Eclipse is not productive for JSF?

[John Anaivs]

Hi people,

I've heard that RAD tools, like WebSphere Studio, are more productive than IDE tools, like Eclipse. What do you think about it?

Thanks in advance, Nato.

[Patricio Hervas]

I personally use NetBeans.
I've tried some IDEs and i feel more comfortable with NetBeans.
Other tools like JDeveloper and Creator are very good, but i prefer
to code things by hand when it comes to the JSF/Html tags and dont
like when an IDE changes the structure. Other reason why I use Netbeans
is because i can use the Myfaces implementation, where JDeveloper and
Creator use ADF Faces and Sun's implementation respectively.
Creator is very good but i didnt like that it adds a lot of propietary
code and creates innecesary bindings to every single control you add
to a page.
I tried Eclipse shortly, but to be honest i didnt get into it
because of some company related issues.

i dont know what other tools people use or which might be better for
your particular case, but i like netbeans a lot, i've customized it
for using myfaces as default implementation.

[Gerardo Tasistro]

Did you check the price tag on WebSphere Studio?

Driving to work on Ferrari sure beats a Corolla, but there is always the money issue. Then again if you can afford it...

[John Anaivs]

Thanks Patricio for the reply. Before go any further about cost, I would like to compare only RAD and IDE, doesn't matter which brand. Websphere Studio was only an example.

Thank a lot, Nato.

[Sergey Smirnov]

I did not use WebSphere Studio, but use Eclipse and couple more plugins. It improve my productivity a lot.

Originally posted by Gerardo Tasistro:
Did you check the price tag on WebSphere Studio?

Driving to work on Ferrari sure beats a Corolla, but there is always the money issue. Then again if you can afford it...

If you speak about the speed, it better to say "Tank sure beats a Corolla"
[ April 18, 2006: Message edited by: Sergey Smirnov ]

[Patricio Hervas]

I looked into MyEclipse a little bit, but as i said, didnt get too
far when checking. Which plugins are u using ? Have u used netbeans
maybe, as to compared both ?

thanks

[Patricio Hervas]

Correct if im wrong but isnt RAD a technique or method that
would be possible thanks to the use of and IDE ??
That's what i think.

I also think that RAD in web applications is sort of myth, still,
since you have to deal with a lot of issues when it comes to
browser differences, css, html,jscript etc, so it isnt just drag and
drop to create a form. If you want to have a quality look and
feel on your app, you'll have to still code a lot

[Sergey Smirnov]

I use Exadel Studio and WTP plugins. Actually, I used to be a product leader for it some time ago, so I knew how to use it effectively better than others :-) .

[Gerardo Tasistro]

Originally posted by Patricio Hervas:
If you want to have a quality look and
feel on your app, you'll have to still code a lot

Yea the whole RAD thing just gives me Visual Basic 4.0 flashbacks and shivers. Sure you got something out the door real quick and in looked good, but heck there sure isn't any free lunch in this life.

[John Anaivs]

JSF came for any reason better than Struts, for example, so I really believe this reason is not to be too complicated codification, like Struts. What about what is in the sumary of the book JSF in Action "One of the main goals of Faces is to bring the RAD style of application development, made popular by tools like Microsoft Visual Basic and Borland Delphi, to the world of Java web applications."?

[Charles McGuire]

We use MyEclipse (an Eclipse plug-in). It lets you choose which JSF to use, so it doesn't tie you into a specific JSF implementation.

One of our earlier contractors used a trial version of a Rational tool. It did a lot of stuff for you automatically, but unfortunately not the way you'd do it yourself. We chose not to use that tool based on price, and had to take out a lot of the extra stuff.

One thing we decided early on is to NOT use Ajax for now. Ultimately the Ajax tools will shake out and get better. We'll revisit it in about a year.

[Linda Walters]

We use Eclipse at work for developing all pieces of our enterprise application and I have also used NetBeans and Java Studio Creator just to be familiar with them. I think Eclipse has the easiest learning curve and the price is right (free). WebSphere is rather expensive. I'm not very familiar with WebSphere, but I have had experience with things that call themselves "RAD" and the experience has generally not been good. The things that have to be sacrificed and the assumptions that have to be made to make them "rapid" frequently are done at the expense of efficiency in terms of both speed and space.

We use Eclipse for all aspects of our web-tier development, from the servlets and associated classes to XSL, JavaScript (editing, debugging is with Firefox and Venkman), JSP and JSF. There are third-party plugins that supposedly help with development of things like XSL, JSP and JSF. I have used one of the leading XSL/XML plugins for Eclipse and I am not really impressed by it.

[Gerardo Tasistro]

Originally posted by nato anaivs:
"One of the main goals of Faces is to bring the RAD style of application development, made popular by tools like Microsoft Visual Basic and Borland Delphi, to the world of Java web applications."?

Nato you might want to look into MyEclipse IDE It has a nice set of features. Some of which are JSF related and RAD oriented. You can do some drag and drop web development on the view level. It also has a nice graphic navigation rule creator.

Faces is a leap ahead from the more clasic web development paradigms. The whole concept of the managed beans, the state management by the container through sessions and automatic validation and conversion by the faces framework makes you believe you're working with Swing snapshots. That every request is just a snapshot of what would be a Swing app.

Never the less it is still a web app and should be dealt with as such. Plus JSF has a lot of little gotchas that will drive you wild in the beginning.

[John Anaivs]

I'll try MyEclipse, thanks for the advice. I've been tried for Struts and was great... now I'll continue for JSF. Thanks, Nato.

[Kevin Galligan]

I feel like the only one out there, but I use the bea workshop, formerly M7 Nitro tool. Personally, I find it to be the best JSF editor available. This is because it does a decent job at visual editing, but isn't painful on your source, and you can edit source directly if you feel the need.

However, even the direct editing is helped significantly by their tag library template panels. That's not the actual name for them. They pop up when you select lets say an html table. It'll provide the ability to select the target object you want, etc. Also has EL code completion and error checking.

I've also used Exadel, and tried Myeclipse, WTP-only, intellij idea 3-5, and briefly netbeans, JBuilder, and the crazy ibm tool. I installed sun studio, and closed it pretty soon after.

I'm more of a coder than a visual editor type of guy, but the bea tool is pretty good at both. I'm highly concerned about what bea will do to it now that they own it. You should try the free jsp editor if you get a chance. Code completion on JSTL EL expressions is pretty sweet.

Eclipse is a tough start. I tried it a few times over the years and gave up on it. Now I personally think its the best thing out there. You just need to go through the initial pain.

[John Anaivs]

Guys, I appreciate all your information. By the way, Sergey Smirnov, what the pluggins you've used with Eclipse. Thanks a lot, Nato.

[Sergey Smirnov]

I use Exadel Studio and WTP plugins.

[John Anaivs]

Thanks Sergey Smirnov and I'm sorry. I think you already wrote it. Nato.

[John Anaivs]

One more question, do you think that worth use the Exadel Studio 3.5 or I need buy the Exadel Studio Pro 3.5? I now the answer should be depends, but generally speaking... Thanks, Nato.

[Jeroen T Wenting]

remember: no complex application will give the user an instance increase of productivity over a simple application with the same basic functionality.
It may even give an initially lower productivity than that simple application.

The true benefits of a complex application can only be determined in the intermediate to long timeframe, after the user has had the chance to learn to use the advanced features of his new tool to their full effect and configure the tool to match his requirements and preferences.

In this it doesn't matter whether that tool is a physical tool (hardware) or software.
A hand drill may be faster for the uninitiated than an electrical powerdrill. Yet once the operator learns to use his powerdrill effectively he can drill better holes far faster and more accurate than he ever could with the simple hand drill.
The same holds true for software. Notepad is easy to learn, but to the adept VI offers him far higher productivity. And the features offered by the likes of Eclipse and IDEA give their users far higher productivity once they get to know and use them to full effect compared to say JEdit.

[Daniel Prene]

after the user has had the chance to learn to use the advanced features of his new tool to their full effect and configure the tool to match his requirements and preferences, the maker of the tool releases a new version, drops support on the old one and changes how everything works.

[Daniel Prene]

Or more relevantly, a new technology comes out better supported by another tool and everyone stampedes towards it.

[John Anaivs]

Hi,

I am sorry but I have to disagree with these ideas. I also could say that I'm going continue using plan java servlet and jsp because I have the control of the situation. We are talking about whether Eclipse is a good tool or not for such a new technology as JSF. With some technologies I could feel comfortable but I would never ever have the same features that I could have with the new one and those new features many many times means much better systems with much more productivity for the team.

Thanks, Nato.

[Jeroen T Wenting]

Originally posted by Daniel Prene:
Or more relevantly, a new technology comes out better supported by another tool and everyone stampedes towards it.

Which is why I won't touch a new technology until it's settled down a bit.
Also prevents me from running headlong with the crowd after every hype that hits the market, and spending fortunes on books and tools about technology that is overhyped and disappears or radically changes after a few months.

[Sergey Smirnov]

Originally posted by nato anaivs:
One more question, do you think that worth use the Exadel Studio 3.5 or I need buy the Exadel Studio Pro 3.5? I now the answer should be depends, but generally speaking... Thanks, Nato.

Both versions, free and pro, support JSF development including Facelets. Take a look at the Feature Comparison table to decide what is worth to use.

[John Anaivs]

Both versions, free and pro, support JSF development including Facelets. Take a look at the Feature Comparison table to decide what is worth to use.

The Diagram viewer really makes any difference? Thanks.

[Sergey Smirnov]

The Diagram viewer really makes any difference? Thanks.[/QB]

It is useful, but not a critical part. I like it.

[John Anaivs]

It is useful, but not a critical part. I like it.

Thank you very much.