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Message:

A Good IDE ...A

Posted by Matt Gerrans on January 26, 2002 at 6:05 PM

Do you want the graphical forms, like JBuilder has? I actually find that feature not to be that great in comparison to tools like C++ Builder and Delphi. Maybe it is because Layouts just seem more difficult to work with graphically (or maybe I just need more practice with it).

Anyhow, another tool that I tried was called IDEA, by IntelliJ. It is a really nice and smart Java development tool. It doesn't do the graphical forms stuff (as far as I know), but it is really smart about Java code and does all kinds of nifty automatic and intuitive things. For instance, if you type in some class from the Java API, it will automatically add the necessary imports above. It also does all the usual nice stuff, like showing parameter names/types as you type in a method, syntax highlighting, different project views, version control integration, etc. You can try it for free for 20 days, I think it was.

I tried it and liked it a lot, but didn't buy it yet, because I'm still using my old Vaio notebook which only has 64MB of RAM. That much RAM just doesn't cut it for big Java apps -- IDEA, like JBuilder is a Java app. I do have JBuilder 3, by the way, and it has the same problem. They both hang the machine after a short time. Unfortunately, I like to be mobile and work on the notebook machine, so I am stuck using a text editor and Jikes, for now.

I also tried out TogetherSoft's product, but it had a timed trial period, too and I chose a poor time to begin it. I ended up being too busy to try it out much before the trial expired. It seemed a bit complicated, so I think it would take a bit of a learning curve to get comforatable with it, but seemed to have a lot of features, too.

By the way, for those still using Javac to compile things, you should know that Jikes (which is free -- I forget the url, search on google to find it) is impossibly fast in comparison.

Additionally, you might check sites like JavaWorld or Software Development for reviews of development environments. (And report back any pithy information you glean!)

• One that I've found searching on google Hiran January 26, 2002 at 6:37 PM (1)
  • I've figured it out (eom) Hiran January 26, 2002 at 9:42 PM (0)