Which IDE to use

[Sudha Kris]

I have just finished SCJp a few weeks back, want totry for Developer now. I want to ask you people till now I was using notepad for my java programs. I want to develop some good programs with GUI etc, so which IDE do you suggest? Ofcourse I prefer the one you can download for free.
I don't have a book for Developer preparation,I had Kahilid's book for SCJp which doesn't cover SCJD. Is it enough I cover the following topics for SCJD before downloading the assignement?
RMI
JDBC
Networking, working with Sockets etc.
Swing
Is that all or is there something more to it?
Thanks in advance,

Sudha

[Jerry Pulley]

Sudha,
You don't have to have a visual tool for GUI, in fact you should become skilled at GUI programming without one. Put that SCJP layout manager knowledge to work. Of course, you'll want a better editor than notepad, try Textpad.
Your list of topics sounds ok, but you probably won't need JDBC for your assignment. There's no such thing as a good SCJD prep book - the list of required skills is just too broad.
Jerry

[This message has been edited by Jerry Pulley (edited December 15, 2000).]

[Chuck Carey]

You might want to try JCreator. It can be downloaded for free at www.jcreator.com.
Good luck!

[Christophe Lee]

I know this thread is pretty old but....
Does JCreator (trial version) allow step-through debugging? And how large is the file unzipped?
Just wondering what IDE I should use. Seems textpad might not be enough....

[Shiraz Bhagwagar]

Finally, Which is a good book. I would like to know myself, the name of a book which would cover all the topics (other than RHE). I do not mind that it covers additional stuff. But I definitely do require a different book. Also could someone provide some links and additional reading material on the web.
Regards,
Shiraz.

Originally posted by Christophe Lee:
I know this thread is pretty old but....
Does JCreator (trial version) allow step-through debugging? And how large is the file unzipped?
Just wondering what IDE I should use. Seems textpad might not be enough....

[Paul Keohan]

I find JCreator to be very good for relatively small amounts of work but it does not include debugging capabilities. I wouldn't like to be controlling a 10,000 program application with it.

[Val Dra]

you can try kawa for 30 days for free. I found it buggy when working with it. I also prefer TextPad nice editor.

[Christophe Lee]

Specifically, is Textpad sufficient for the developer's exam (in your opinion). I know it becomes harder to manage very large projects with Textpad, but hopefully, for the developer's exam, it is enough?
I also heard good things about JCreator and may just download their trial version. I haven't decided.

[Jane Griscti]

Jext is a pretty good editor.
Some links I've found helpful:
The Essence of Object-Oriented Programming with Java and UML. The chapter covering Swing and the MVC pattern is good.
Java Idioms
Swing there's a chapter on using Tables.
Java Look and Feel Graphics
RMI FAQ on Sun's site.
Fundamentals of RMI a short tutorial from jGuru.
I don't think you need JDBC.
Hope that helps.

[Paul Anilprem]

Iff you decide on using an IDE, I would recommend Visual Age for Java.
1. I have used many IDEs but I found VAJ to be really good in terms of features. It does have some learning curve but it is worth it.
2. Most of big companies use VAJ these days and it helps if you know how to use it efficiently.
3. You CAN put it on your resume Afterall, sellability of the resume is also one of the main reasons people persue certifications! You can't put Notepad or Textpad.
4. You can download the developer edition for free from IBM.
Drawbacks:
You need a powerfull machine.
HTH,
Paul.

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[David Reck]

I would recommend JBuilder from Borland. It has a free version you can download from the Internet. The display is easy to pick up and the debugger is pretty powerful.

[Catherine McManus]

I quite like JPadPro from www.modelworks.com. It's easy to get into, and the interface is nice. I got the eval version, then paid the money. It was quite cheap I think (a year ago).
Catherine

[Sajid Raza]

I used Visual Age for Java 3.5.3 to do my project. I'm waiting for the results now, so I can't recommend it until I pass. The only problem I had with VAJ was it generated a good deal of what I thought was unnecessary code. Once you learn how to use it things like event handling become a snap to do. The best feature in the IDE is easy manipulation of GridBagLayout, and I used GridBag every where.

[Doug Melzer]

I'd recommend JBuilder 5 Personal (its free for non-commercial use).
http://www.borland.com

I also found that use of Ant to handle my builds and packaging tasks was very helpful.

[Jyotsna Clarkin]

Originally posted by Paul Anil:
Iff you decide on using an IDE, I would recommend Visual Age for Java.

I would really like to learn VAJ
BUT.. ...
What kind of a beast do I need to run it? (I use TextPad on my 64Mb Windows98 machine -is it worth even trying VAJ? )
Is there a stripped down version that is usable? What's the minimum configuration?
regards,
Jyotsna

[Mike Rettig]

Try Idea by Intellij. It has a full set of refactoring tools and other features (Active syntax checking and intelligent source searching to name two) that most ide's can't match.
http://www.intellij.com
Visual SlickEdit and JBuilder used to be the ide's of choice at my work, but now Intellij is used almost exclusively. It has built in Ant support, so you'll be covered for all of your build, packaging, or deployment needs.

[Sajid Raza]

I run VAJ on my P3-500/192MB RAM laptop. The performance is acceptable, barely. I tried using Forte and JBuilder, but I was too used to VAJ to switch. With 64MB RAM, don't use it. It eats up 50-70MB happily, leaving you with nothing for the OS, etc. Also Win9x + VAJ seemed to be a crash-prone combination.

[Max Tomlinson]

I also use VAJ, which has some good tools (repository for versioning, debugger, Javadoc) but am unable to get the debugger to work with an external RMI server.

[David Weitzman]

No one has mentioned JEdit or Forte (I don't think forte is great but it has a gui editor and code completion and debugging and the like). www.jedit.org www.netbeans.org [email protected]

[Lisa Yanchunis]

While not a full fledged IDE, TogetherSoft Community edition provides a lightweight IDE (it does compile etc). The advantage is a roundtrip engineering between your class diagrams and your code. A lightweight design and IDE tool. I have used the full fledged product (which I would love to own personally) and would recommend it to anyone doing design work for Java.

[Roel De Meester]

The most trivial of them all Eclipse.

[Max Habibi]

My suggestion is to use TextPad. It's very clear, and will force you to solve all issues, including classpath issues, by hand. While that might not seem like a plus, it really is. A Developer( as opposed to a programmer) should be able to do that stuff by hand, if necessary. This is your opportunity to learn how.
All best,
M

[Robin Clark]

I've been using Eclipse so far on my project. The reasons why I chose it initially over a plain text editor were for the syntax highlighting and the
debugger. But when Max says it is better to use a plain text editor, it makes me re-think my choice.
Max, what do you think of using a debugger and syntax highlighting?
I am truly enjoying your book. I just returned from a week in Belize and I have a photograph of me sitting on the sacrificial stone atop a Mayan ruin reading your book. Not that I am a total geek or anything.
Thanks!

[Jay Bromley]

Hello,
Emacs with JDEE and Emacs Code Browser is fairly good and runs reasonably quick even on older machines. Decent for handling projects, yet it doesn't hide the details that a developer should know about.
I'm not Max, but regarding your other questions, I think syntax highlighting is a good thing. It increases the readability of code and what with cheap color printers, most IDEs will let you print out code with syntax highlighting. This leaves no reason to look at monochrome code.
A debugger might be helpful, but if you use something like JUnit to unit test everything, you shouldn't have to use it much. For the SCJD project, my experience is that the must critical place that it might be used is to debug locking code, BUT, using a debugger on multithread code can be difficult since it inherently changes how your code works. (E.g. code might deadlock in real life, but work when trying to step through things in a debugger.)
Regards,
jb

[George Marinkovich]

I recommend the shareware from TextPad. The editor is Java syntax-aware and it's a pleasure to look at Java code in the editor. For the SCJD project the TextPad editor is more than adequate. Also, for the SCJD project, I would recommend using logging instead of a debugger.
Hope this helps,
George
[ February 03, 2004: Message edited by: George Marinkovich ]

[Max Habibi]

Originally posted by Robin Clark:
I've been using Eclipse so far on my project. The reasons why I chose it initially over a plain text editor were for the syntax highlighting and the
debugger. But when Max says it is better to use a plain text editor, it makes me re-think my choice.
Max, what do you think of using a debugger and syntax highlighting?

Debugging is nice in real life, though log statements should do for the SCJD: if nothing else, it will make you appreciate the jdk 1.4 logging framework.
As for highlighting, I couldn't live without it. But Textpad does a pretty good job with Java files, IMO.

I am truly enjoying your book. I just returned from a week in Belize and I have a photograph of me sitting on the sacrificial stone atop a Mayan ruin reading your book.
Thanks!

That's so cool! Scan in the picture, and I'll try to use it for the 1.5 version of the book ;-)
All best,
M
[ February 03, 2004: Message edited by: Max Habibi ]