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using forte? how is it?

 
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Hi, my present computer is so slow that my text editor (JEXT) runs slow... but i am getting a new computer and though i have been a text editor/comand prompt type for a while now i was wondering if forte would help me.
I guess that I also want to know, what does an IDE do that my text editor does not do?
 
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On my machine (700Mhz 256MB Ram) Forte runs great. Download it and try it out to see if your machine can run it to your satisfaction.
Some advantages of an IDE over a text editor is
* Text Highlighting
* Compile inside IDE (Takes you to location of syntax erros)
* Debug in editor
* Field name completion (IDE Knows what methods your objects have and gives you a dropdown to choose from VERY HANDY!)
* Click on a variable and IDE can take you to its class file
* And the list goes on...
 
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My favorite feature of an IDE is the drag & drop building of GUI interfaces.
I use forte under NT4 with 128MB of RAM and it runs well (I wouldn't say great). I think I probably need 256 to make it hum.
 
Paul Bailey
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I think I will try Forte, but wow it seems like running an IDE does take lots of resources. My machine presently has only 64MB, so that is probably its biggest problem. I noticed that sun required 128 to run Forte, so I ordered my new machine with 256 just to be sure that everything goes smoothly. Plus, memory is almost free these days...
I have another question regarding that last post though. What is 'drag & drop building of GUI interfaces'?
Thanks for the help.
 
Anonymous
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Forte has a form builder that lets you drag components onto a form to create your GUI. It provides property windows to modify the appearance and behavior of your components, and then you can specify event code for them to make them do stuff. Basically, you can build your whole GUI through the form editor and then just go back and add your event code and business logic. Voila! Application!
 
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I would give two thumbs up for Forte as well. I use it on my laptop under 98 and it runs nicely. I don't use the gui builder at all, but still find the other features and configuration options worthy of making it my primary development tool. I tried Jbuilder and Visual Cafe, but found them lacking in different ways.
OP
 
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Consider Downloading Visual Age for Java by IBM
the enterprise edition is what all java programmers dream of at night. I was blown away the first time I used it.
 
Paul Bailey
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Thanks a lot for all the response, this is great! My computer is still in transit (I guess UPS ground from the bay area to NYC takes a while) so I still can't try out any of this stuff.
One more question though, other than GUI builders, what other perks can a IDE have?
Thanks again
 
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I used Forte for a while, but I prefer NetBeans (www.netbeans.org). It is basically the same IDE with more features and without all the bugs.
Also, I have used both NetBeans and Forte on a Pentium 233 with 128M with few problems ... obviously on that setup it is not real peppy, but I am able to get development done with few hassles. Normally though I work with NetBeans on a Pentium III 800 with about 290M.
------------------
Chris Stehno (Sun Certified Programmer for the Java 2 Platform)
 
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