What's your favourite IDE?

I have used Codewarrior and Visual Studio for C/C++ projects quite a lot and seemed to like them,
Yes! I even liked CodeWarrior.
The funny thing is that I have now been using Eclipse for some time doing Java programming.

I know that it must seem like comparing apples to pears, but hey. I cannot stand Visual Studio now.
Perhaps It’s Java that got to me… Anyways,. Eclipse is awesome!
And the amount of plugins for it makes it… AWESOME and some!

i was using idea for more than a year ,now switched to eclipse and had used other IDE also …i found idea to be best but for commercial devlopment eclipse is the choice as it is free and is quite effective…now even at home also i make it a point to use eclipse although i have idea licence becuase eclipse is know becoming a industry standard and it is better to be in sync with the market :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

Another vote for Eclipse. :smiley:

Yes, Eclipse. But this kind of topic is more academic one, “De gustibus non disputandem”- type. (Gee, I’m so clever :smiley: )
Habits…

What’s to discuss?
Eclipse has refactoring, amazingly done shortcuts, great features such as find/replace and most of all it’s free and competes against professional IDEs.

Show me an IDE that’s as professional and well developed as Eclipse and free?

I have a few friend that don’t even want to try anything but NetBeans. Because they are USED to it. It’s not always about good functionalities…

The one that gets the job done… depends on project, sometimes NetBeans is better, sometimes Eclipse is better, sometimes Visual Studio is better, IntelliJ, etc…

You should know all tools (a mechanic does not use only a Phillips screw drive he has many tools that are used wend they best fit the task at hand.

-Pragmatic Dan.

Yes, you are probably right…

“The one that gets the job done” is most likely going to be the one you know the most or have used the most. I don’t think you need to know all the tools at all. If you immediately find one that works and use it well, you may not feel the need to look around.

Hi PeterB,

That would be thru if all tools had the same feature set, and only differed in the way you use them, but that is not the case (all IDEs have a common feature set) and then they have unique features, for instance people that never used NB might not now that it has good tools for the development of J2ME applications (with the visual Editor, platform identifications, etc…) but if you are working with both Java and C/C++ code then Eclipse might me a better choice, or people that never used IntelliJ might not now of the tools that it has for DSL (domain specific languages) and excellent refactoring.

Of course you can pretty much get the job done with any IDE it is a simple matter of time and effort, some of these IDEs are better (save you time, have less setup, work in a logical way) than others in certain areas, if you know those areas you can use the IDE that best fits the job and save time, be more productive, or simply create a product that would not have been possible using another IDE (DSL stuff).

In my opinion a developer should always look around, tools are always evolving, new solutions are being developed every day, and sometimes a bad product turns into a great product in the next version (rare but it has happened) thanks to the user community feedback.

This topic now has spawn into another (almost religious debate) that is the ONE IDE vs Multiple IDEs I found many people changing opinions during their developer life, just a few weeks i saw this post from romain guy ( http://weblogs.java.net/blog/gfx/archive/2005/10/twice_the_ide.html ), he used to be an advocate of the ONE IDE and now he found out that he can be more productive by using 2 (Eclipse and NB).

If you are a master of a certain IDE and your problem domain never leaves the areas where that IDE is the Best (where you can be more productive) then you don’t need to try other tools (because you know that you can be productive in it) sometimes all you needs is a Phillips screw drive :wink:

My final opinion is to always look for new tools/solutions (especially in new released software), and unique features, especially for people whose domain problem changes allot (for instance people that do work in many areas J2SE, J2EE, J2ME, C/C++, Web Development, etc…), in the end “the right tool for the right job” sums up what i wanted to say.

-Still Pragmatic Dan

Let me put this in another way just because a circle fits in the square hole does not mean that it is the right place/shape/tool…

http://www.gameandpuzzlemania.com/Images/puzzles/2003Pics/575_shape_sorter_cube_tn.jpg

PS: I am not trying to patronize anyone, this is the rational behind my idea (I am only using a visual aid to better express myself), choosing an IDE is like making a shape puzzle game some pieces fit the holes of others but that is not the right way to use them, the same is thru for IDEs sometimes an IDE has similar features to another IDE but it takes you more time to use it, it is less intuitive (makes you less productive), plus it is the picture of a fun game, many Computer games should be has fun as that one :slight_smile: to me finding the right tool for the right job is a similar process to making a puzzle game, only now you need to have allot more information about the “shapes” and you have more options witch makes the process allot harder and more time consuming.

By the time you’ve done all that research and talking and thinking about it, you could have completed the task with a sub-perfect IDE :slight_smile:

Kev

I was reluctant to say this but obviously you don’t do research in the middle of a project :wink: if you spend too much time looking for the right tools then you don’t get the job done in the right amount of time but that is a project management problem, not a software problem, I have had situations where i researched for a new way/tool to do something and found a tool automated all the manual work and allowed me to perform better, than if i had used my regular tools did all the work myself (reinventing the wheel) i have had situations where the opposite was true I was not able to finish in time because i did not evaluate the tools capabilities in a proper way.

In the end all that is required is a pragmatic approach if you don’t have the time to do the research then your competition might find that time and be able to outperform you, but that has to do with project management. Be informed is the key, just because an IDE does not have a certain feature wend you tried it, or did something in an illogic way, or performed badly don’t throw it to the trash can, instead evaluate it again for your next project, of course the tools/IDEs that you use also progresses with time, so you might find there is no need to change but at least you have evaluated the situation and have made an informed decision.

A practical example i used to be a big fan of the Borland IDEs for Java development i was more productive with them but i always keep evaluating other solutions, and right now i still use Borland tools but i develop in NetBeans (i use Borland together for UML/RE). The UML tools in NetBeans (well Java Studio Enterprise) are not good, they are slow, complex, and unintuitive, so right now i am doing what you say i am working with a sub-perfect solution/IDE (Perfect is a strong word for any solution) but it gets the job done in the least amount of time, sometimes i even use C++/ C# to do some tasks because i know i can do the job in a least amount of time using them.

There is no perfect solution, you should evaluate your toolset from time to time, obviously if you are in the middle of a project, and choosing another IDE would improve productivity by 10% it would not be worth the switch, but if productivity would improve drastically then you should consider it (but this is usually an indication that the project is not being well managed, you should have time in your project to evaluate tools, if you don’t do this then there are many risks competition might get the features done in a faster way, maintenance costs, etc…

Again this topic has spawned into yet another topic project management, which i will not get to deeper than say that proper evaluation is a key process, finding the right tools for the right job is key to productivity (or knowing the limits of a tool and having proper workarounds use an auxiliary tool, code around the problem etc… sub-perfect solutions like these are the rule in the industry).

There are of course also philosophical question Eclipse uses a plug-in architecture (with views, etc…), NB, Intellij are much more integrated some people like integration others don’t.

Just a Point in case: Before NB 5.0 i probably would not use it for form creation but Matisse is a great tool that improves productivity immensely, developing plugins for it was a pain in 5.0 is almost too easy.

There are many others points that can be made to pick one or other IDEs the point is stay informed on new features, keep track of it (but obviously if you are in the middle of a project carefully evaluate any tool before making the switch but that is more of project management issue than any other thing, do you have the time to make the switch? which means a proper evaluation (prototyping, etc…), changing schedules, release dates, etc… is it really worth it, sometimes it is sometimes it isn’t, be pragmatic, and sometimes it is not in your hands it is on the project manager (how many times have you used a tool, knowing that there is a better solution but management does not approve of it, or want to change schedules to evaluate, accommodate the switch?).

So in the end my motto still stands use the tool that is right for the job and keep informed on all others, keep evaluating them, especially new releases, so that wend the next project comes along you don’t spend 2 weeks evaluating tools you spend one, or next time your project manager ask you to evaluate/recommend a toolset for the project you have the answer on the tip of the tong, or if you are a project manager you can discuss it with other members of your team (and make a strong case to go against there recommendations).

Or you can use more then one :slight_smile: As long as it’s a source based project, you can easily have say NetBeans, Eclipse and IdeaJ point at the same project directory and then use them interchangabley. All have CVS integration and can share the same CVS dir files.

Yes, of course you can, I already made that point in previous posts (romain guy blog is illustrative) many people are finding this to be a great solution :slight_smile:

Sometimes there is no other option, because they have unique features so if you want the power tools you need to setup, and since more&more tools use ANT it is more and more easy to use these IDEs in conjunction. Again be pragmantic ;D

And always evaluate, for instance Visual Studio used to have crappy tools for mobile development but right now they have the best tools, no Java IDE not even NB with Mobility Pack can touch it. (it is only a shame that they are for Windows Mobile5.0 and not for Java development).

I use Jcreator, the Java Notepad

I try to use eclipse but it get too much memory and It is too slow on my computer. I will try again later.

Bruno

Personally, I use Edlin - It’s a manly man’s editor - VI is for the weak - IDE’s are for girly men :smiley:

If you want to spend loads of time debugging and tracing compilation errors - you can do what you want. But with an IDE - It never took me more than 5 sec to correct my compilation errors (because I made none in the first place !?! Eclipse shows me those, when I type).

Does anybody has tried Jcreator ? It is light and powerful

Bruno

Err, I think that was a joke :D. I’ve actually used Edlin.
… The real man’s editor is of course Emacs, preferably run from the command line, to avoid any distracting optional GUI. You can spend your entire existence in there. Of course, that may be because you’ve forgotton how to exit.