Why a book on IntelliJ ?

[Christophe Verré]

Who needs a book on Eclipse ? Every programmers around download Eclipse, start a new project, and start playing with it. Who has read a book about Eclipse ?

So my question is, is a book on IntelliJ really needed ? Is there something that makes it hard to use ?

[Theodore Casser]

Originally posted by Satou kurinosuke:
Who needs a book on Eclipse ? Every programmers around download Eclipse, start a new project, and start playing with it. Who has read a book about Eclipse ?

Which is a funny thing to say, because there are several books out on Eclipse. Do a search at Amazon or B&N and you'll see.

I think the benefit of such a thing is somewhat obvious - there's always going to be the basic features that everyone knows how ot use, when they sit down to play with any application or IDE. And then there's the few features that are somewhat buried (think Microsoft Word or other Office apps) that can save you a lot of time and trouble if you know how to reach them.

And being a user who does use IDEA, I think it's something I'd have gotten a while ago, if I'd known it existed...

[Pho Tek]

The reason you need a book on any technology is because some developers will not use the technology unless they perceive that other developers are using it in the marketplace. A book (with a good Amazon rank) provides that perception.

[Christophe Verré]

Thank you for the reply.

I knew that there are books on Eclipse, but I can't understand the necessity to read them. What I actually do is check the "Features" section of the soft.
The cool things are usually listed in there. And then I look for them by playing with the editor. It doesn't take much time to get used to.

The interesting thing about the book seems to be the ACME sample which is used throughout the chapters. I agree that this may be a cool way to get used to the editor.

[Christophe Verré]

Pho,
I agree with you [i]technologies[/b] but this book is about an IDE.
I think that my question was actually a bit to vague.

Who is this book targetted to ?

[Ann Oreshnikova]

I think the best reply would be "The book is targeted to those who were wondering why there were so many books on Eclipse and not a single one on IntelliJ IDEA"
This is true, but there is another side of the medal. This book is not just about obvious or hidden features... It is not about relieving someone's confusion from the first look at the IDE. IntelliJ IDEA is so intuitive that it can hardly confuse anyone.
We wanted to write a book about a tool that is already popular and highly valued, and show how to use IntelliJ IDEA even more effectively.
And that's why (you are absolutely right Satou) a real-world sample project is of a great help.
[ April 13, 2006: Message edited by: Ann Oreshnikova ]

[Mark Spritzler]

Originally posted by Satou kurinosuke:
Who has read a book about Eclipse ?

I have. I have the Eclipse Pokcet Guide from O'Reilly and read it from cover to cover, and would if there was a bigger book. I would love to see that so that I can understand Eclipse. For some reason I have a problem working and understanding Eclipse, they change all this terminology like "perspective" I like the simple I have a Project, here are my Modules, if needed and here are my files.

Anyway, this isn't about Eclipse versus anything, this is about needing a book. Having these books is just a great way to learn some of the more "hidden" features that the regular user never gets to see. Kind of like Microsoft Word, and a book for it.

These products have so many features that trying to find them out yourself takes a long time, and there is some statistic that shows that 95% of the users of Microsoft only know and use like 20% of the features, but the numbers I gave are not the exact numbers given, I just don't have the time to find the real numbers online right now.

I have used IntelliJ for a real long time now, and know lots of features, but would love to also see a book and I am sure there will be some great finds that I never knew about.

Mark
Mark.

[Christophe Verré]

Ann, Mark,
Thank you for replying.

I've never a book about Word, Excel or Visual Studio every day. I can use them, but I guess that I'm not even using 50% of there functionality. That is why a book could open my eyes, and make me think : oohhh, there was a simple way to do that, oohhh I've never seen this option before...

I think that the idea of making a sample application througout the book was a good idea, and worth reading.

[Naidu YPVS]

Hi all,

I have been using IntelliJ IDEA for more than 2 years, I absolutely love it. I leanr about "Bookmarks" feature from the sample chapters that I downloaded at Manning website and I knew about this bookmarks and shortcuts. The one on jUnit is also okay. I wonder how many hidden features that we never used are in store in the book.

Most Manniung press books are good in general and I hope this one also will be good.

Regards,
Naidu.

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

I've got half a dozen Eclipse books. I didn't have much use for the parts about using Eclipse to edit Java code -- I agree that most of that is self-explanatory. But all the books I have are partly (and a few are entirely) about writing plug-ins for Eclipse, and that's invaluable -- the online documentation is totally inadequate.

I imagine this IntelliJ book includes material about using JetBrains "OpenAPI" to write IDEA plugins -- again, I'd find that very welcome.

[bhaskar sanghi]

I would prefer to read this book as I know there are many features which we can't discover without a book.