Eclipse vs NetBeans

[Allan Moster]

Is Eclipse a carbon copy of Netbeans?

[David Weitzman]

No. I haven't used a recent version of Netbeans, but I used a version of Forte a while back. I'm very very very happy with Eclipse. It is still in beta (and it shows) but I find it incredibly useful. Startup is slow, but after that it tends to keep up with you more than Forte did. The supported refactorings are great (and I only expect more to be added). The debugger is great. Some of the code formatter/content assistance features need to be cleaned up a bit, but they work.
It has a few disadvantages as the new player on the block. Eclipse doesn't currently have a GUI editor (but I don't mind because I never make GUIs). There aren't many third party plugins available.
Nonetheless, the developers know what they're doing (I noticed Erich Gamma's email adress a lot on the bugzilla lists). I believe Eclipse is on the road to greatness and intend to keep using it.

[Steven Sega]

I downloaded netbeans last week. I love it.
Speed. Just right even for a PIII-500 processor. It's not as fast as a light editor like JCreator, but neither is it as slow as JBuilder Enterprise or Visual Age Enterprise.
Linux and Windows. You can use it on both; unlike others tools (e.g. jcreator or kawa) that bind you with Bill g. (Windows).
Amazing Features. Servlet runner, debugger, swing gui graphic manipulation, cvs, ant, code completion (e.g. even for html-jsp). If i'm not mistaken you may also create scripts in jython, perl, etc.
Installation. No problemo. All you need to do is click. It knows where to find your jdk1.3 etc. ; so you can work immediately without having to configure a million little low level things. i.e. you can write and run a Hello World servlet in 30 seconds.
Learning curve. You can work immediately -- none of those esoteric repository paradigms. You can easily locate the compile and execute button (unlike others that seem to hide it under a hundred pages). The advanced features are also there when you are ready to learn it. So no problem if you don't know CVS or Ant -- but in the future plan to use.
Free. Yup. I love this ide.

[David Weitzman]

Here is some more specific info about Eclipse:
Eclipse does have support for Ant, CVS, JUnit (the JUnit jars are included with the normal distribution, but the plugin to run tests must be downloaded separately).
Several refactorings: rename just about anything, move files (this currently has a bug that they'll probably fix by the next release), extract methods, pull up methods, self-encapsulate field, inline local variable.
A reasonably customizable built-in compiler (files are compiled upon each save and errors listed). I love the compile on save feature.
Organize imports (has a minor bug that may import classes you don't need).
A code formatter
The usual code completion support. Hover your mouse over a function from another file or code completion option and it shows the javadoc for that method. Also, nice custom abbreviation-ish templates (after code is inserted, tab can be used to modify the defaults).
Pretty nice code browsing (package/directory browser and java file outline view).
"Scrapbook": a file where you can write and execute many short snippets of code
Task view shows compiler errors, but you can also make to-do type tasks (which may be associated with a certain file and line or not).
No installation (just put it somewhere and it works).
Nothing I know of for web development currently (plugins with servers and jsp/ejb editing support). Nor GUI editing.

[John Dale]

As I understand it, web development support is available in WebSphere Studio Application Developer (WSAD), an IBM product build on the Eclipse platform (aka WebSphere Studio Workbench).
I'm working with Eclipse, but have not explored WSAD.

[Todd Sanders]

Yes and SUN is mad about it! Take a look at this article.
http://www.sdtimes.com/news/045/story2.htm

[Steven Sega]

Hey John, would you know if websphere studio is now open source?
And, would anyone know when Eclipse will come out with their stable version -- or do they already have a stable version? I would like to download a stable version.

[Kyle Brown]

Actually WebSphere Studio Workbench IS Eclipse (one == the other). Eclipse is now in it's second stable release (2.0). WebSphere Studio Application Developer is a separate product from IBM developed on top of Eclipse that will NOT be open sourced.
Kyle

[John Dale]

Kyle has explained the relationship between WebSphere Studio Workbench and Eclipse. I think there are several Websphere Studio products, perhaps all built on the workbench (Eclipse). The IBM web site, developer section, has info on the Websphere Studio product line.
The Eclipse project produces releases, intended for production work, and various development builds, reflecting development progress toward the next release. Release and development builds are avialable for download.
Release 1.0 has been out for a while. According to the web site, release 2.0 is planned for April.
Stable builds are produced frequently. It is my impression that many users run the stable development builds so they can have the new features. I'm using Release 1.0.
The place to look for info in Eclipse is
the Eclipse Project web page
That's www.eclipse.org
Note that I'm just using Eclipse, and don't have any insight into the development beyond that web site.
[ January 07, 2002: Message edited by: John Dale ]

[Allan Moster]

Thanks Todd, that's a nice article. I wonder why IBM went against SUN on this one. Microsoft must be smiling

[Reuben Cleetus]

I've been using Netbeans/Forte for quite a while, and I like it very much. As Steven said, it has an incredibly short learning curve (almost none if you've used Visual Studio, or any other good IDE), a good lot of features, and is extremely good for a *Free* IDE. In fact, it's better than some commercial ones.
I've tinkered with Eclipse a bit, but it seems to me that it suffers from the same drabacks that VA Java did -- I don't want to spend more time learning the IDE than I did learning Java! I want to be productive, and have an IDE that help me in my work, and doesn't try to impose a development method on me.
I wonder why Eclipse hides the 'run' and 'debug' commands so well. Isn't that what you should be able to do using an IDE.
Also, I find the lack of a GUI development tool a show-stopper. Yes, not every Java Developer makes GUIs, but I think it's quite incredible to have a modern IDE that hasn't yet got a GUI tool.
I do some development in C#, and I must say, no matter what one may think of Microsoft, they make the *Best* Development Tools! Beta 1 of Visual Studio was far (pretty old by now), far superior to Eclipse (or Netbeans, for that matter).
I can only hope that the designers of Eclipse and Netbeans (and everyone else making Java IDEs), takes note of Visual Studio.NET, and learn how a truly great IDE is made.
Regards,
Reuben.

[Kyle Brown]

Originally posted by Reuben Cleetus:
I've been using Netbeans/Forte for quite a while, and I like it very much. As Steven said, it has an incredibly short learning curve (almost none if you've used Visual Studio, or any other good IDE), a good lot of features, and is extremely good for a *Free* IDE. In fact, it's better than some commercial ones.
I've tinkered with Eclipse a bit, but it seems to me that it suffers from the same drabacks that VA Java did -- I don't want to spend more time learning the IDE than I did learning Java! I want to be productive, and have an IDE that help me in my work, and doesn't try to impose a development method on me.

What method does Eclipse try to impose on you? Can you elaborate on this? And what did you have problems learning?

I wonder why Eclipse hides the 'run' and 'debug' commands so well. Isn't that what you should be able to do using an IDE.

How can you say it hides them? There's the obvious button at the top of the Java View that looks like a bug (meaning "debug") and one that looks like a running man (meaning "run"). These are EXACTLY the same icons that have been used in VisualAge for almost 10 years.

Also, I find the lack of a GUI development tool a show-stopper. Yes, not every Java Developer makes GUIs, but I think it's quite incredible to have a modern IDE that hasn't yet got a GUI tool.

Granted. I think you'll be pleased with the fact that not one but two different GUI builders are being developed for Eclipse. Keep an eye out for them.

I do some development in C#, and I must say, no matter what one may think of Microsoft, they make the *Best* Development Tools! Beta 1 of Visual Studio was far (pretty old by now), far superior to Eclipse (or Netbeans, for that matter).
I can only hope that the designers of Eclipse and Netbeans (and everyone else making Java IDEs), takes note of Visual Studio.NET, and learn how a truly great IDE is made.
Regards,
Reuben.

So what is it you like about VisualStudio that NetBeans and Eclipse don't have? Please be specific, and don't just make vague and general statements!
Kyle
[ January 08, 2002: Message edited by: Kyle Brown ]
[ January 08, 2002: Message edited by: Kyle Brown ]
[ January 08, 2002: Message edited by: Kyle Brown ]

[Steven Sega]

Hello Kyle
Suggestion for your gui tool. It would be great if Eclipse would give the developer(doing front-end work) the option to use "pure" Sun Java code.
SWT is fine. But sometimes i just would like the option to code using the venerable swing.
I have no problems with the running wo/man.

[Kyle Brown]

I don't understand. Eclipse doesn't care about whether you use SWT or not. The GUI tool will probably not care either... Were you suggesting that we would only support SWT?
Kyle

[Steven Sega]

Great. Disregard that suggestion then.
I look forward to that gui tool.

[Andre Tow]

Kyle, your tone on this thread seems semi-hostile or am I misinterpreting?

[Kyle Brown]

My only semi-hostile post was the one to the fellow who made the remark that it would take him longer to learn the IDE than it would Java (a ludicrous statement by someone who seemed predisposed to not giving the IDE a fair shake).
The post following (about the GUI builder support for SWT) only showed genuinue confusion.
Kyle

[Andre Tow]

Guess its hard to see misinformed statements about a product your involved with go by w/o getting sem-hostile. I kind of expected a little more formal format from an IBM author,developer in a public forum, concerning a beta product.

[Axel Janssen]

Originally posted by Andre Mermegas:
I kind of expected a little more formal format from an IBM author,developer in a public forum, concerning a beta product.

Thought that this would be some kind of a developer forum and not a dimplomacy forum.
But if you like to:
Perhabs we can expect from a Sun Certified Java programmer a little more formal format concerning to rule behaviour to other people.
Axel

[jason adam]

Originally posted by Andre Mermegas:
Guess its hard to see misinformed statements about a product your involved with go by w/o getting sem-hostile. I kind of expected a little more formal format from an IBM author,developer in a public forum, concerning a beta product.

Considering I have yet to see you add anything to the discussion, whether it be a relevant question or suggestion, I find your comments a bit unwarranted. If you look throughout this entire forum, Kyle has undeniably gone out of his way to clarify problems people are having with Eclipse, and is very open to suggestions and criticism of the product.
Before questioning his intent, I suggest doing a bit more research.
Jason
[ January 10, 2002: Message edited by: jason adam ]

[Andre Tow]

/nods, i was perhaps being flamey myself for no good reason. =p sorry Kyle

[Kyle Brown]

No harm done, Andre. Don't worry about it.
Kyle

[Mike Jones]

I couldn't find the running man either at first. Seeing Kyle's comment of "Java view" helped alot. Thanks Kyle.
Mike

[Briann Lee]

I've used both IDEs... In the begining both IDEs had some drawbacks that forced me to go back to using jpadpro.
Past:
Netbean's main drawback in the past is simply speed/performance. Because it's built using Swing and since Swing isn't native on any platform yet, the gui didn't have a good response time. It was basically unusable except for either the most patient of programmers or people with top of the line hardware.
Eclipse didn't suffer from performance problems since SWT is native. Eclipse had some different problems back then. However, it didn't have as much flexibility creating projects; you actually had to structure your project around Eclipse (I could be wrong, and if there was a way around this in the past; then Eclipse's past main problem would be intuitiveness). And even more annoying, was the automatic compilation!
Present:
Since JDK 1.4, Netbean's performance has improved considerably. However unless you have a top of the line machine: 3 ghz machine with 1 gig ram, (and maybe even that isn't enough) It still isn't fast enough for the average developer. (Yes, it's only a second or 3 seconds here and there - but they add up over months, and it is frustrating - I still ). On the bright side, it is pretty usable now. Unfortunatly (for Sun) but really cool for us:
JDK 1.4 was also greatly beneficial to Eclipse. A fast Java IDE is now almost the same speed as a pure native ide like Jpadpro. Add to that, with the 3.0 M1 release, Eclipse now offers flexibility with project configuration, and you can now turn off auto compile! It also seems, in terms of just features (from what I remember), Eclipse has evolved a lot faster than Netbeans. To add insult to injury to Sun, the number of Netbeans plugins pales in comparison to Eclipse's - anything u don't find in Eclipse's main packages u can probably find as a plugin.
Summary:
Netbeans is a decent IDE - but Eclipse beats the crap out of it. The only way Sun can even compete is if in the future somehow JDK 1.5 or above had a native version of Swing and 300 plugins comparable to netbean's plugins quality, magically appeared...

[Ilja Preuss]

Originally posted by Briann Lee:
And even more annoying, was the automatic compilation!

Stunning - in my opinion this is one of its main killer features! :roll:

you can now turn off auto compile!

This isn't new - you can do this in 2.1, too. I think the option was also present in 2.0, but I could be wrong.

[Sam Kebab]

Briann Briann Briann
More plugins do not make an ide better - especially if most of those plugins do not work.
Early this year i had to do work with a lot of xml and could not find a decent eclipse plugin(let me know if you find one). Now i am using jstl for formatting and the struts framework - and want to work with an ide that offered jstl code completion(let me know if eclipse has one). I also did not like an ide that forced me to put the source code in a particular folder etc. (unintuitive to the max).
So for now, at work i still use netbeans. Sometimes i wonder whether i missed something that i should be seeing in eclipse. Or, is this just the same old emperors new clothes.
ps
Netbeans is also much faster now (and i am just using a PIII with 256 sd ram). But if there is one thing it does not have that i so long for - it would be refactoring!

[Ilja Preuss]

Originally posted by Sam Kebab:
More plugins do not make an ide better - especially if most of those plugins do not work.

Correct. Most of the Eclipse plugins seem to work for me, though, even if some of them are in an early state.

I also did not like an ide that forced me to put the source code in a particular folder etc. (unintuitive to the max).

Eclipse doesn't do that. Never did, as far as I know.

[Damian Ryan]

ps
Netbeans is also much faster now (and i am just using a PIII with 256 sd ram). But if there is one thing it does not have that i so long for - it would be refactoring!

You could take a look at RefactorIt!, a refactoring plugin available for several IDEs (and standalone use) including NetBeans.
You can download it here:
RefactorIt homepage
It was free for me (academic license) but I think it might attract a fee for commercial use (and I see murmurings on the netbeans' users list that the price has just gone up) so it's non-freeness may be a big deterrent.
[ July 08, 2003: Message edited by: Damian Ryan ]

[Fintan Conway]

Originally posted by Sam Kebab:
I also did not like an ide that forced me to put the source code in a particular folder etc. (unintuitive to the max).

Hi Sam,
I have just switched from using SunONE to Eclipse for developing a small project. I when I loaded the project that I was working on, I was asked if I wanted to keep the source code in the same directory or move it to the Eclipse default. I kept it at its current location and it works perfectly. Maybe this is a new feature in version 3.0 M1, but at least you are not forced to put your source code in a particular directory . However I believe the compiled code still needs be in particular directory.
Regards,
Fintan

[Ed Burnette]

Compiled code can be put anywhere you like, just tell it where in the project properties >> Java Build Path dialog. There's a default output folder you can change, and as of 2.1 you can also set a different output folder for each input source folder.

[Sam Kebab]

Hi Ed
Would you know of any working eclipse plugin for jstl? that is free for commercial purposes.
So that when i do c:choose//c:when ...//fmt... i have syntax highlighting/codecompletion/docs.
I have tried lomboz. In your opinion is that the best (i.e. stable, and feature rich) eclipse plugin for jsp/ejb?
[ July 11, 2003: Message edited by: Sam Kebab ]

[Tony Walters]

As someone who has always disliked IDEs I have found Eclipse to be a pleasant surprise. Recently decided that maybe coding things like EJBs could benefit from an IDE (provided it worked well) and tried Sun One Studio 5 (the old NetBeans i believe), which was great - apart from the speed. More recently I have started using Eclipse (the Omondo plugin) for writing UML class diagams and converting them to Java code. Its still early days, but so far no complaints. The interface is clean and intuative, and the plug-ins I have used so far (Lomboz for J2EE, Omondo for UML, JFace for database browsing) integrate well with the IDE. And its all open-source. Brilliant! An enterprise level IDE for nowt!
If I could only find a JDO plug-in, I'd be even happier.

[Ed Burnette]

Originally posted by Sam Kebab:
Would you know of any working eclipse plugin for jstl? that is free for commercial purposes.

I haven't seen one.

I have tried lomboz. In your opinion is that the best (i.e. stable, and feature rich) eclipse plugin for jsp/ejb?

Personally I use sysdeo's tomcat plugin but lots of people like lomboz too. Another one to check out is JBoss-IDE and myeclipseide.com .

[Charles Hasegawa]

Originally posted by David Weitzman:
Here is some more specific info about Eclipse:
Eclipse does have support for Ant, CVS, JUnit (the JUnit jars are included with the normal distribution, but the plugin to run tests must be downloaded separately).

I'm not sure I understood that statement - Eclipse does indeed come with the ability to run JUnit tests. It is by no means intuitive to find at first where the GUI testrunner is launched, but it is certainly there (look under the run command - you have the options for applets, application, JUNIT, and Run-Time Workbench).

Originally posted by Sam Kebab:
So that when i do c:choose//c:when ...//fmt... i have syntax highlighting/codecompletion/docs.

MYEclipseIDE does this quite well. It has a 30 day trial after which it is $30 a year (which is well worth paying as opposed to not having any JSP/JSTL features).

[Marina Popova]

Originally posted by Ilja Preuss:

Eclipse doesn't do that. Never did, as far as I know.

(it was said about Eclipse not forcing to use its own directory structures...)
Well, actually it does and this is the main reason why I did not go forward with it. In fact, I have posted questions on two different bulletin boards asking how to map Eclipse projects to complex pre-existing directories and nobody could answer me.
Just in case you are curious what directory structure I am talking about - I have one top level directory, say "level1", and many (about 40) subdirectories, say "sub1 through subNN". All package names are like "level1.subNN". I wanted to create a project for one sub-directory only, say for level1.sub1 - but I could not make Eclipse to ignore all other subdirectories no matter what tricks I tried.
It looks like Eclipse is great when you are flexible about directory structure but is extremely unintuitive when you are trying to make it work with your existing packages/directories.
And this is not the only problem I had with Eclipse . For example, I was not able to change the default value of the WEBLOGIC61 classpath variable on Solaris...
Of course, it is possible that there are some hidden tricks that I have not found yet that would do just what I need - but as somebody said it before I don't want to spend days learning an IDE, I want to be able to start working with it as soon as possible.

[Charles Hasegawa]

I've never had to do this, but you can exclude folders from the build of the project.
When you set up the project (or even after), on the "Source" tab of the Java build, you name the source folders. In addition, for each source folder, you can add an exclusionary filter which allows you to exclude using wildcard filters (for example **/*Test.java), or you can simply pick the folders to exclude.
As far as taking days to learn Eclipse, I find the IDE pretty intuitive and easy to figure out how to do things. Of course, I'm always finding out some new trick of the IDE, but for the most part, I don't find myself having to fight with it or struggle to figure it out. I guess it depends on what you are used to, because other IDEs I've tried don't always seem as intuitive to me.

[Marina Popova]

Charles,
thanks for the advice. Yes, I did try the "Exclude" feature (and "Import" also) - but when you have to exclude 40 directories that cannot be described by a regular expression (like */*something*) it is quite a pain to exclude them one by one manually. Also, even after I went through this pain once - all "excluded" directories were still sitting happily in my Project's window
As to what I'm used to - it's Xemacs + Ant But I do use JBuilder from time to time for GUI development and more involved EJB projects. I guess I'm perfectly fine spending days researching some elaborate features of IDEs, but I think that simple tasks (at least they are very simple in JBuilder) like setting up source directories for your projects should not require that much time - it's just my opinion, of course.
Other than that - Eclipse looked pretty good and I loved the JFaceDBc plugin!
best,
Marina

[Jason Kosowan]

Well, I can't say that I've used netbeans, but have used Eclipse and also JBuilder. (Gawd help me, I've even TRIED to get into VAJ a couple of years ago) My experience with these 2 just validates my opinion that there are no good java IDEs out there yet.
Don't get me wrong, both are ok but they've got some serious problems.
JBuilder - the biggest problem here is it's debugger. Sure, you can browse an object in the tree, but can you evaluate something like "myobject.toString()" and see the result? No. This is disgraceful - even command-line jdb can do this. Other than this, though, JBuilder is very easy to get up and running in a short time.
Eclipse - The most compilcated IDE that I've used and I've found that it's tough to get started with this one. Bad points first:
* You absolutely need to know how to code up an Ant script. IMHO, Ant is good but it's integration with eclipse is far from automatic, which may be a barrier if you don't know Ant.
* V-E-R-Y S-L-O-W - yes, it's a VERY slow IDE, ESPECIALLY if you change your default editor (e.g. use the Ant editor to edit all XML files, not just build.xml.) Believe it or not, it takes me sometimes 5-10 minutes to open a simple XML file (maybe 100 lines) on a P3 w/256 MB ram. I use this editor because I like syntax-highlighting, but the cost is high.
* I like the automatic compiler, but it does slow down Eclipse even further.
* Project corruption - I've also had the problem of directories that simply didn't disappear. Tried everything, but still they would be there. Had to backup everything, erase the enitre project, and rebuild. Only then could you get what you want
Good points:
* Debugger - it's got one
* Command-completion !!even within the build.xml!! This has got to be the most nifty feature. But, you've gotta ask yourself, how much monkeying do you really do with your build.xml? After mine is written up, it rarely changes, so although nice, it's not so useful.
* Search program - allows you to search through all code for a particular string. (i.e. no more find . -type f | xargs grep "blah blah")
So, end of the day, yes, I'm using Eclipse because my project is very large. Am I thrilled? Not really.
For smaller projects, I never ever use eclipse. Instead, it's just Context (my fave text editor) plus Ant plus command-line jdb. Simple, reliable, and fast.
I have heard that IntelliJ is really nice but it's costly and almost never a corporate standard. Anyone ever use it?

[Ray Van]

I use both eclipse and Netbeans on a regular basis and I must say I prefer eclipse for just about all my general purpose needs. Eclipse has CVS & Ant integration, the C/C++ plugins, local history, REFACTORING!, etc. All tools I can't do without anymore.
Eclipse is much faster and uses less memory. It does seem to leak memory every so often though, but shutting down and restarting is no big deal for me when I notice this.
The only thing I use Netbeans for anymore is the GUI building tool for swing apps, which is nice, but I'm really hoping something similar evolves for Eclipse so I can ditch Netbeans entirely.
If you're looking to start learning a new IDE, my recommendation is go with eclipse. Hell, even if you're beholden to Netbeans, give eclipse a try... you'll be glad you did.

[Mike Toth]

I've been using (playing with) both IDE and I'm still on the fence. I am starting to do JSP and NetBeans seems to have the more stable methodology in creating JSP's...
I want to use Eclipse in developing JSP's and Servlets.... (do they have plug-ins for Eclipse regarding JSP???)...... I would really love to use Eclipse on a full-time basis but a do not want to spend a lot of time futzing with plug-ins that may or may not work...
Ed - Can you provide any insight in regards to JSP??? and what to use ???
P.S. - I saw your book and it looks great... I would love a copy but being semi-unemployed at the moment I have to be a bit frugal with my purchases.............
Thanks all
Mike