“Almost a year after it donated some $40 million worth of code and tools, IBM is on the warpath once again, drumming up support for the open-source Eclipse project. Eclipse may not be as well known as some other open-source projects, such as Linux, Mozilla, or Apache. It’s certainly not as sexy. At its core, Eclipse provides a common platform, user interface, and plug-in framework for integrating development tools.” Read the rest of the story at InternetWeek. We should add that if the Eclipse web site add some easy to find screenshots and become a bit more straightforward of what it is and what it does, instead of corporate blah-blah, surely more people would get interested in. Expect a review of the QNX version of Eclipse, dubbed ‘Momentics’, in the near future.
Why Is The Eclipse IDE Important
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I have been using Eclipse almost daily for the past four months working on a project with a fellow student. While it has a few UI issues (like all of the preferences being under the “Window” menu) and it has crashed once or twice, all-in-all it’s the best IDE I’ve ever used. I had previously used Visual C++ for eight months on a co-op, and Eclipse has just about everything I liked from VS, plus the plug-in architecture makes it very adaptable.
My project partner was using it under Windows, and had been using VisualAge for Java before that. Us being able to coordinate using a single IDE was a great boon.
I really like what they’ve done with SWT. It’s what keeps things fast. Rather than using Swing or AWT, IBM has written a wrapper (SWT) that uses the platform’s native toolkit. I used the GTK version under Linux, it was great. All of the power of a real IDE, all of the speed of a native Linux app. Moving between Unix and Win32 is a non-issue, the IDE is very well done.
Eclipse is a top-notch product, it’s too bad that it isn’t more widely recognized. I think it’s IBM’s most significant contribution to the OSS community yet. While I understand Sun being a little mad at IBM for doing their own thing and not just using Forte/Netbeans, anyone who’s used both Eclipse and Netbeans for an extended period of time would agree that it was a good move on IBM’s part.
This sounds like a good thing and I guess open source might get something out of it; but I’m not really sure in any meaningful sense how this is open source. The whole idea of Java is that you don’t need to be open source to achieve cross platform integration in theory (though not yet in practice):
1 – compile once
2 – run anywhere
3 – maintain closed source
If you believe in open source then there is really no reason to choose Java; other languages do what Java does better if you are willing to show your source. So in some sense making Java tools better doesn’t really advance open source. Spending 40 million on say getting make to handle complex builds better so that ports style distribution of software works better strikes me as a much more “open source” kind of project.
OTOH the “open source” is getting used more and more to mean “non microsoft / non windows” and in that sense Eclipse does advance the cause. These J2EE / Java developer toolkits are a bear to figure out right now. Getting it down to having to only understand one will certainly help in allowing developers to move cross platform more easily.
Frankly more than anything else what Oracle needs to do is spend way more money on documentation. What Sun needs to do is to create / buy some cool toolkits so they can freely distribute something like hypercard for Java; and get lots of Java software out in the market. For IBM OTOH getting all the Java people to use similar IDEs so their consultants can help anybody with any project more quickly makes sense.
In terms of making Linux a key Java development platform this sounds good. The problem is that underlying idealogy of Java is in conflict with the underlying idealogy of GNU/Linux.
Wow! They manage to show the article in a column that is more narrow than my XMMS window on a 1600 pixel wide screen! But of course this is neccessary as now they can also show me a column (twice as large) with some unreadable text with a lot of flying turtles and locks above it! They surely master the art of webdesign.
Oh and did I mention that those flying things make my Gecko window crawl like a turtle as well, very fitting.
This IDE seems very interesting though. I heard quite a lot about it but never really looked at it yet.
> with some unreadable text with a lot of flying turtles and locks above it!
Hey Spark, lately you always complain for small fonts. You either need glasses or downgrade your res to 1280. Your monitor doesn’t seem to be up to it.
having worked with the 1.X and the 2.0, well, eclipse is clunky, clunky, clunky
it should be named in os/2 parlance, eclipse/2
it’s half of a development environment
the best part of eclipse is that the uninstaller works
it will take a long time for ibm to understand ui
just like os/2 felt like it was from a different planet
so does eclipse
even on features, eclipse is a rather weak system compared to borland, microsoft, even netbeans
it’s that classical “50% done… ship it!” java mentality at work
i can see why ibm is bundling borland with db2 and vice versa
maybe eclipse 5.0 will be good enough to use?
?
if linux gets the kiss of the bytecode and loses touch with real code, all is lost
if ibm and the powers that be manage to subvert the linux faithful
and get them to embrace the watery depths of bytecode
all linux land will be plunged into mediocrity
lots of big slow apps
from lots of big slow programmers
keep the java bytecode away
keep the .not bytecode away
let ibm and sun run the bytecode on their big iron
that is the only place for it anyway
well, big iron and dumb cell phone games
keep linux for the smart programmers, not the mediocre masses that don’t understand what a pointer is
keep garbage collection on solaris
that’s a good waste management platform
?
You might understand me when looking at this: http://server204.serverflex.de/download/flashad.png
I realised now that it’s just some crappy (big) flash ad. The text was fine at first then turned into this after a while.
I think it does that some times because the Flash plugin thinks that the PC didn’t have enough power for some reason. Right-click and re-enable “High Quality”.
Yes that wouldn’t be so bad wouldn’t it?
The rest went something like:
“keep linux for the smart programmers, not the mediocre masses that don’t understand what a pointer is”
I really hope linux is exclusive to the “smart” programmers, indeed.
You clearly don’t understand java.
Why is Eclipse any more “important” than NetBeans? Both seem to be a Java based application framework? What makes Eclipse any more special than NetBeans?
Well, it really isn’t more important. Think of Eclipse and NetBeans as equals because they are both projects sponsored by their “parent” companies (IBM and Sun, respectively) in order to create an extendable Java based application framework to power IDEs and such.
If anything were to be considered “special” about Eclipse it would have to be that the fine Eclipse developers decided to reinvent the graphics toolkits presumably in order to gain some performance advantage (though at the cost of functionality and portability).
grovel
“50% done”-mentality? Like any other opensource project using any other programming language, the sources (and binaries) are available to the masses before a version is released. Eclipse 2.0 is a version release, implementing the 2.0 spesification fully. Furthermore, Eclipse is NOT an IBM product. IBM has sponsored the development and contributed to some of the codebase, but take a look at http://www.eclipse.org/org/index.html and see what it’s really about. IBM uses eclipse as the base for it’s own commercial product called WebSphere Studio Application Developer, and the extra plugins shipped with _this_ product is developed by IBM.
And by the way, not everything can be solved with pointers and inline assembly. It’s not even suited for most modern projects dealing with distributed computing, web services, dynamic websites, and so on. Use the best suited tool to get the job done.
Well, Eclipse is based on a plugin architecture and is not limited to Java. There are plugins for XML, C/C++, C#, UML modelling, DB access and manipulation. Unfortunally, most of the plugins are beta and pretty unstable.
Take a look at http://eclipse-plugins.2y.net/
I admit it’s been a few months since I looked at it, but last time I looked it didn’t even have a “File, Open” option on its menus. EVERYTHING has to be in some kind of project, and you couldn’t even pick or choose files in a directory, it would import EVERY file in a directory.
I use Oracle JDeveloper at home and haven’t looked back.
I always love posts like this. They are almost beautiful in the way innocence and nescience weave together into a sturdy , inexplicable tapestry which logic cannot penetrate.
This sounds like a good thing and I guess open source might get something out of it; but I’m not really sure in any meaningful sense how this is open source. The whole idea of Java is that you don’t need to be open source to achieve cross platform integration in theory (though not yet in practice):
Open source is not a business model to achieve cross platform abilities; in a grossly oversimplified form, it’s about distributing source code with a binary so that others can modify your program to do what they want it to. Licenses such as the GPL also insure that these improvements are donated back to the open source community.
1 – compile once
2 – run anywhere
3 – maintain closed source
You added number three. It has never been a part of Sun’s marketing of Java. It is more a Microsoft axiom.
If you believe in open source then there is really no reason to choose Java; other languages do what Java does better if you are willing to show your source.
What? Java is the best language to use for many types of programming; particularly on the server side. Your statements in this post and the assumptions you are drawing are very inaccurate.
Java allows you to run a program cross platform without rebuilding your binaries. This works very well; contrary to your statement above. I program and compile Java exclusively on a Linux machine, yet my programs run mostly on Windows and Apple machines at work. I don’t have to recompile anything, I just make my binaries available. You can’t do that with most other languages.
Even if I write my C programs with cross-platform use in mind, I still can’t escape the need to compile my source code into multiple binaries; one for each intended platform.
Open source is irrelevant in the ways you are referencing it. Open or closed, Java is cross-platform by nature and languages like C, C++, Pascal, Basic, etc. are not.
So in some sense making Java tools better doesn’t really advance open source.
I get the strong impressing that you don’t understand Java programming or what the goals of open source are. The two are not related (other than the fact you can open source Java code).
Spending 40 million on say getting make to handle complex builds better so that ports style distribution of software works better strikes me as a much more “open source” kind of project.
Make already handles complex builds if you know how to write your scripts. If you don’t then it doesn’t make even the simplest of builds.
These J2EE / Java developer toolkits are a bear to figure out right now.
No they aren’t. Java is fairly well structured and excellently documented.
Getting it down to having to only understand one will certainly help in allowing developers to move cross platform more easily.
What?
Frankly more than anything else what Oracle needs to do is spend way more money on documentation. What Sun needs to do is to create / buy some cool toolkits so they can freely distribute something like hypercard for Java; and get lots of Java software out in the market. For IBM OTOH getting all the Java people to use similar IDEs so their consultants can help anybody with any project more quickly makes sense.
Don’t care about Oracle.
There already is a lot of cool software written in Java available today. Have you ever heard of Jakarta, Ant, or any other products by that same talented group of people?
Why do all the Java people need to all use similar IDEs (or IDEs at all for that matter)? Learn how to program instead and then it won’t matter what IDE, or lack thereof, is used.
In terms of making Linux a key Java development platform this sounds good. The problem is that underlying idealogy of Java is in conflict with the underlying idealogy of GNU/Linux.
I mean no offense to you, but you obviously don’t understand what you are talking about. Your last statement is so fundamentally flawed that I have no idea how to respond. It’s like saying you shouldn’t spend effort mixing eggs into your pancake batter because the bottom of my toe has a radiant sheen.
I had somehow expected more from the ancient, infamous member of intelligentsia.
if linux gets the kiss of the bytecode and loses touch with real code, all is lost
Ha ha ha ha! Whoa, I fell out of my seat! That’s a good one. Thanks.
Before you make such tawdry remarks, perhaps you should check out http://www.apache.org. Pay special attention to projects such as Ant, Tomcat, the Xerces SAX parser, etc., which are all Java.
These are damn fine products, as anyone who has used them can tell you, so I always laugh when people post comments that Java is slow and that there are no good Java programs available.
Keep sipping that peyote punch if you’d like. I’ll keep writing Java apps and collecting those paychecks.
if ibm and the powers that be manage to subvert the linux faithful
and get them to embrace the watery depths of bytecode
all linux land will be plunged into mediocrity
lots of big slow apps
from lots of big slow programmers
You’re on a comic roll today. I hate to tell you kid, but Java has already permeated Linux and has obviously done such a fine job at it you were completely unaware. By the way, I happen to program a lot of Java on Linux. I also happen to program a lot of C and C++ on Linux as well. Does that make me a medium speed programmer?
keep the java bytecode away
keep the .not bytecode away
I agree with you on .NET because it will never be fully implemented (or even implementable) under Linux. Well, that and Bill Gates buggered my dog.
let ibm and sun run the bytecode on their big iron
that is the only place for it anyway
well, big iron and dumb cell phone games
Well, that and a lot of very useful open sourced programming tools and other programs and those annoying database driven dynamic web pages that use those newfangled Java servlet or JSP (or both) thingamabobs.
keep linux for the smart programmers, not the mediocre masses that don’t understand what a pointer is
What if we do understand what a pointer is and still like Java? I mean if I muster up enough strength, I can even figure out what a pointer to a pointer is, and if I really pop an artery, I might just be able to figure out what they’re used for. I might even be able to pronounce the word astrisk correctly when talking about pointers in C/C++ instead of the usuall “astricks” pronunciation that flows so popularly out of English speaking mouths. That has to count for something. I don’t want to be labeled as a pointer-challenged loser in a turtle race.
keep garbage collection on solaris
that’s a good waste management platform
Going out on a limb here. You have never used Solaris and don’t really know how to program do you? Just a vibe.
…pointers in C/C++ instead of the usuall…
I might even learn how to spell!
> Even if I write my C programs with cross-platform use in mind, I still can’t escape the
> need to compile my source code into multiple binaries; one for each intended platform.
<awkward bugger=”true”>
Well, you could write your program in C, take a C to JavaByteCode compiler, an hey mr presto your C program will run on any machine running the Java Platform.
> You have never used Solaris
new feature in Solaris 9, it’ll just GC any proccesses it believes your are not using, or atlest thats what the SA will tell you as (s)he plays PSDoom.
I know this is slightly oftopic to all this Java Bashing, but has anyone used eclipse, how does it stand up to JBuilder (my current IDE)?
Open source is not a business model to achieve cross platform abilities; in a grossly oversimplified form, it’s about distributing source code with a binary so that others can modify your program to do what they want it to.
There are lots of models to modify code to get it do what you want to. For example paying the vendor to write to your specs has been by far the most used one. Open source (expecially in the GNU sense of the word) isn’t simply that:
From Stallman himself:
The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
_____# end quote
Freedom to learn ideas from others and share as a community the way science works rather than the way commerce works. That’s the key issue. I don’t see how Java advances this any more than pure binary distributions. And that’s my point Java is essentially a binary language. To quote you, “Java allows you to run a program cross platform without rebuilding your binaries. This works very well; contrary to your statement above. I program and compile Java exclusively on a Linux machine, yet my programs run mostly on Windows and Apple machines at work. I don’t have to recompile anything, I just make my binaries available. You can’t do that with most other languages.
Even if I write my C programs with cross-platform use in mind, I still can’t escape the need to compile my source code into multiple binaries; one for each intended platform. ”
That is Java allows you to distribute binaries of your work rather than source. Nice feature but clearly one that contrary to open source goals. Succesful closed source models are harmful to open source, not helpful.
>> Spending 40 million on say getting make to handle complex builds better so that ports style distribution of
>> software works better strikes me as a much more “open source” kind of project.
> Make already handles complex builds if you know how to write your scripts. If you don’t then it doesn’t make even
> the simplest of builds.
I’d argue that the fact spend so much time porting is proof that make is not living up to its promise. Why does Fink exist? Why does Debian have to check everything on 14 platforms? Make is good it isn’t there yet, as implemented by most developers. Which is why I’ll stand by my statement that better make tools would be far more useful for open source cross platform than better Java tools.
>> These J2EE / Java developer toolkits are a bear to figure out right now.
> No they aren’t. Java is fairly well structured and excellently documented
How does your statement even address mine? The language is well documented. I’d argue confusing as hell rather than well structured but that’s beside the point. However the enterprise toolkits like Oracle Developer Studio or IBM Websphere are are a bear and the quality of underlying Java documentation doesn’t address this.
Are there any refactoring tools for Eclipse?
Are there any for NetBeans?
Will Eclipse become available for QNX Non-Commercial ?
I’ve read that it will be shipped with the 9000$ licensed QNX (the biggest)
So ?
I see a lot of people bashing Java and saying how it’s not good for Open Source or Linux or how it’s slow, blah blah blah… now how many of you work in the IT Industry? Have really experience with Enterprise software?
Java’s strength really isn’t in desktop applications, which is what most people think of when they complain about how slow it is or how it’s no good for application development.
Java’s strength is in client-server computing, enterprise components, etc… Enterprise applications are designed VERY differently from desktop applications, and speed isn’t measured by how fast a button reacts to a click. Java really does simplify developing components, distributed software, thin-clients, etc… things that Enterprises need.
We all know Linux rocks as a server platform, but to get serious ENTERPRISE applications running of it, it needs TOOLS for developers, Application Frameworks and nice sets of APIs to simplify and speed up development (Java has tons of great ready to use components), etc… Java’s APIs and Frameworks are pretty Open, so it’s great for building on top of and still being portable across not only platforms, but application servers (this is questionable, since some application servers introduce non-portable APIs and functionality).
When thinking Java, think Enterprise, not simply Desktop. I’d be interested in hearing responses from people that think Java is bad for the Enterprise, and what they think is a good alternative.
I am currently using Eclipse for my daily work, and I used Visual Age and NetBeans before that, so these are the IDEs I can compare. I only use the most basic features, no extra modules, no visual GUI building.
Visual Age is probably the most mature of the three, but it has some very annoying bugs. Moreover, if you don’t come from the Smalltalk camp, a lot of things will be very counterintuitive at first.
NetBeans seems to be more stable than Visual Age in the sense that while it has more bugs, the consequences of being bitten by one are usually much less dramatic. I think the GUI and overall “feel” of NetBeans is more “standard” than that of Visual Age or Eclipse.
In the latter respect, Eclipse is somewhere between Visual Age and NetBeans: it’s more “standard” than Visual Age while implementing some concepts of Visual Age. As it is newer, there are less modules available for it yet. One thing I really love about Eclipse is that support for some basic refactorings is built in in an unobtrusive way. (E.g., the “rename” action for classes or members has a pre-checked checkbox for updating all references.) The other thing that made me switch from NetBeans to Eclipse is the fact that it is much more responsive to user input. This also makes me consider switching to SWT with my current project, for which platform independence is not an important issue, but a responsive GUI is.
I have been working with several IDE’s. I am a Java programmer. The only thing I hate of Java is the slow GUI’s it produces. I worked with IBM Visual Age, Borland JBuiler 4, 5 and 6. I also used Netbeans and IDEA IntelliJ. Then I discovered Eclipse. I was sold. Eclipse uses a widget library that is native and makes Java have a fast GUI. Eclipse has a very nice idea behind the IDE that the others don’t have: Eclipse doesn’t prodive too many ‘wizzards’ like the others. JBuilder has truly been overblown with wizzards; “I you like clicking you can be a programmer too” is their slogan. Eclipse really supports a programmer in developing a program. There are more and more plugins appearing for Eclipse that are really usefull. I do have to say you need to get used to how the IDE is working with the perspective and views but it is friendlier when you understand it.
It’s by far the best (Java) IDE I have ever had the honor of working with…
I agree with the fact that they need to be lot clearer about what the heck they really are. Bloody confusing right now….
Yes, Eclipse has refactoring tools. They work quite well, we’ve used them a bit in our project. It also integrates well with CVS, which is nice.
I can’t compare Eclipse to JBuilder, as I have only used JBuilder a bit to test it out, but Eclipse is a quality IDE and is certainly worth investigating. However, if you’re already used to JBuilder you might want to stick to what you know. After all, they’re all glorified editors, right?
As for jbolden’s comments, while I don’t consider myself a master programmer, I have had excellent reviews thus far in my various programming jobs. In them I have used C, C++, Perl, Tcl as well as the occasional ASP/VBscript work. All of these languages have advantages and disadvantages, as is the case with Java. Java isn’t just a language for people who can’t figure out pointers. It’s a well documented and thought out language that addresses real concerns.
Java also isn’t a language that runs counter to the OSS movement. Java is all about openness. While it’s true that the bytecode hides the sources, C binaries do as well. At least with Java you aren’t locked into a single machine/OS pair, as is the case with C/C++. There are many top-notch OSS projects written in Java, and much academic research is also using Java these days. It allows developers to work at a higher level than C/C++, which lets them tackle bigger/more interesting problems. Don’t forget that people used to hold the same opinion of C that you hold about Java. Should we all go back to assembly for our various CPUs?
k, I’m gonna give my 2c here.
I have used NetBeans (and Forte) extensively for the last 1½ years. When I tried Eclipse for the first time, it was still in it’s 1.x stages. Boy did it suck!
– So I dumped it quite quickly (I did notice the speed improvements though!).
A couple of weeks ago I tried to check out the 2.0 release.
It is still every bit (percived) speedy. I used it (much) for some days, but I ended up dropping it (in favor of NetBeans) for these (prioritized) reasons:
1 – CVS integration is just plain awkward. To use CVS well, one has to switch to the CVS view all the time which is VERY slow (I know that it can be used somewhat from the right-click menu too).
2 – CVS: I had to use a module from cvs, which some guy has checked in, using a default .project file. So when I checked out that module I couldn’t compile java stuff since my project (though I had created it as such) had been converted to whatever was in the .project file *sigh* – so I had to manually edit the .project file to make it into java.
3 – Speed. Though I will agree that the ui is very speedy, and actually quite good. Speed in the ui isn’t everything. Changing between views in Eclipse hangs the IDE for some 5-8 seconds!! – there is a lot of other stuff that basically lacks user feedback, so that it seems the IDE is hanging (and in fact, dragging a window over the UI (while “hanging”) will not redraw the ui, suggesting they have some serious thread problems.
4 – Modules. Though Eclipse is a pluggable framework, very few plugins are currently available. The best thing about the “crossplatform” IDE, is that it’s CDT (c/c++ development) isn’t crossplatform. Currently it only works on Linux!!
5 – Features. Eclipse is really way behind NetBeans when comparing features. 3.4 of NetBeans has sooo many more features, that it is almost ridiculous!
6 – (this should actually rank higher…) Eclipse has a certain “unnatural” feel over it – it forces me (not nescessarily you!) to work in a way that fits it, I really feel it is more natural in NetBeans:
1 – create named project
2 – mount directories
3 – work
Eclipse is much more “stupid” in this regard – especially when using CVS (or Streams as they liked to call it in 1.0 days
)
After a quick Google session I was able to find this screenshot:
http://www.el-lal.dk/img/mp3view.jpg
It’s a screenshot for some MP3 plugin for eclipse but I suspect it shows a great deal of what eclipse looks like
Why there is all this hostility towards Java. Java itself is just a language and runtime specification. Coupled with it, are masses of API specifications. All of this is open. Sun has made no efforts to stop people from writing competing implementations (though the licensing on their own is less than favorable to the open source community). Has anyone looked at gcj, kaffe and the like? These are completely open java environments that free software developers can use.
Also, what’s with the language elitism? Java isn’t just for idiots (though there were many language choices made to make it more palatable to non-gurus). Its just a language. I know and understand C, C++, Java, Lisp, Objective-C, Perl and Scheme…. For many projects I choose to use Java, simply because it lets me get to the heart of the problem I’m working with, rather than worrying about low-level memory issues. There are other times when performance is too important, so I must pay attention to every byte that is allocated, and not let the system inefficiently handle my memory needs, so I choose C. There will never be the One programming language that is superior to all others. Choice of language should depend on the problem domain and requirements, not some sort of ego stoking.
From Stallman himself:
The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
_____# end quote
Exactly. And what on Earth does that have with you stated goal of cross-platformedness?
Freedom to learn ideas from others and share as a community the way science works rather than the way commerce works. That’s the key issue.
No it isn’t. It is no more difficult to provide source for a Java program than it is a C program.
I don’t see how Java advances this any more than pure binary distributions.
You share your source. It really doesn’t get any harder than that. However, if you want to provide binaries to all the Windows dinkuses who whine when you ask them to compile something, then Java is great since you only have to provide one binary.
And that’s my point Java is essentially a binary language.
Obviously you don’t know much about programming. Java compiles to bytecode just as C compiles down to native machine code. C compiles into a machine specific set of instructions, just as Java does, only Java’s machine is a virtual one instead of the actual platform you are running on. None of this is even remotely relevant in regards to sharing code.
That is Java allows you to distribute binaries of your work rather than source.
No, that is I can distribute a single binary to run on multiple platforms. Sharing my source is also a possibility, but it is a personal choice and is irrelevant to any language.
Nice feature but clearly one that contrary to open source goals.
How so?
Succesful closed source models are harmful to open source, not helpful.
I don’t know what this has to do with anything, but there are plenty of open source products out there that are shipping in binary form. Look at all those lovely non-source rpms and deb files out there. The point is that while they are available in binary form, the source code is also available. The same is true of Java programs.
If I want to provide only my code and no binary, you are free to compile my Java code. Shipping a binary is a courtesy, not a requirement.
Also, you mentioned my work. All of my source code is available via cvs to anyone in my office who would like to use it. And yes, it is mostly Java.
I’d argue that the fact spend so much time porting is proof that make is not living up to its promise.
That is irrelevant.
Why does Fink exist?
Because somebody wanted a tool to help port unix code to Darwin/OSX. Why would you expect to do that with make?
Why does Debian have to check everything on 14 platforms?
Because all platforms are different and require different programming.
Make is good it isn’t there yet, as implemented by most developers.
make does just what it’s supposed to do. Are you the kind of person that drives screws with a sandwich?
Which is why I’ll stand by my statement that better make tools would be far more useful for open source cross platform than better Java tools.
Actually, what you are saying is that you want the qualities of Java but that you hate Java and want make to be transmogrified to somehow provide Java qualities for you.
How does your statement even address mine?
By stating that you are wrong and that J2EE is actually well structured and fairly easy to do. And, if you get stuck, there is a lot of excellent documentation to help you along.
The language is well documented. I’d argue confusing as hell rather than well structured but that’s beside the point.
How is Java as confusing as hell? Have you ever written a program using MFC, Win32API, COM, or any other MS technology? Now that’s as convoluted as hell. Java is quite clean by comparison.
No offense, but you strike me as someone who has either taken a 100 level programming class (or read C for dummies) and has mastered the structured programming method of printing your name to a command screen, but one who is entirely thwarted by the paradigms used for programming graphic interfaces or Object Oriented Programming. No language can help you with that (VB can hardly be called a language).
However the enterprise toolkits like Oracle Developer Studio or IBM Websphere are are a bear and the quality of underlying Java documentation doesn’t address this.
Well, if you feel that way, then that would be the fault of IBM and Oracle, so go complain to them.
Why there is all this hostility towards Java.
Pure, unadulterated ignorance.
When facts, reason and knowledge fail to pry their way into our brains, a pig headed, argumentative stubborness against facing reality will see us through.
Eclipse, Netbeans, etc are too bloated. Take a look at jEdit. It is only a ~1.7 MB download and it can be expanded with plugins. Plugins include XML, code completion, ant tools, cvs tools, code navigation, XSLT, and I can go on. The editor itself is written in swing, and has many features including bracket highlighting, syntax coloring for almost every language on the planet, folding, abbreviation expansion, macro support (bean shell, jython), etc. Take a look at http://www.jedit.org and see for yourself.
-G
I totally agree with what KinkyClown posted. I also agree with the part of gmlongo’s post about JEdit. Personally I use either SlickEdit or vim depending on my mood (and my vim settings), but there is no denying that these other products are excellent as well.
Thanks for all the comments on IDE’s.
I gave Eclipes a quick go (not long enough to say yeah or nah), seamed awkward.
re: Java is evil anti-Open Source whore
WTF?
So is GCC, that alows me to compile my prog to multiply platforms so I dont have to give out the source 🙂
I’ve used various IDEs for Java, and i’ve in general found that IDE’s written in Java arent quite upto speed. I’ve tried Sun’s Forte, Netbeans, Eclipse, and jEdit. On the whole, i’ve found them all to be sluggish. Instead now i use native executables for my platform(Windows). I’ve found Gel(www.gexperts.com), and JCreator Lite (www.jcreator.com) to be quite usable. Of course, they arent as full featured as, say Forte, but they are much more responsive.
When I was using it to write a pseudo-network stack that would communicate over a serial port with an embedded system, I found that it didn’t have an unsigned short primitive, so I had to bloat up my code by using half of an int. Actually, that wasn’t too bad, it just was one of those niggling little details. Swing really and truly sucks though, much much much too slow (unless I just fuxx0red my UI code that I was using to remote control a robot). Anyways, just my 2 cents. I much prefer Python, C#, and C++ (with hardcore templating).