The open-source Netbeans IDE version 4.1 has been released. Many improvements and bug fixes. The infamous Scanner class error which plagued earlier versions seems to be fixed.
Netbeans 4.1 released
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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LOL…i’m just curious how many people use Netbeans over eclipse? Seems like netbeans is mostly useful for…MIDP app development.
i think some people will migrate to netbeans, faster, run correctely on win, linux, solaris…
I use it – in fact I prefer Netbeans to Eclipse. The IDE layout and usage is quite intuitive as compared to Eclipse. Plus GUI development is a snap since Netbeans has a drag and drop facility for this ala VB. In eclipse one has to hand code GUI stuff.
ah well. to each his own….
Seems to me that a lot of people like and use Netbeans although I might be somewhat biased since I use it mainly for MIDP dev. I have tried most of the tools out there and I would choose Netbeans or JBuilder over Eclipse anyday for server side stuff also.
So can Netbeans now be run comfortably on something less than say, 3 gigs of memory now?
Just kidding. Seriously, the last time I checked the Netbeans website, it had a minimum system memory requirement of 360 megs – wow! We all knew that the JVM and Swing are huge resource hogs – the humongous SUV’s of the software world – but requiring a minimum of 360 megs to run an IDE is pathetic.
I’ve heard good things about both Netbeans and Eclipse. But they are both hogs, and could really use some optimization. But then again, optimization is a dirty word in the Java development world. 😉
Yeah yeah, memory is cheap. But to have to keep adding a $50 memory stick, to keep up with bloat from one thing or another, adds up real quick. Plus, your mother board runs out of memory slots.
I also know that some benchmark tests show algorithms executed in Java are often as fast as with C++. But those test don’t take into account the JVM, and the scaling of those algorithms, where the cost of allocating all objects on the heap to be later garbage collected gets real expensive real quick.
Netbeans 4.1 runs a lot faster and it doesnt take up the whole 360 …upon boot I am using about 60 MB’s for Netbeans
I got a little tired of IBM’s dominance in all the interesting technology decisions around where Eclipse is headed. NetBeans is way more responsive to what I need, seems faster, and at the end of the day, it’s just a lot easier to work with. It used to, bluntly, suck – but they seem like they’ve totally rewritten it from the ground up.
hmmm a lot of people use Netbeans. I agree with many people that Netbeans 3.5 was very bad , but 4.1 looks VERY nice, its as fast as eclipse and is more usable out of the box, I also find it more usable overall even after you plugin the hell out of eclipse.
NetBeans 4 runs pretty well on 256Mb. But if you would develop web applications it would start bundled Tomcat + system default browser and there you will need additional memory very badly.
Overall NB 4 is nice. You got web and GUI tools right out of the box. I jumped off Eclipse and didn`t looked back. On Linux it is much faster than Eclipse.
I been using netbean for a while its infancy stage. Version 4.1 is the fastest and most stable of them all. Good job by SUN.
Netbeans is a hog but it is a great tool. I use Netbeans almost exclusively for almost every Java project. I in fact did my entire software engineering project last quarter in Netbeans and it was brilliant. The TA was really impressed. 4.1 seems to be an excellent release. Sure it is great to have a powerful computer to run this heavyweight app like it is nothing but I do feel for the people who are stuck with lower end models. On my laptop it runs great cause I got a Dell XPS. But my friend had a Compaq and he had to upgrade to a gig of memrory from 256 mb to be able to enjoy smooth performance. It is a hog but for those with a gig of memory Netbeans is a pleasure. I cannot wait for 4.2!!
I like Netbeans, but the non-editable codeblocks created by the GUI editor is a nightmare. It won’t allow code-changes made by hand
Now if they could fix that …. 
>I like Netbeans, but the non-editable codeblocks created by
>the GUI editor is a nightmare. It won’t allow code-changes
>made by hand
Now if they could fix that …. 
Yes it does!
You can enter “user code” for some properties, and there is pre-creation, post creation, and custom creation code.
If all that is not enough, you can go to the “.form” file and make changes there WITH CAUTION, AT OWN RISK! and then when you reload the form, your changes will apprear in the java code.
I’ve been using NB since 3.5, and let me tell you, this 4.1 is something else. Full of features right out of the box. Very smooth, very stable, and just works.
Or you could just copy all the GUI designer generated code, and make new class. That way, you get the benefit of using the GUI designer (quickly layout components) and the benefits of hand coding (sensible variable names, etc).
I like Netbeans, but the non-editable codeblocks created by the GUI editor is a nightmare. It won’t allow code-changes made by hand
Now if they could fix that …. 
Couldn’t agree more. A GUI editor should be able to read any valid java code that makes up a GUI. It should be possible to specify what coding style to be used when new components are added from the GUI. Speeking of that, is it possible to use Actions yet?
how about osnews starts a poll: which is your preferred Java IDE? would be interesting…
AFAIK, Netbeans is the only free IDE that offers a JSP debugger as part of the base installation, not a paid-for plugin like in Eclipse (MyEclipse, etc.).
i have tried eclipse periodically over the last 3 years … and at every point netbeans has been more correct, easier to use, and just pleasing when doign a lot of work.
despite the pro-eclispe hype, you’ll find a lot of peopel useing netbeans
I use mainly Ecplise but I recently downloaded Netbeans 4.1 whilst it was in Beta and I thought it looked very decent indeed. I’ll probably start my next project in Netbeans to fully experience the program so I can make an informed decision as to which IDE supports my needs the best. I think it’s an excellent example of how powerful Swing is, and I never found it a hog with memory (especially relative to other fully featured IDEs)
One thing that caught my eye was the NetBeans Profiler. http://profiler.netbeans.org/ Looks very interesting and can’t wait to give it a whirl.
I’ve switched back and forth, but am currently using Eclipse. Does anyone know if Netbeans’ subversion support integrates with refactoring commands as it does in Eclipse? I have become completely addicted to that feature…
I´m using Eclipse for 2,5 years now (before that, I used Kawa) and would never consider switching to Netbeans (as would none of the programmers around me).
I took a look at all 4.1 beta builds, I asked why there where so little refactorings (a meager 4), and got the answer (from a Netbeans developer) that more would be included in the final. Yeah, right. Now they claim it will be in 4.2. Why don´t they delay 4.1 to make it worthwile? Eclipse is a good proof that for such platforms you can have quite long development cycles. 3.0 to 3.1 in one year. No interim release that “sort of” supports Java 5.
Netbeans is not good enough if you don´t want to lay your hands on the code (UML?), but not nearly as good in source code editing. Where are QuickFixes, why does auto complete work soooo slow (and not in particular intelligent).
That aside I hate the Netbeans installer. It doesn´t ask me if it should put an icon on my desktop or create a programm group. That should by now be standard (Hello Netbeans team??).
Despite here seemingly being a lot of Netbeans-using developers I have never known one. And afaik the figures are about 3:1 in favor of Eclipse.
I´m looking forward to Eclipse 3.1 and the WTP that will be available along. There are some serious bugs (mostly performance) in the later but it looks like they are willing to fix it.
I might use Netbeans for MIDP development, as the vendors seem to expect it with there SDKs.
where can I find a good c/c++ plugin for eclipse?
It´s called CDT (http://www.eclipse.org/cdt/). I´d recommend you use the CDT version for Eclipse 3.1 M6.
I’ll take another look into it … I remember rambling about it when I tried to enter a unicode-character in a Label-text somewhere.
Except that, I definitely agree with the “just works” bit
netbeans is really a great product compare to netbeans 3.x
although the industry is inclined to eclipse comunity but i bet netbeans will win back all the crowds
“I´m using Eclipse for 2,5 years now (before that, I used Kawa) and would never consider switching to Netbeans (as would none of the programmers around me).”
There’s a nice subtle way of trying to say ‘you are wrong’ to the netbeans supporters
I’m a netbeans user by the way. Tried Eclipse first actually, it’s brilliant, but I like Netbeans even more. It completely blows the Eclipse/EcplipseMe combo out of the water for MIDP now with 4.1.
Unlike the other which is just now in the M series of 3.1 getting them.
I use Eclipse a lot. Actually, all the time.
But from time to time I like to dabble with other IDE’s. I try out Netbeans every release. The last go around it would crash frequently. (I develop on a Mac; not sure if that had anything to do with the stability problems though). I’m playing with it right now and I must say it’s looking very good. Especially when you add in the error stripe module. I’m not too sure about the auto-generated Ant scripts yet. I’ll have to poke around and see how easy they are to add targets and modify.
The generated GUI code is still an ugly mess. I’ve really gotten to like the way eclipse’s visual editor (VE) generates UI code. Too bad VE doesn’t run on a Mac though.
Kudo’s to the netbeans folks though. They’ve done a fine job!
I prefer Netbeans myself – seems quicker, more intuitive, etc – but I like to keep up on Eclipse because a lot of java jobs require IBM Websphere experiance – and Websphere is like Eclipse on steroids.
I have been a Netbeans user for years and I like it very, very much. What I especially like about it is that it is always supporting the latest JDK version (well, maybe a couple of weeks later). Tried to use Eclipse about one year ago though. Installation went smooth (Suse 9.1, AMD64) but it crashed upon startup without a clue. Never tried it again afterwards.
check the log file! probebly wrong jre
“There’s a nice subtle way of trying to say ‘you are wrong’ to the netbeans supporters
I’m a netbeans user by the way. Tried Eclipse first actually, it’s brilliant, but I like Netbeans even more. It completely blows the Eclipse/EcplipseMe combo out of the water for MIDP now with 4.1.”
I honestly don´t know anyone who uses Netbeans as his primary IDE (personally). But I´ve read in other places that Eclipse is particular big in Germany.
Choosing an IDE is a personal choice. I never liked Together Control Center either (a lot of people might disagree on that). There are different tastes.
I´m not claiming that all that choose Netbeans are wrong. I might be claiming that some arguments (especially a certain Charles´) regarding this whole issue are definitly not helping
Netbeans looks fine out-of-the-box. Moreover anyone choosing Netbeans cannot be that wrong as he chose Java in the first place.
OK, I’ve spent most of the day developing with Netbeans (See last post…I’m an eclipse fan). I must say I really like 4.1. My main nits are:
a) Importing existing projects is not as smooth as it should be. Eclipse does an amazing job of this. With Netbeans, It imports OK, but then there always seems to be some weirdness. For example, when I imported one of my projects, Netbeans wouldn’t let me select arbitrary ‘main’ classes to run/debug like eclipse does. When I start from a fresh project though Netbeans will let me run arbitrary ‘main’ classes.
b) Using the ‘import eclipse project’ plugin is less than satisfactory; for many reasons. One thing that really confused me was that it couldn’t find my quicktime for java classes, even though they were on the classpath and showed up in the Netbeans project explorer. Weird.
c) It’s relatively easy to build UI’s with the form builder, but, man, is that some ugly code. As other’s have already mentioned, Netbeans prevents you from being able to edit parts of the UI code’s source file. To me that’s a big no-no.
On the plus side, it was fast, stable, and had the capabilities that I use in eclipse. The UI is sooooo much better than previous versions of Netbeans. Very very clean, much nicer than eclipse.
In any case, I’m going to keep using it for a while instead of eclipse and see how it goes.
I never liked Together Control Center either (a lot of people might disagree on that).
I use TCC as an adjunct to my main IDE. I’m with you; TCC’s code editor is really lousy, but TCC sure is nice for laying out code using UML. I usually use TCC early in a project when I’m figuring out a design then move on to eclipse for filling in the code details.
A GUI editor should be able to read any valid java code that makes up a GUI.
And then change the code according to changes you make in the GUI editor? Nice dream. But unfortunately pretty much impossible to do with an imperative general-purpose language like Java. You’d have to restrict it to a simple, pseudo-declarative subset to have a chance.
And then change the code according to changes you make in the GUI editor? Nice dream. But unfortunately pretty much impossible to do with an imperative general-purpose language like Java. You’d have to restrict it to a simple, pseudo-declarative subset to have a chance.
If you use conventional software development techniques/languages such as java to write it, you are right, this would be a very hard if not an impossible task. However, if you apply expert system techniques it would probably be doable.
Multiple build/run configurations
http://www.netbeans.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=49636
I’m feel very unconvenient with the lacking of this feature.
Eclipse do this perfectly