IDE for Java

[yongbeng]

Hi all! I was thinking of what IDE to use when programming with java? is there a popular IDE to use when programming java for applets and web services?

[bdigit]

eclipse

[Seko]

Netbeans http://www.netbeans.org

[Jata]

I concur, go with NetBeans. There's also this windows alternative though you'll have to pay for it:
http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/index.html

[Dark Ninja]

L0L This is like asking, "What editor is better: vi or emacs?" (NO! I'M NOT ACTUALLY ASKING!)

Anyway, I prefer Eclipse for a number of reasons:

1.) Plug-ins!
The absolute best feature of Eclipse. Anybody can write plug-ins to do just about anything in this IDE. And, they do. There are plugins for everything including style rule plugins, GUI design, Clearcase tools, support for other languages, etc. Virtually everything can be supported. Plugins aren't too hard to install either. Just throw the unzipped folder into the Eclipse/plugins directory and load up Eclipse.

2.) On-the-fly Compiling
Eclipse will tell you right then and there if you have a bug in your code as you are typing the code into your editor. Not only that, it'll provide a link to where it is in your code and (most of the time) provide a way to fix the problem. I don't know how many times Eclipse has saved me from having to search through thousands of lines of code.

3.) Huge Community
Eclipse has a huge online community to help with and provide support for almost anything you could possibly imagine. Companies alone invest thousands of dollars into this development environment (it's the basis for the Websphere platform).

4.) Oh yes...it's completely free. :D

There are many, many more reasons to use Eclipse. But, those are the top three reasons I use it. To learn more, head to http://www.eclipse.org/. The newest stable build is 2.1.3, but version 3.0 will be released in the near future.

[yongbeng]

thanks guys! think i would be trying eclipse..but kinda confuse with the plug-in part...how does it work anyway? but hell...guess i will try and find out once i get my hands on eclipse..

[blackrax]

i know this is not an IDE, but personally i'd recommend you to get comfortable with vim or emacs - they have a steeper learning curve (esp emacs), but on the other hand, support a host of programming languages and are easy to extend with plugins (my java coding is mostly done with the javabrowser (http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=588) plugin for vim - gives some IDE-ish like functionarlity to vim). besides, they don't require you to have heaps of ram or a nifty processor.

cheers,
//blackrax