I'm not trying to start a flame war here...I'm hoping to get some clear opinions on why people use the
IDE (for those of you that *do* like IDEs) that they do.
I've been using
Java now for about a year, more so recently as our company is looking to standardize on a single, cross-platform language/platform. I love Java, I'm excited about the whole thing.
I've been evaluating Eclipse 3.x and Netbeans 5.x and have been sort of bouncing back and forth, trying to select the one that was the "best overall".
After using Eclipse + Webtools for about 2 weeks, ripping most of my (already receeding) hairline out, and nearly screaming out loud in frustration...I gave up on eclipse altogether. I then began using netbeans and got particularly interested in 4.x+ - especialy 5.0 as a lot of improvements had been made (though mostly on the Swing side of things.) I should also mention that I tried IntelliJ IDEA 5.0 and JBuilder 2006...I found them immediately unintuitive and not nearly as user-friendly as Eclipse or Netbeans (coming from a VS/VS.NET background).
Netbeans has a lot going for it and everything seems to "just work" which is much more than I can say for Eclipse + Webtools...where everything "almost" works and usually falls short...leading to great frustration. I love everything about Netbeans except the editor(s) - which just feel cheap. Javascript editing is non-existant and CSS only goes as far as syntax highlighting. The Java editor leaves a little to be desired also...it just isn't "there yet".
Today I tried MyEclipse 4.1 (w/ Eclipse 3.1.2) and I'm *seriously* impressed. This thing seems to do it all! I'm considering purchasing it immediately and thought I'd get some opinions on MyEclipse vs Netbeans.
Also, I'm aware that Netbeans has an awesome new layout manager called Matisse, I've used it, it's nifty...but I'm not a Swing programmer, nor will I be for the forseeable future...I'm a web apps developer, period.
All comments are appreciated!!