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What are some good Java development software apps?

C

crrdsh

Member
What are some good Java development software packages ?
I'm new to Java so I don't know much here... i've heard Jbuilder is good? Anything else?
Also I have to take money into account. I can't shell out more than a 100 clams. Hopefully they have academic versions.

Thanks for all your input! I'll definately try those free versions first and then check out the others. 🙂
 
do u mean java applets and java programs?

for my homework assignments i use TextPad (uncripped shareware). it works really well because u can compile and run without going to dos.

just install the java sdk.
 
JBuilder is...well, a mixed bag 😉 It has nice help (the docs are as big as the whole application) but also a lot of problems. Random, unexplainable ones that simply make you /boggle. Luckily, if you have a decent connection (or don't mind the wait), there are many Java IDEs that are free so you can try them all. It's not all that bad though if you don't find what you want in others...

Netbeans
JBuilder Personal Edition
Sun ONE Studio Community Edition (formerly Forte)

If you google for "Java IDE" or "download Java IDE" you will probably find a lot more than those.

I would personally give Netbeans a shot first, since I just downloaded Sun ONE Studio today and it bogs down a P4 2.53GHz easily...slow is not the environment I like to code in, but I'm not sure about you 🙂 I've used JBuilder a lot from when I took java courses but never much beyond that. Netbeans seems like the most promising of the ones I listed so far...I've yet to thoroughly use it.

*edit* Might try what Batman5177 said, a 'java freak' friend of mine likes that a lot.

 
I use Vim and Forte4j (thats not what its called nowadays though.....). Forte4j is a real timesaver as long as you don't let it take control of the code. I use it first and then vim to fine tune things and straighten the code up.
 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
Eclipse looks decent and it's free, but I'm not a java guy.
Click to expand...

Having used most of the various IDE's for work here is my lowdown:

Graphical Drag and Drop Environment:
1) JBuilder (expensive)
2) Forte4j
3) WSAD 5.0

Hard core coding:
1) Eclipse (by far my favorite!!!!!!!!!! Tons of plug-ins!!!)
2) TextPad
3) WSAD 5.0 (Eclipse 2.0 is the engine for this without all the extras!)

Jbuilder was very stable and was easy to use to create graphical applications. Forte was about the same, but I didn't find it as user friendly as JBuilder.
WSAD 5.0 (Websphere Studio Application Developer) is a very high end solution and at work this thing brings a Pent 4 @ 2.2Ghz with 1GB ram to its
knees so I would not recommend it for the normal user. As far as just getting some java code out the door, TextPad is cheap and easy to use.

However, my favorite is Eclipse 2.0. It uses approximately 250Mb ram and runs very well on my home machine @1800 XP + . There are tons of plug
ins available that can give you that fance graphical design interface. Eclipse will also do html, jsp, asp, java, js, xml, xsl, well you get the picture...
Eclipse also has plug-ins for Tomcat, big bonus!. It is the "engine" behind WSAD without all the extra IBM crap!

Talk about easy setup, unzip the package to your drive and click on eclipse.exe in the folder. Bam, your running. You can copy this folder anywhere
on your hard-drive and run it. I like that part. I can play with various settings and then save them to a "config" backup folder. Should anything go
wrong, I simply copy my "config" back and I'm back in business!
 
Well if you want to learn .Net, there's J#, which is java for the .net platform. The SDK for .net is also free from Microsoft. Note that I'm not saying that visual studio is free... Download the .net SDK and you get command line compilers and can write the code in notepad or whatever.
 
Softballslug,

Currently I use WSAD 4.0.3 at work. Any advantages to switching to 5.0? (yes, I have enough authority to make such a decission). This of course would be accompanied by upgrading production server to websphere 5.0.
 
Argo,

You get some better integration in the tool itself. However, I was very unhappy with the performance period. While 4.0.3 was very stable its performance was still a huge hit on any machine but it is much better than 5.0. You can try version 5.0 without upgrading to Websphere 5.0! WSAD 5.0 comes with both the 4.0 and 5.0 test environments of Websphere. It also comes with Tomcat.

Where I found WSAD 5.0 to be a little flaky is with the integration to ClearCase (our source code repository). Sometimes it just plain doesn't make sense! There are a number of people here using 5.0 and have experienced NONE of the problems I did, so my installation is suspect, but neither IBM or Rationale could figure it out.

You can also test WSAD 5.0 without getting rid of your 4.0 environment as 5.0 installs to a different working directory that 4.0. IE: installing 5.0 does NOT ruin your 4.0 installation, both application will still run. Infact, I currently have WSAD 4.0.3, WSAD 5.0 and Eclipse all installed on my machine here at work for various projects. All are working just fine.

Best of luck!
 
Originally posted by: Softballslug
Argo,

You get some better integration in the tool itself. However, I was very unhappy with the performance period. While 4.0.3 was very stable its performance was still a huge hit on any machine but it is much better than 5.0. You can try version 5.0 without upgrading to Websphere 5.0! WSAD 5.0 comes with both the 4.0 and 5.0 test environments of Websphere. It also comes with Tomcat.

Where I found WSAD 5.0 to be a little flaky is with the integration to ClearCase (our source code repository). Sometimes it just plain doesn't make sense! There are a number of people here using 5.0 and have experienced NONE of the problems I did, so my installation is suspect, but neither IBM or Rationale could figure it out.

You can also test WSAD 5.0 without getting rid of your 4.0 environment as 5.0 installs to a different working directory that 4.0. IE: installing 5.0 does NOT ruin your 4.0 installation, both application will still run. Infact, I currently have WSAD 4.0.3, WSAD 5.0 and Eclipse all installed on my machine here at work for various projects. All are working just fine.

Best of luck!
Click to expand...

Thanks man. It's good to see a fellow wsad developer out there. Clearcase problems is a big no-no for us, since that's our primary repository as well. Either way I wanted to give both websphere 5.0 and WSAD 5.0 a try. Just waiting to finish with the pending release so that I have some free time to kill on that. Performance woes could also cause problems, since I'm not running top of the line system 🙁.

 
Can't beleive no one has mentioned Jcreator.

By far the favorite IDE I've ever used.

I'll never touch jbuilder again.
 
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