Last night I downloaded Netbeans 4.
It seems to have all the features of Eclipse.
Both IDE’s have instant response times except NB loads faster than Eclipse.
The size of Eclipse is 90MB, NB 32MB(est).
The only issue is I want to load the Raize font into Netbeans but I can’t.
Can anyone help me with this?
Should I just delete Eclipse and keep NB?
Great! We can start a new IDE war!! ;D
Definately.
Seriously: Eclipse is cool. Very powerful. But also has become mainstream, which is uncool.
I feel NB has less features than Eclipse. But it is better integrated, more based on standards. E.g. it doesn’t use proprietery compiler, project formats or GUI lib. Just uses javac, Ant, Maven, Swing.
Eclipse is more a bunch of plugins, hundreds for each task.
[off topic]
Anybody remembers how M$ was attacked when they added their own GUI stuff to Java? Now … why is IBM allowed to do so?
[/off topic]
I’m with NB for years know, always knowing there are better IDEs out there. I’m also sure that not Eclipse but IDEA is the best today. But somehow I love that NB being the underdog and will continue using it.
[quote] Anybody remembers how M$ was attacked when they added their own GUI stuff to Java? Now … why is IBM allowed to do so?
[/quote]
Because M$ used their own internal JNI (J/Direct) code to do it - which only worked on Micro$oft Windows
Hey, I bash SWT whenever I can be bothered to! 
I have to admit, though, that it’s started to grow on me. The style of buttons etc is rather nice.
However, SWT is still, IMNSHO, utterly crap: not one single eclipse dialog resizes, and even at 1400x1050 a lot fo them DON’T FIT on the screen, and DON’T allow themselves to be dragged off the edge, so there are options I know I physically cannot click on or alter (unless I do it blind, using tabbing, and often the tabbing doesn’t work either).
But…NB has been so very very very very very bad for so very long that it would take an event of catastrophic proportions to make me try it out again. You see the thing is that I know NB is (was) evil, and I know that eclipse is bearable, and half works just enough that I have more important things to do with my hours of time than download, install, re-learn, re-configure, re-discover and memorize all the bugs, go on the web, research the work-arounds to the bugs, memorize those, etc for NB.
If the NB project had at any point engendered that precious thing called “trust” then I expect many more people would give it a go. But they squandered it with atrociously sloppy and under-tested (untested?) code for so long, and stupidly huge memory usage etc, that now most people subconscioulsy think “NB is rubbish”, no matter how unbiased they try to be.
Basically, we’ve all been burnt by NB, and deep down most of us haven’t forgiven NB yet for being so nasty to us ;D :P. Or something like that…
Thats a really sad state of affairs 
Kev
[quote][off topic]
Anybody remembers how M$ was attacked when they added their own GUI stuff to Java? Now … why is IBM allowed to do so?
[/off topic]
[/quote]
Actually IBM is no better than M$.
It’s just 1.) they’re not in the same strong desktop position anymore - or not yet again; and 2.) while M$ fights OpenSource in a direct manner, IBM tells the world how much they loved OpenSource and freedom and pie in the sky, bla bla bla. Behind this they collect tons of IP patents and try to dominate the economic world as much as M$ does (just to name two of the many US corporations doing so).
Back to the topic: I didn’t know Netbeans in former times so I can’t comment on Bla’s experience on Netbean’s bad times. I just know it since version 4 (beta) and liked it. It’s simple to use, does nearly what I need to do, and even uses my installed Java 1.5 version - in contrast to Eclipse or JBuilder.
In total I like Netbeans and JBuilder (but tend to prefer Netbeans because of its OpenSource nature). Both do what I need so no need to eclipse the sun.
Btw I don’t like the idea of SWT and avoid it when possible.
I’m going to eat my words now.
I’m going back to Eclipse. It’s just that it has so many more powerful features.
Most notible feature to myself is that I can design a class through attributes and generate constructors and delegates, better refractoring and I can use my favourite Raize font.
Aside the font matter all the issues you note are in reality just equivalent features, one can not just switch IDE and feel itself at home…
BTW at least NB doesn’t destroy your project if it core dumps (like I saw in IBM Italy, two weeks ago). Having an IDE built upon not so stable (and cross platform) native libs is evil.
I regret to not have come down with my NetCat 4.0 shirt (the one about working in the dark).
When I use Java I try to use Java tools, expecially because my platform floats a lot (from solaris to windows passing by linux) and having to rely in buggy native libraries to do my day to day work is not so cool.
It’s just like I was working with GTK 1.x…
But aside these babbles my greater concern is about the memory (and CPU power) IBM tools eat. WFT using Poseidon is 5 times better than using Rational Rose, Using NB (that is native java) is 2 times better than using Eclipse (that has native OS support on its roots)?
Not to mention using the two on really dated software like a P3 400 or a Ultra5… Only NB was usable in these context for a mammoth projects (5 webservices + 2 webbaps using 40 libraries and a total of near 600 classes source files + Tomcat + MySQL).
Oh I don’t want to start a Flame war.
Aside what I like is clear that the days where lightweight apps were heavyweight in performance are far behind! 
If you can tell me how to generate delegates in Netbeans 4 like in Eclipse then I will continue to use NB.
Erm…Eclipse has resizeable dialogs, at least under Windows. And there nicer than the Swing ones which don’t repaint until you release the mouse :
Come one, someone must know how to get Eclipse’s refactoring tools into Netbeans for free.
Anyone?