"Fun" with Eclipse and NetBeans

I must admit I hesitated before starting this blog entry. I've read already far too many (brainless) flame wars started after someone dared making an innocent comment about one IDE or the other (or about Java vs .NET vs Ruby vs Python vs Brainfuck; or Windows vs. Linux vs Beo ; or ...) and I don't really want to give anyone a new opportunity to show his stupidity in front of the world.

On the other hand I hope that someone can give me useful tips to circonvent one problem or the other I had with them.

So I decided to "believe in the Good in Mankind" and start. Or at least start after a short disclaimer:

What I write here is my opinion based on my short a shallow experience with both IDEs. I have no opinion about which IDE is the best because
1) I don't care
2) I don't believe there is a best IDE (or OS; or programming or natural language; or country; or religion, skin color, solar system, universe...)
3) It is my personal choice which IDE I use and the reasons why I use it instead of any other is none of your business - don't try to convince me of anything (go and buy yourself a teddybear and convince it to use your beloved IDE instead).

Let me first state that I've been using nearly exclusively Eclipse these last few years (be it the "real" thing or its IBM variants). But I'm also keeping an eye on NetBeans, downloading the latest version every now and then, comparing it to Eclipse - and until now giving up after a few days because I simply miss a few things that I grew found of in Eclipse (primarily the refactoring capabilities). This does mean that I didn't find a few nice features in NetBeans over time. For example I like its integration with ant (we've been having a few problems in my various projects because we didn't find the right mix or standard Eclipse mechanisms and ant to generate our software). I also like its profiler - the Eclipse alternative I know of is simply lame...

For the sake of completeness: I downloaded a trial version of IntelliJ once but didn't really take the time to evaluate it before the licence ended...

In my previous project I had the opportunity to have a look at (and also to develop a bit with) SWT. I must admit I'm not impressed. I thought that after that many generations of UI Frameworks behind us (I had some fun with X-Windows and Motif quite a few years ago), so many clever patterns around, it would have been possible to produce something really good. My feeling is that SWT is just another UI framework, just another brick in the wall...

Lately I had an annoying experience with Eclipse (granted this is really a very minor issue but this is the sort of minor issues that drives me mad...):
- I opened the "Welcome" window (Help > Welcome)
- Detached it (right mouse click on "Welcome" tab, select Detached in the pop-up menu)
- Started to read a tutorial
- Wanted to try out what the tutorial was describing, clicked on the Eclipse main window and choose to open a new project.
- Then I wanted to return to the tutorial window to see the next steps (which weren't visible in the window)...
- Sadly the "New Java project" window is modal - and will not let me do anything in the "Welcome" window. So no scrolling, without first shutting the create project window. Quite impractical...

(BTW: while writing this blog entry I was trying to reproduce the behaviour I'm describing and found another interesting effect: selecting a tutorial of the standard Eclipse installation in the detached Welcome window does nothing - just click as often as you please, nothing happens... If you "undetach" the window, the tutorial opens - then you can detach it again and proceed...

2d BTW: Playing with NetBeans during a "creative pause", I was confronted with an error message signalling that NetBeans had encountered a NullPointerException and asking me to report the problem - which I did after having registered to the NetBeans community. I feel great ;-)

Now to NetBeans: I installed 5.5 yesterday and today on two computers - I'm investigating SOA/JBI stuff and SUN's offers an interesting looking enterprise pack supporting these.

The worst news is: I already had two crashes - oh well...

The bad news is: the editor is not yet what it should be (and what it is under Eclipse). But I heard the 6.0 editor is far better, so I may have a look at it someday...

The good news: I really have the feeling that NetBeans is improving. It offers more and more stuff right after the installation that require some work with Eclipse (unless you get MyEclipse or - if your company pays for it and for the new PC you can run that beast on - IBM RAD). I don't know why but NetBeans also feels more "lightweight" (in a positive sense) than Eclipse - but this is only a first very subjective impression and I wonder how I'll see it in a few days.

So what? These are two good IDEs, none of them is perfect and I'm glad that NetBeans is still there and improving even though I still prefer Eclipse (and if if should ever switch to NetBeans, I'll not make a fuss of it and tell how I was finally enlightened and found the right way...).

Was this blog worth risking another IDE flame war? I don't think so - but now it's too late...