Netbeans seems more user friendly to me. Nice tutorials, also.
At work I have both Eclipse and Netbeans open all the time; Eclipse for the ebj3 backend code, and the gui is a Netbeans RCP. So I get to jump between them both all the time. Eclipse definitly has some bugs; the editor is a little buggy, and its really slow editing large files (we have 10,000 line stateful bean). Netbeans has no trouble with this file, and the editor is much more stable.
I used JCreator for years for hobby dev, before I started coding Java professionally. Now I prefer Netbeans, because everything just works, and it comes bundled with everything you need. Eclipse is an excercise in tracking down plugins. I say if you like JCreator, stick with it.
I like NetBeans the best, as it does not require you to set up a “workspace” 
Eclipse is great according to me!
I once used Emacs for all my coding and was then amazed that the tab-key could do auto indent. And wow, (EmacsLisp 'is (such 'a (great 'language 'to 'do (anything with ';)))))))))))
The Eclipse/(Netbeans?) features “indent all”, “organize imports” and “rename/refactor” are so extremely useful that I can’t live without them anymore 
I agree. I’m using Editplus text editor which kinda light, easy to use and (default) colorful syntax highlight. For error check, I think javac is enough since it will also tell you which line causing problem
I also love that in NetBeans and Eclipse compile time errors become edit time errors; allowing you to fix typos literally within seconds of them being created.
Eclipse is great! I used Textpad before, but Eclipse really makes things easier.
My first editor was emacs so Eclipse & Netbeans & Co are really easy to use.
I had also spent like 6+ years working with UltraEdit so the convenience of a real IDE is really nice.
Then again, they really require that you do the thinking, which separates the rookies from the pros.
@OP:
Download Eclipse & Netbeans and find out which one suits you best.
Being a beginner, using CodeCompletion and an IDE that takes care of the project mgnt stuff is a godsend.
I’m an emacs die-hard also. I still use emacs for most of my web development stuff but for Java, I’ve been a Netbeans fan for a long time. Eclipse and Netbeans were the first IDEs that provided so much value for developing in a language (in this case Java) that I thought that it was better to use a specialist IDE for that language rather than my trusty emacs. I prefer Netbeans, of the two - to me it’s much simpler to set up projects and it doesn’t suffer from plugin hell.
Y’know, the more I think about it, the more I wonder if Eclipse isn’t the reason I’ve ultimately stuck with Java all these years in the face of all the massive opposition from anyone in charge to getting my games out on consoles, Apple phones, etc.
Cas
Yeah, I think a lot of people who are anti java haven’t programmed it in a decent IDE. It’s quite a different experience from coding Java in a normal text editor… and in those sorts of impoverished environments, you can see why you might prefer a simple scripting language like ruby.
to me Java without an IDE is like Smalltalk without a workbench - you’re missing a huge part of the experience if you don’t use both together.
Seconded!
Well since this seems to be a popular topic still i thought i’d do a little status update…
i’ve gotten used to Eclipse and it no longer seems like a hassle to get it working. I kind of felt like the Russian pilot in Armageddon at first. But now i get it, having it compile when i type seems unnecessary but on the flip side i get virtually no syntax errors. I have the feeling that it requires a lot of system resources for it though.
I can only imagine that it’s pretty useful for people in the industry though. Hopefully it’s a tool that’ll make me better in the long run.
kaffiene I thought people were anti-java because they think it’s slow and that it’s going to be abandoned by oracle or left to whither and die for no good reason.
As far as the coding experience, doesn’t everyone start off with C/C++ using a text editor and a command line?
I find it hard to imagine coding C++ without Visual Studio (or an equivalent). That was where I learned C++. My first experience with C was with a reasonable Borland setup, but that’s so far back I can’t remember much about it’s IDE.
Right now, I’m doing something called the “Cattle Drive” from JavaRanch, a set of programming problems submitted for code review, and it requires some manual handling of the java files on the command prompt level. Most annoying. Why doesn’t a javac command, one that “successfully” executes, overwrite an existing class file, for instance? Or at least issue an error if it doesn’t manage to create the new file?
I like Eclipse a lot, though some of the configuration for doing servlets & jdbc was hell-on-wheels to figure out the first time, and I occasionally wish I had the graphical tools of NetBeans. But I was really turned off by the “noise” at the NetBeans site (lots of ads and promotions to navigate past), and the surprisingly high incidence of tutorials with terrible grammer and spelling. Maybe I’m exagerrating the memory though. A lot of people I respect like and use NetBeans.
Eclipse is definitely worth it if you ever want to go into Android Development, otherwise just use JDeveloper (http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/jdev/index.html?origref=http://www.google.co.za/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=jdeveloper) or Netbeans(http://netbeans.org/)
PS: I will warn you though, JDeveloper is quite big and bulky but has some amazing features that other IDE’s lack
No. Many of those of us who were children or teenagers in the 80s or early 90s when we started coding started in BASIC with a command line but no text editor.
I’m not sure I’m following you. I can use javac and compile a file over and over, and the .class file is overwritten each time. Is that not the case for you?
I get the same, javac works fine for me. If it’s failing to override the file then this could be a permissions issue with the files, such as them being read-only.
I suspect he’s talking about a dependency problem - something Eclipse sorts out for you without you ever really knowing about it.
Cas
My bad. I was just getting confused about what was named what and keeping the various files straight. Taking short cuts sometimes backfires.