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Development tool for beginners?

 
Greenhorn
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Can someone recommend a good development tool for beginners? I just finished a 5 week java class. We were using JBuilder. One of the students suggested that eclipse is actually better. Another opinion I heard was that IntelliJ is one of the best. Is there any that already incorporates the new features of the Tiger version?
 
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Personally I use eclipse and I really like it. However, for a new Java developer I highly recommend doing some programming with a simple text editor and using the command line tools to compile and run your program. This experience will become helpful in troubleshooting problems in the future.

As far as the new 1.5 features, if you use the command line they are there. In eclipse they are supported in the 3.1 version. I'm not sure about other IDE's
 
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Agreed. Beginner should start with any simple editor, like, notepad, vi, etc. , use command line to compile and run the program. Otherwise, Eclipse is awesome.

other nice tools are:

- Intelli J (Good)
- JBuilder (I used to use it before till version 8)
- JDeveloper (Very good. Dont know if free/demo version available)
- JCreator (Not bad. A light tool)
 
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I personally recommend Netbeans which supports tiger and very much faster than Eclipse on non-windows platforms.

Find netbeans here : http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/download-netbeans.html

I am pasting the link of an article which compares eclipse and netbeans; as I believe this as an unending discussion.

http://cld.blog-city.com/read/1126337.htm

Regards,
Arjun Kondepudi
 
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JBuilder is still good, in fact it is excellent. There may have been some versions that weren't up to Borland's usual standards but the current one is great

JDeveloper started as JBuilder 2. Oracle purchased the rights to the source way way back and has since created their own tool based on that. I think there's a free version.

I've tried Netbeans and don't like it. It's terribly slow, has a poor user interface, and is overall counterintuitive.
 
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I agree with Steven and Adeel: I think that a beginner should start with the command-line compiler. It's easy to use. But more importantly, it keeps the focus on the Java langauge, rather than on the development environment. Once you understand the langauge, you can easily move on to any development environment that you desire.
 
Jeroen Wenting
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Indeed. I would not recommend using any IDE until you know the language well.
I still have trouble understanding commandline C++ compilers due to the simple fact that I never learned to properly use them when I learned C++ using a fullblown IDE.
It wasn't until years after learning C++ that I learned there even was a commandline compiler...

And if you want a professional opinion: Sun don't use any IDE during their Java courses (certainly not the beginner to intermediate level courses), instead using things like jEdit or jExt (depending on the instructor).
This despite Sun having several IDEs in their application lineup.
 
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I used Textpad for my beginning.
 
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Don't end up like lots of Java beginners, who end up struggling to learn the IDE instead of the actual language.
 
With a little knowledge, a cast iron skillet is non-stick and lasts a lifetime.
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