Submitted by The NetBeans project recently released the second beta of version 5.5 of its IDE. At the same time, NetBeans 6.0 is at its second milestone release. Artima spoke with NetBeans evangelist Tim Boudreau about new NetBeans features and about the NetBeans community. In Part I, he discusses upcoming features of NetBeans 6.0, and compares the NetBeans and Eclipse approaches to open-source IDE development. In Part II, Boudreau talks about the NetBeans rich-client platform, how the NetBeans Matisse UI builder and GroupLayout layout manager address the challenges of cross-platform and internationalized UI design, and about support for languages other than Java in NetBeans.
I have in the past had exposure in using both netbeans and eclipse. From a developer’s point of view, eclipse is more powerful as it can be used to write code in multiple languages and even extended using modules.
But from the point of view of a person who is learning to code in java, netbeans wins hands down for its ease of use and its feature rich interface.
Eclipse has a steeper learning curve than netbeans.
Edited 2006-09-18 15:28
I’ve been using NetBeans since version 4 and I have to say that it’s one of the nicest environments I’ve ever worked in. The IDE is robust and easy to use, the help is actually helpful, and the environment is stable. Since all of my programming is in Java and JSP, it’s perfect for me.
I can’t say whether or not it’s better than Eclipse or any other Java IDE but I can say that I’ve never been tempted to try. NetBeans meets all of my needs.
Netbeans can be used for both Java and C++ (C++ support is still not that good they say).
Sun recently hired 2 main JRuby (Ruby implementation for Java) developers and they (Sun) stated that those guys will work on releasing JRuby 1.0 and getting it well integrated with popular programming tools. I think we can safely say that soon Netbeans will fully support Java, C++ and JRuby. Not bad.
Eclipse? It is still faster than Netbeans, and so is freely available JDeveloper. That should be fixed in 6.0, but.. that remains to be seen.
Edited 2006-09-18 16:29
“Eclipse? It is still faster than Netbeans, and so is freely available JDeveloper. That should be fixed in 6.0, but.. that remains to be seen. ”
I have used Netbeans 5.0 and JDeveloper on low-end 600 MHz, 256 MB ram laptops and netbeans was WAY faster. I felt like pulling my hair out when I had use JDeveloper. I don’t have any benchmarks or anything, but the difference was huge.
I have used Netbeans 5.0 and JDeveloper on low-end 600 MHz, 256 MB ram laptops and netbeans was WAY faster.
Wow
I don’t know what to say..
Every computer I’ve tried Netbeans/Eclipse/JDeveloper on, Netbeans was always way slower that the other two.
However I always used them on 2 GHz/1 GB RAM computers (or better), maybe that’s why. And the difference was so obvious – from simply browsing the main menu to.. well, everything else (code completion, etc). JDev and Eclipse were always much faster, more responsive..
Very strange, but good to know things can go the other way too, I guess
I suppose you have all plugins enabled with JDeveloper. It is memory hungry so it’s likely your system spends its time swapping.
Uncheck all plugins you don’t need and see the difference. Or add memory. 256MB, unfortunately, is very tight these days.
Not to say that NetBeans is not on par. I use it for my j2me work and am quite happy with it.
From the article:
“At an EclipseCon presentation I attended, a presenter from a large technology company explained that they have their own QA group to test different combinations of Eclipse plug-ins to help decide which ones actually work together. Those will then be the ones their developers shall thereafter use. That’s pretty bizarre, because it’s like having your own QA department to test MS Word or your operating system.
To their credit, it’s clear they know there’s a problem. But while there’s some pressure from NetBeans and elsewhere to get their [Eclipse’s] act together in the “batteries-included” area, we also see pressure from the vendors occupying that niche advocating that they [Eclipse] not get their act together, as it would be a direct threat to those vendors’ business. The perversities you build into such a system get pretty entrenched.
We talked with some of the folks doing Eclipse distros to create alternate NetBeans distros, and the feedback we got is that they don’t see where they could add enough value. They find that what you get from netbeans.org is already tested, works, and is well integrated, and the general quality of the available plug-ins is high. There is no DLL-hell situation with NetBeans, the pieces are heavily QA’d and tested.”
That pretty much sums it up for me. I’ve tried using Eclipse with various plug-ins, either to do SWT gui programming (with a designer interface), or to do web/J2EE development. And in every case, I was met with frustrating failure. The plug-ins either don’t work correctly, or the documentation isn’t good, or the process is just too tedious and difficult. It’s almost as if the Eclipse platform/IDE get in the way of being productive for those areas.
That said, I do find Eclipse ot be very strong for development of Eclipse RCP. Eclipse is, afterall, essentially a plug-in platform for building tools, or Rich Client applications. That part of Eclipse I find to be very nice. The code complete and refactoring features of Eclipse are also very good.
But for building real world web or JEE apps, Eclips is DOA, unless one obtains an Eclipse based commercial IDE, like BEA WebLogic Workshop. Now that one is outstanding.
Netbeans, by contrast, has everything working easily and beautifully out of the box. With NetBeans, it is trivial to either create or import a J2EE project, and build/extend/debug/compile/deploy. For me, that is what a good IDE is for. The IDE shouldn’t be a huge learning curve unto itself. The IDE is supposed to be a tool to make the developer’s life easier, not harder. Netbeans succeeds as being an IDE, while Eclipse (the free Eclipse) somewhat fails (although it’s a good platform for building tools).
Oh well, let Eclipse vs NetBeans flame wars begin …
Edited 2006-09-18 17:05
I switched from Netbeans because I didn’t like having to wait for it to recompile the same project 8 times. If you have your code split up into libraries you’ll notice this. Eclipse is much better as you can make a change and can run right away. The enhanced error checking, auto-fix feature and better CVS put Eclipse way ahead of Netbeans for me.
But I still use netbeans for forms. Visual Editor can be a resource hog on the bigger forms.