NetBeans 5.5 is out

-
And along with the new version of NetBeans is a new and improved website. The difference between the older NetBeans website and the new version is the difference between night and day. Navigation is a snap, and I love the overall look and feel.

As for the IDE itself, I've been working with version 5.5 as well as the version 6 milestones. NetBeans continues to advance at a steady, rapid clip, both in terms of features and overall quality. It has become a formidable competitor to Eclipse 3.2.1 and should continue to be for quite some time to come.

I'm sure that it required at this point to make an obligatory poke in the eye at Eclipse, but I won't. As I've said before, the developer community needs a strong and vital NetBeans and Eclipse. NetBeans was inferior for quite some time in comparison to Eclipse until NetBeans 4 was released. From that release up to 5.5, NetBeans has reached parity with Eclipse, and that's with Eclipse continuing to advance in its own lane.

For me, the best solution is currently Java 6 (build 103) with NetBeans 5.5. I like what it does for me as a developer. And I can't wait for NetBeans 6 to finally hit final release. Unless something goes horribly wrong, there's only one way for NetBeans to go, and that's up.

Update

Based on some comments with a fellow employee.
  • I use both Eclipse (3.2.1) and NetBeans. I use Eclipse strictly for its Java editor. The Eclipse editor is, hands down, the superior editor of the two.
  • I use NetBeans pretty heavily for its Profiler and Matisse visual builder. Again, when comparing NetBeans with Eclipse, NetBeans wins hands down.
  • I like NetBeans because it's complete out-of-the-box (or out of the installer). I also find NetBeans update and module management superior to Eclipse.
  • Which leads to Eclipse configuration capabilities. Eclipse is incredibly configurable, and yet it's very well organized, especially to NetBeans. NetBeans configuration, in a word, is weak.
  • If it wasn't for SWT and Eclipse, there's little chance that Java (specifically JFC) and NetBeans would have improved. Their competition should not be a zero-sum game. Frankly, competition is healthy for both.

Comments

Post a Comment

All comments are checked. Comment SPAM will be blocked and deleted.

Popular posts from this blog

A Decade Long Religious Con Job

-
Image
I rarely write inflammatory (what some might call trolling) titles to a post, but this building you see before you deserves it. I've been seeing this building next to I-4 just east of Altamonte/436 and Crane's Roost for nearly 12 years, and never knew who owned it. Today on a trip up to Lake Mary with my wife I saw it yet again. That's when I told her I wanted to stop by on the way back and poke around the property, and photograph any parts of it if I could. What I discovered was this still unfinished eighteen story (I counted) white elephant, overgrown with weeds and yet still under slow-motion construction. It looks impressive with its exterior glass curtain walls, but that impression is quickly lost when you see the unfinished lower stories and look inside to the unfinished interior spaces. A quick check via Google leads to an article written in 2010 by the Orlando Sentinel about the Majesty Tower. Based on what I read in the article it's owned by SuperChannel
Read more

Ten Reasons to Ignore Ten Reasons to Dump Windows and Use Linux

-
There is a tradition amongst the hard-core Linux aficionados to extol Linux's various virtues as a list of 10 or more reasons to substitute (as in "dump") an existing Windows installation with Linux. There's no reason to point them all out; a simple Google search (" 10 reasons to use Linux ") will provide you with such lists stretching back through the years, as well as hours of entertainment. One very recent list caught my eye over the weekend, published by PCWorld. Their article, " Ten Reasons to Dump Windows and Use Linux ", seems to have hit a nerve with me. Normally I just ignore such journalistic pap, since the majority of it comes courtesy of one ill-informed blog or another (such as this one). But in this instance a "real" publication put some time and journalistic "credibility" into this list, which places it in front of a wider audience than the typical blog poist (again, such as this one). So let's consider al
Read more

Former Eclipse user re-evaluates Eclipse 3.3M5

-
Image
I've been using NetBeans for a while now, starting with version 4.2 in beta. One of NetBeans' key selling points (in my not-so-humble-opinion) is Java GUI building with Matisse . That feature continues to be quite powerful and unrivaled, especially for a free-as-in-beer IDE. I even wrote a lovely paean to the wonders of NetBeans and why I moved away away from Eclipse to NetBeans . Now, it looks like I may have to eat some of those tastefully written words. What you're looking at above is a complete Ruby on Rails project hosted and running within Eclipse 3.3 Milestone 5 on Windows XP. Milestone 5 was released this past Friday, February 9th. I installed it Saturday, and then went on a plugin hunt to fill out additional features and capabilities. Why did I decide to re-install Eclipse, especially a milestone? So that I could get a complete integrated development and test capability in one convenient package for Ruby on Rails. Like a lot of other folks I've been playing
Read more