Java IDEs and Editors

[McKenzie]

rizzix, I'm teaching Java at Massey next year (from MS VC++ this year.) What do you suggest would be the best IDE for a grade 12 class (I'm leaning towards netbeans but I havn't fully looked at all of the ones that I want to yet. I was originally going to just use the Holt one ... until I tried it myself From your post DrJava sounds good, but I have yet to give it the once over. I'm looking for the obvious features;
1. Free download.
2. Easy to use.
3. Powerfull support/help/organization tools

What do you suggest? Or, at least, can you give me a top 3 list to look at?

[wtd]

I would humbly submit that an IDE is best avoided, at least for this level. It's too easy to students to get confused about what is a feaure of the language, and what is a feature of the IDE.

I've seen far too many students who consider Microsoft's IDE features an integral part of the language (C++). It's unfortunate that students are given this misunderstanding, and combatting it takes time that could best be spent on actually teaching the language and libraries.

The class I took on Java using TextPad (with Java syntax definition file) for editing and the standard command-line tools from Sun to compile seemed to work well for most of the students.

[Dan]

For my grade 12 compsci class i used JCreator and found it to be good and free. I whould higly recomend not using the holth one b/c it has unstanted APIs and libbarys that students can uses and make there porgames unportable. I found JCreater easy to use and the only realy slighty compliacted part of it is seting it up where u need to tell it where the java dir is and any java docs u need to use. Also i like how you can right click on a line and slected an option to look up that comand in any java doc you have installed on the comp. The only bad thing i expcirced when using it is that when u type a '(' it puts in a ')' right affter it aucamity witch can be anyonying as hell most of the time. Alougth you can trun this off in the options.

[rizzix]

JCreator - fast, easy to use, word completion, reasonable amount of features, best used as an editor not as an IDE (at times a simple editor proves to be the best tool for first-time programmers.. well this is a little more than that.. and makes java coding fun and easy)

Eclipse - reasonably fast, flexible, extremely powerful, acceptably easy to use, loaded with features (i would recommend eclipse for anything )

Orace JDeveloper - acceptably easy to use, yet interesting IDE, has features that some others don't provide by default (well.. some of them have plugins that provide these features, eg: eclipse), includes UML support (just incase your intereseted in teaching with the aid of UML diagrams)


PS: Eclipse and JDeveloper have fantastic help and support. Specially JDeveloper, the Oracle site includes some online flash demos

[rizzix]

IntelliJ is also a really good IDE. Its next under eclipse in number of features and has a better look-and-feel than most IDE's. But i listed JDeveloper instead as the third choice since JDeveloper is quite unique. Most IDE's are all the same.

They all provide what you need and also tend to be more specialized in aiding the programmer in some specific task, like webservices for instance. All you as a programmer is interested in getting the best deal you can get. The most balanced and workable solution. This is the best reason to recommend Eclipse, after all its not developed just by one company, but by many. So you get the most balanced IDE to your aid. And it can be specialised: you could add UML support to eclipse through some plugins available and you can also add a GUI building visual aid likewise.

JCreator is unique in its own way it represents a quick IDE, lite on features, good for programming when you hate creating "projects" -- some IDEs actualy most of them "force" you to create a new project. This one dosen't come in your way. It's like notepad with code completion and code colouring and a few extra features.

So there you go: Ecplise -- the mod-able IDE, JCreator -- the minimal IDE, JDeveloper -- the IDE that isin't given the attention it needs.

[McKenzie]

Thanks, all three of you. You have all pointed me back to the basic KISS principle. I think JCreator is probably the best way to go. I could use the Holt IDE and just not use their stupid proprietary classes but I think it would annoy kids having what looks like the exact same editor as Turing and very few features.

[The_$hit]

I am currently using wetrowerks codewarrior. I would be using Xcode but i don't have OS X 10.3. Is there any downfalls to codewarriors IDE?

[wtd]

The_$hit wrote:

I am currently using wetrowerks codewarrior. I would be using Xcode but i don't have OS X 10.3. Is there any downfalls to codewarriors IDE?

Don't you have the OS X discs? Even if you don't have access to "Xcode" you can still use Project Builder and Interface Builder.

[apomb]

is netbeans any good? i am thinking of using it ... its on all the computers at my school.

[rizzix]

Netbeans 5.x is good

[Krabjuice]

I'll have to put my vote towards JCreator, for all the reasons described (somewhere) above.

[Aziz]

JCreator is nice . . . but what's this code completion I'm hearing about? Damn, I've gotta go check this out.

[Aziz]

Just a note on JCreator (and perhaps a question too?): It seems to be lagging quite a bit. I don't know why but every 10-15minutes in freezes and locks up for a few minutes. I've got the Pro version, so I don't know if that's the problem.

[jernst]

I wish they would release JCreator for linunx

[Nick]

check out jGRASP it's the IDE my school uses and it's the best IDE I've used for any language but I haven't used much