 
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Check out the IDE forum here, lots of discussion about this. Looking through there, along with Corey's link to the other IDE discussion going on here in Beginners, you should get several leads to some good IDE's.
Personally, I use JCreator LE. It's lightweight, free, has some nice features, but doesn't do anything "behind the scenes" to get you confused. The standard version that you can purchase has some extra features like code completion, but personally I'd rather learn the methods myself instead of relying on an IDE, because who knows what you might be stuck with next time. Plus, it never hurts to always have the API's open for reference, you learn more that way!
 
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I was spoiled by VB too! But if you want a good editor that's easy to learn, I agree with Dan that you should consider textpad. It's not VB, but it helps.
 
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I'll affirm what Dan said--I use Notepad myself, but have also used Textpad.
If for no other reason, I recommend to my students that after they download and install the JDK, they also download and install the Textpad trial version---it nicely updates the Path and ClassPath environment variables.
By the way, I have a list of IDE's on my Java Links page
http://www.johnsmiley.com/java/links.htm
One I've heard great things about is Blue Jay
http://www.sd.monash.edu.au/bluej
John Smiley
John Smiley
 
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Jext from www.jext.org is awesome, open source, free, and written in Java. Check it out.
hint: Absolutly get the JextFE plugin.
 
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I use Ultraedit and it�s fast, sure better than notepad.
[ April 04, 2002: Message edited by: Sigfred Zamo ]
 
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Of all the editors I've used, UltraEdit is by far my favorite. It's easy to customize and is just all around easy to use. However I've also used Textpad, jext, and jedit.
Jext and jedit are nice because they're free, but I don't care for the jedit syntax highlighting engine, which is also what jext uses. The nice thing about jedit though is it's plugins feature, which really provides for a great many enhancements. Another thing I don't like about jedit is it's open/save file browser. I know it seems trivial, but they created their own rather than using the default JFileChooser, and while it provides a few extra features I find it somewhat annoying to use.
Jeff
 
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