Free or cheap IDE available ?

[James Adams]

Hello All,
Sorry if this question is inappropriate for this group, but I didn't see any oters which would be better suited for the question.
I need a Java IDE to use while practicing for the certification tests. I am hoping to find something which is free or cheap with as many features as possible within reason.
JCreator looks to be a good choice but perhaps there is someting even cheaper or free out there which I'm unaware of. If so then please let me know about it.
I will appreciate any feedback, thanks in advance !

-James

[Rajasekar Kayamboo]

You can try EClipse.

[Joe Ess]

I use IBM WASD (Eclipse + IBM plugins) at work and while it's slick, I find myself always resorting to Jedit.
It's smaller, faster, and I don't have to create projects just to edit + compile a couple files.

[Anupam Sinha]

I like JCreator and Eclipse. Probably JBuilder personal edition (free) is also good. But one thing I always wonder is how do you enable assertions or give params at runtime.

[Gregg Bolinger]

Sorry if this question is inappropriate for this group, but I didn't see any oters which would be better suited for the question
You didn't see the IDE's and other Tools forum?
Someone should move this thread.
As far as your question, for projects, I use Eclipse. For simpler things, like if I just need to whip out a class file for some obscure reason, I will use JCreator. JCreator has a freeware version. It is missing a couple of features like code completion, but it is still a good quick editor.
But again, Eclipse for everything else. Joe Pluta has an EXCELLENT book on Eclipse if you have never used it (or any other IDE) before. It is called Eclipse Step By Step.
Hope that helps.

[Dirk Schreckmann]

I've just started using NetBeans, which is free and is an open source project. So far, I'm liking it.
Moving this to the IDEs and other Tools forum...

[Donald R. Cossitt]

I have been using SCiTE while learning JAVA. The very first IDE I ever saw was Eclipse Are you new to JAVA? If so, I think you would spend most of your time learning the IDE and become frustrated. I also used JCreator which is good as well.
HTH

[Jeroen Wenting]

Originally posted by Donald R. Cossitt:
The very first IDE I ever saw was Eclipse Are you new to JAVA? If so, I think you would spend most of your time learning the IDE and become frustrated.

that's the problem with all IDEs... They either are powerful and frustrate newbies with all the options you can set or they remove so much from the user that they are useless as a learning tool (because you just press a button and the code appears automagically thus you learn only the tool and not the code).
Best to learn the language is a text editor and commandline compiler, though once set up Eclipse is well suited as well (and for simple work it's easy to set up).

[George Harris]

I have tried most of the IDE's and I found that the fastest and easiest to use was GEL. The only two drawbacks are that 1) you cannot do any GUI developement (at least not with WYSIWYG) and 2) it is native to Windows. The benefit to the native to windows problem is that it is quite fast. Check it out at:
Gel Homepage

[Matthew Phillips]

If your goal is certification, I would recommend a text editor and the JDK. A good IDE hides a lot of the obscure stuff that cert tests like to question you on.