Java IDE

Hi all,
i would like to know which is the best IDE for writing java applications (like RMI, drag-and-drop etc). I am currently using Eclipse but i am having trouble writing and compiling RMI programs using Eclipse.

Thx in advance,

Regards,

VJ

Perhaps our IDE forum would be a better place to ask your question.

Real SCJD's are doing it with TextPad, JEdit, emacs, vi, nowadays.

I have moved this to the IDE forum.

Regards, Andrew

I use JBuilder.. I have since version 1.0 (when it was complete crap. JBuilder 2005 is excellent. I have the Enterprise Edition - well worth the investment, IMHO.

That said, I've been seriously evaluating Eclipse lately because some of my clients [a] won't let me do work for them on my laptop and [b] won't let me install my copy of JBuilder on their machines and [c] won't pay for a copy of JBuilder - since I'm not an employee.

I've tried two J2EE toolsets that are available for Eclipse so far - MyEclipse and Lomboz.

Lomboz is complete junk and makes a case for just using Textpad and Ant. I can't even create a simple EJB with it (it won't get past the "create new EJB" wizards).

MyEclipse isn't too bad. It's got a lot of nice tools as well as some level of integration with the Spring IDE.

Both, however, lack the cohesivness that JBuilder Enterprise has. Sure there are a few quirks with their J2EE server support but over all the tool is excellent. I'm actually very nervous about the new initiative that Borland has announced where they are putting JBuilder onto Eclipse. I hope it works for them but I think it will be (at least at first) a big step backwards.

At my last company I made someone use Eclipse for about 5 months until I could get the managment to buy him JBuilder Enterprise. When he did get it it took about one day for him to move over and understand how JBuilder worked. Once he did he came into my office - rather upset - and said; "Why did you subject me to Eclipse and plugins when something like JBuilder was there the whole time..?"

If that's not an endorsement for JBuilder I dunno what is..

[ July 24, 2005: Message edited by: David Anthony ]

Thx David , I will try out Borland EE. The only drawback with this app is it consumes memory a lot.Fortunately I have 1Gig of RAM at my disposal.

Regards,

VJ

Try Oracle's JDeveloper. It has a nuge number of features and is now free.

Actually, while an IDE is great. Since you are doing the SCJD, I highly recommend you just use Textpad.

Also, if you use a drag 'n' drop IDE for your GUI, the IDE will put in more code than you normally do, and you can't submitted generated code that is not your own. It is too recognizable and could fail just because of that.

You will learn a lot more from the experience than just letting an IDE do some work for you.

Mark
[ July 25, 2005: Message edited by: Mark Spritzler ]

Intellij all the way for me.

Started out with JBuilder 3, which I used for about 3 years (none of the upgrades did it for me, so stuck with JBuilder 3) and then moved onto Codeguide for a while, which was a million times better.

However, for the last 2 years, I've been using Intellij, which is a billion times better than the other 2. It just makes your life easy.

(Tried Eclipse and Netbeans, but couldn't make head nor tail of either of them....)

Eclipse is rapidly becoming my favorite. Great code navigation, local and remote debugger, lots of available plugins. I'm all but gushing