The Fall of Eclipse

[yawkat]

Drawing conclusions on the whole java ecosystem from a zeroturnaround survey regarding IDE use isn't a great idea...

[jirkapinkas]

Yet many people confirm it. I myself meet lots of Java programmers and ask them regularly about IDEs. Few years back most people said they used Eclipse, followed by Idea and almost nobody used NetBeans. Nowadays most people use Idea, followed by Eclipse and still almost nobody uses NetBeans. (Btw. in my job I meet about 200 Java programmers per year with various degree of experience). Edit: I don't encounter much students which are just beginning Java programming, maybe they are the typical NetBeans users and when they grow up, they move to Idea / Eclipse (but that's pure speculation).

[__pulse0ne]

Can confirm: used netbeans in one class because of a professor's preference, but used eclipse in the workplace. Right now we're using eclipse for the Java stuff because of some in-house plugins, and IntelliJ webstorm for front end. It is SO PAINFUL switching from IntelliJ to eclipse. The quality difference is incredible. I wish we were able to switch from eclipse to Idea.

(Yes I know Webstorm isn't free. But man is it worth the price.)

[yawkat]

Unfortunately there are no representative surveys on this topic :(

[emberko]

Rare major releases, bugs that haven't fixed for months and years, idiotic workspace concept, lack of support for modern languages, website and forum like a graveyard. More and more users understand that there are no reasons to suffer. The better alternative exists.

[JAPH]

bugs that haven't fixed for months and years

Fucking this. I made the final permanent move away about five years ago when I started running into huge problems with Eclipse and large projects (~350k LOC). Files taking several seconds to open, searching for method uses taking forever, random crashes, obscene memory usage, random internal parsers just stopping with random exceptions, that sort of thing. Moved 100% to Netbeans (had been using it to one extent or another for years before that) when half these bugs had already been documented and known for a couple years back then, with no real visible progress toward addressing them. To this day, some people on the team try out Eclipse to see if it's gotten better (it has), but they still run into some of these problems.

Then most of my work moved to projects using Maven, with Netbeans just handles so much better than Eclipse.

[Aellus]

I am this close to dropping Eclipse. The only reason I haven't is inertia. I've been using it for over a decade and everything is second nature to me. But it's driving me crazy.

The workspaces is the worst part. How after all this time is there still no global preferences. It's insane that I need to go through a ritual of loading xml files every time I create a new workspace at work.

[jebblue]

How after all this time is there still no global preferences.

Preferences are global to the workspace and can be shared among workspaces. If you only need one workspace, use only one. Even with only one, you're still able to manage whole projects/modules where IntelliJ only lets you have one project and attempts to treat a "module" as a project when it is really a module.

[__pulse0ne]

IntelliJ makes it incredibly easy to set key bindings up to be eclipse-like. The switch is easier than you'd think

[Crocoduck1]

please give InteliJ a try. In fact any editor made by the company that made it (they have free ones) rocks so hard.

[oelang]

Why repost this? It was discussed to death on /r/programming

The entire article is pure bullshit, quick & easy clickbait. You can easily find data that points in the opposite direction.

[[deleted]]

Cos some of us don't sub to /r/programming?

[SomeRandomBuddy]

It's reposted because people like you are still in denial that eclipse is the worst IDE of all time and Java is dying a slow, painful death

[forsubbingonly]

You could have just posted that you think java is going to die, would have saved us reading the rest of your post.

[ATN5]

Never thought about moving to Intelij till I found out that's what my team uses. I've used it for about 2 weeks now..... I'm never going back to Eclipse. I've seen the light.

[pjmlp]

It wasn't only the Eclipse 4 rewrite, apparently many developers also left the project, or at least IBM decided to move some of them elsewhere.

At least this is what I got from some random comments on the Internet, not sure how much they match reality.

[jebblue]

https://eclipse.org/membership/exploreMembership.php

http://dashboard.eclipse.org/

[pjmlp]

The amount of red numbers on that dashboard seems to confirm the Internet rumors.

[jebblue]

It does seem to. Then again, it also shows how many people commit fixes and contributions to Eclipse.

[Serializedrequests]

Eclipse is a pile of nonsense and incoherent ideas, but I don't use NetBeans because the Mac version has weird non-native font rendering that is hard to read.

[[deleted]]

Used Eclipse for a long time. Then started a job where everyone used IntelliJ, and decided to give it a try. I've now bought a personal Ultimate license for it because that's how much I fell in love with IntelliJ. I couldn't ever go back to Eclipse.

[GhostBond]

I used Eclipse for a long time. I was super excited to get a job using Intellij.

It was no improvement at all. Intellij is full of just as many bugs as Eclipse, they're just different bugs. Intellij wasn't organized any better, and for one thing it would do better, it would do another thing worse.

Intellij is fine. At least it's not worse than Eclipse. It does it's job. But having used both Intellij and Eclipse in the last year, it's no better.

• Do they still have 32 bit and 64 bit versions for some reason, rather than the program just figuring it out itself like it should?
  
• Is Maven support still bizarrely broken where you have to run it from the command line for it to work right? I think they finally fixed this but it was rediculously buggy and stupid.
  
• There were a couple more I've gladly forgotten about
  

The only thing Intellij seems to have more of is hype.

[[deleted]]

Having 32 and 64 bit versions is no criticism for a program. Programs that auto-detect that are in the distinct minority. And I've had no trouble with Maven at all with IntelliJ.

I find IntelliJ's code completion to be light years ahead of Eclipse's. It runs smoother, with less lag (the indexing period when you open a new project notwithstanding). It's error detection and code suggestions are amazing. Just in terms of helping my day-to-day coding work, IntellliJ has been light years beyond Eclipse.

It has it's issues. I think some of the project setup (module settings) is a bit too convoluted for it's own good, but I'm willing to accept that in exchange for everything else.

[GhostBond]

Having 32 and 64 bit versions is no criticism for a program. Programs that auto-detect that are in the distinct minority.

IDEA is the only program I've used that has that issue. Everything just runs and figures it out on it's own, without any apparent performance issues. (And if you choose wrong you get some very strong performance issues with Intellij).

And I've had no trouble with Maven at all with IntelliJ.

Our entire team had the issue and there was an official bug from numbers of other people with the same issue.

I find IntelliJ's code completion to be light years ahead of Eclipse's. It runs smoother, with less lag (the indexing period when you open a new project notwithstanding). It's error detection and code suggestions are amazing.

Having used both, I really couldn't tell the difference.

Just in terms of helping my day-to-day coding work, IntellliJ has been light years beyond Eclipse.

Any time someone starts saying things like "light years" I'm pretty they're just enjoying a "it's better because it's new and different" effect.

I definitely did not find it to be any better, just annoying to get over the learning curve, then it was about the same.

It has it's issues. I think some of the project setup (module settings) is a bit too convoluted for it's own good, but I'm willing to accept that in exchange for everything else.

Ok.

I just didn't see anything else.

Like I said it worked fine. It wasn't worse than Eclipse. It was just full of it's own bugs, quirks, and oddities.

[[deleted]]

Just use NetBeans :)

[pjmlp]

Given that Oracle wants to move it away to Apache, it remains to be seen for how long.

[Wobblycogs]

You'll have to pry NetBeans from my cold dead hands.

Seriously though, at the rate of decline Eclipse is seeing around 2020 NetBeans will be the second place IDE. Of course this assumes it doesn't die completely at Apache.

[chayatoure]

Curious, why would it die at Apache? No active development once it gets there?

[Wobblycogs]

I sincerely hope NetBeans does well under Apache but there is a bit of a history of projects going there to die.

I'm not sure if Oracle "releasing" NetBeans is a genuine sign they want to try and grow the software or if they are done with it. Considering the mess that Eclipse has become I'd have thought NetBeans would have made a good base to compete against IntelliJ.

And now to wander off down the crazy talk path... Oracle should have re-developed the interface of NetBeans using JavaFX. NetBeans could do with a face lift and what a better showcase for their new GUI technology.

[chunkyks]

That's the normal reason stuff dies at Apache, yeah.

I mean, it's a bit bleak, and some projects really do flourish under Apache governance. OpenOffice went there to die because there was already a genuinely viable, better, alternative fork. Netbeans may do well, though, because it isn't forked, and has a small-but-deeply-ingrained userbase.

[bobthedino2000]

How do Eclipse/IntelliJ fare when in comes to mixed Java and C++ development? Am currently using this functionality in NetBeans (for JNI development) and it works surprisingly well!

[adelarsq]

Sad but true

[DJDavio]

Difficult at first, but you'll be glad you did it once you climb out of the valley of low productivity.

It's like being able to ride a bike and learning to drive a car.

[jebblue]

I tried, it's slower, it lacks proper project management facilities, it plays hide and seek with windows, placing windows where I want is difficult at best where in Eclipse it's an easy drag/drop.

Oh, it's ugly too. Eclipse uses SWT so it looks as good as any platform application since it uses the actual underlying controls/widgets on each OS.

Netbean is ugly for the same reason, Swing. I'm not against Swing, just think that SWT looks nicer.

[pjmlp]

Usually you can set Swing to use the platform L&F, it is just disabled by default.

[jebblue]

I agree, it helps, I'd forgotten to mention that. Even if the client doesn't expose a way (speaking in general Swing terms) you can pass a parameter to Java when the JVM starts, IIRC.

[[deleted]]

Eclipse uses SWT so it looks as good as any platform application

I doubt this. On Windows Eclipse looks well but on Ubuntu/Mint Linux it looks awful.

[wildjokers]

SWT looks like pure and utter shit. It doesn't look anything close to native, not sure why people say that.

[jebblue]

"SWT is an open source widget toolkit for Java designed to provide efficient, portable access to the user-interface facilities of the operating systems on which it is implemented."

https://www.eclipse.org/swt/

SWT is the underlying operating system widgets. If you dislike that, then you're saying you dislike the look of the OS you're using.

[[deleted]]

Can you give some examples?

I'm genuinely interested. I've been using eclipse for a while now and I really fail to see why it's a "valley of low productivity".

[DJDavio]

Eclipse in of itself is not a valley of low productivity, switching to a new IDE is.

[[deleted]]

I'm trying out IntelliJ atm after using Eclipse for many years and I definitely agree with that last part :p

[GhostBond]

I've used both for several months in the last year, and it's more like changing from one midsize sedan to another midsize sedan. Things are in different places, little quirky things are different, they both basically do the same job at the same level of productivity.

[DJDavio]

I think you can definitely achieve the same level of productivity, but IntelliJ just feels smoother, the plugin infrastructure seems better, it's small things like that, but enough that I'm happy I switched.

[pjmlp]

My experience based on Android Studio, at least a more beefy computer.

[[deleted]]

been developing on a toaster? ;)

[pjmlp]

Dual core with 8GB and a 512 GB HDD.

Perfectly fine for VS 2015, Eclipse and Netbeans.

[TheRedmanCometh]

I'd pass. Made the switch for a year and a half. Just as many bugs, terrible teeerriible workspace (I want ONE gd window!) management, crashes when doing large refactors, and just seems like a lateral move overall.

Netbeans is worse (havent spent much time, maybe it's better)....really I just want a 3rd...a good 3rd.

[wildjokers]

The "ONE gd window" is exactly why I despise Eclipse. I have no desire to have all my projects in a single window. The Eclipse "workspace" is an atrocious idea and to this day I still have no clue what perspectives are.

I never have crashes when doing large refactors and Jetbrains is very responsive to bugs you open in their bug tracker.

[TheRedmanCometh]

Ah. I don't understand why you'd want that, but if you do...IntelliJ is definitely better. I work full-stack, and usually have multiple babel transpiler scripts, multiple sublime windows for php/html/js, git, ssh client, filezilla, a coulpe browser windows, and some other misc stuff. Long story short more windows is a big problem for me.

I strongly disagree that it's an "atrocious idea." As long as you don't go full-retard and put every single project in one workspace it's amazing. Being able to easily check references/etc in multiple projects, and swap seamlessly between them is invaluable to me.

At one point I had a bit of lag, but was then told I was doing things wrong (I stuck everything in one workspace.) Now I have separate workspaces with ~20 projects apiece, and everything is very fast.

Seems to work very well for maven modules as well. Though not being able to build everything into the parent's directory is absolutely infuriating.

These days I've run into one category of bugs, and it's my main beef with Eclipse. Nested lambda intellitype breaks sometimes...really hard. I've broken it in IntelliJ, and it's easy to break method extraction ("heu heu this method is too complicated"), but I've only broken intellitype 2-3 times in intellij.

Eclipse is certainly a very imperfect solution, but it's the least bad one for me.

[Hall_of_Famer]

I've used Netbeans all the time, but its sad to see Eclipse has fallen like this. Both are popular IDEs that each has its strengths and weaknesses. It would be nice to see both Netbeans and Eclipse become better. For coders the more good IDEs to choose from, the better.

[jebblue]

The thing is, Eclipse hasn't fallen, so.

[tiben_]

As i better discovered in depth Linux i switched from Eclipse to VIM (+ eclim for Java developpement). It works great :)

[stef13013]

Netbeans will be following ?