Optimized for IBM WebSphere software, and supporting multi-vendor runtime environments, IBM Rational Application Developer for WebSphere Software is powered by the Eclipse open source platform so developers can adapt and extend their development environment to match their needs and increase their productivity.
Rational Application Developer for WebSphere Software V6.0
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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RAD 6.0 was released on February 4th.
http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=31631
OSNews is a *commercial* website.
I am currently using RAD 6.0 on a large enterprise project and while RAD 6.0 does have some nifty features it is bloat-ware to the extreme. Our workstations have a Gig of RAM and we are barely able to run the app and then only if we don’t have anything else loaded. You really need 2 Gigs and dual processors to not lose productivity with this app. So keep this in mind if you are considering using this product on a project.
I’ve got dual processors and 4GB RAM and RAD 6.0 is still very sluggish and slow.
Until there is a performance version of Java and something better than the SWT hacks, it will be 5 years before Java runs with reasonable speed.
The issue will always be with Java that it runs slower than everything else on the system. It will always appear to be stuck in slow motion.
Of course if you are like IBM and charging by the hour, it can be very very good for the bottom line…
Hmmm I’m not so sure I would pin Java with the “performance sucks” montra anymore. I also use Netbeans 4.1 as well and it is very responsive. I have written many Swing apps and besides Netbeans use many others in my job everyday and they run just fine. RAD 6.0 and well Eclipse 3.1 are the only ones having a sluggish problem that I can see and it really revolves around their massive consumption of memory. I am not sure what the heck they are loading up in these tools in the background but holy cow they suck up a lot of RAM. Netbeans by comparison seems downright meager in its memory requirements. We have IBM Eclipse/WSAD/RAD 6.0 specialist’s on staff and even with the performance tweaks they have recommended it still is slow as pond water.
“Java is slow” is a generalization, but unfortunately it is still almost always true today for end-user apps.
I haven’t tried NetBeans 4.1, but the 3.X series was a dog. Woof, woof!
Eclipse has gotten to the point where there is so much Java mass, implosion has begun.
Even earlier versions of Eclipse will just die if you open too many files.
It is remarkable how much freedom from objectivity you get when you embrace free code. If Eclipse were judged as a commercial product, it would get slammed for crappy usability and performance.
Java would be a cool language if Sun truly optimized it for the desktop. Unfortunately, Java is optimized to sell Sun hardware. So everything runs slow and takes lots of memory — as RAM is Sun’s highest margin hardware offering.
Is there a substancial difference with Websphere 5.0 applications developers????
It seems to be a common trend, once a java program is sluggish or comsumes lots of ram, automatically java is to blame not the program.
The funny thing is in this case probably WS6.0 is to blame. I do server side dev for a living and I am using eclipse in combination mostly with myeclipse or exadel.
And while these tools need ram (every IDE does) it is not that exaggerated. My dev machine has 1 gig of ram, and I usually run 1-2 eclipse parallel and 3 app servers and usually a db server and do not have any swapping at all.
The trick is I do not go to a bloated EJB container but go for a plain servlet runner and use libs which deliver the functionality.
The main culprit of those tools usually is the J2EE EJB container, I do not know why they suck up ram like hell, but they do. Go for a plain Tomcat or Resin, ass spring to the mix, JSF or whatever and you are perfectly happy.
However I gave recently the Studio Creator a try and that one is using the Sun app server. A single JSF hello world with db access sucked up more than one gig.
There you can see where the problem really is in this case and that you can avoid it.
Why do i need this complex bloat???
My LAMP apps are all lean and mean and don’t require a dream machine.
:p
Given a choice, IBM always “goes massive” with its software and systems. It is their corporate DNA.
Java may one day come full circle and be the once lean set-top box language it was designed as. But after years of “go massive” specifications, a vision of when this day will come is blurry at best.
It takes more specifications to make Java do simple things than any other computing language. There is no language that requires more of its developers yet delivers minimal useful functionality for all the complexity involved. However, on the plus side, there are many libraries and seemingly endless hordes in IndoAsia that can be thrown at programming tasks for cheap.
…and seemingly endless hordes in IndoAsia that can be thrown at programming tasks for cheap.
Sad but true that this is the ultimate profiling opportunity for the common G.I. Joe of project manager today when it comes to outsourcing.
Just tell ’em ’bout the “J” acronyms…
Why not? Java on the serves does the job fine, but on the desktop is a total joke. Even the simplest apps eat memory and cpu like there’s no tomorrow. I gave Eclipse a try and it was so bloated and slow and that I went back to emacs for my coding needs. Java on the desktop is a piece of shit and deserves to die.
A well written Java Swing app runs just fine on any decent machine. Sure its slow if you are running it on a Pentium II 300 but there is little to no perceptive slow down that I can see on any $499 PC that you can pick up at the store these days. I run Swing apps everyday and they just run great. All I can say to the Java desktop bashers on here is you probably haven’t tried to run anything written in Swing in the past couple of years. Try out JEdit, ThinkFree, Netbeans 4.1 just to name a few and you will find they run well and are very stable.
I noticed you left Eclipse 3.1 off your list. On a dual Opteron machine with 4GB RAM, Eclipse still is a wretched dog of an application.