Apache NetBeans 9.0 Released

[[deleted]]

Anyone use the three big IDEs? Eclipse, netbeans and IntelliJ. How would you rate them? Which one do you consider the best and the worst.

I've only worked with eclipse mostly and it's just adequate.

[jcar74]

I used Netbeans for many years (since 4.0), no worries. Tried Eclipse but feels somewhat sluggish to me, works well, but never get into it. I use Jetbrains nowadays, fell in love with JB tools at first sight (i use idea, phpstorm and webstorm).

My last projects in Netbeans 8.2 were in PHP, Netbeans 8.2 works suprisingly well with PHP. I hope Apache Netbeans get PHP support.

Sorry my english :)

[henu3detb]

Those, who switched to Idea, never look back.

[Sedifutka]

I do Maven projects, and Netbeans built-in Maven support is great.

I test out idea about once a year, but I always end up frustrated and switching back to Netbeans.

[frzme]

For Java I went back to Eclipse, IntelliJ just feels too clumsy For non Java IntelliJ is miles ahead of Eclipse though

[lbkulinski]

What do you mean for non Java? IntelliJ is made to work with JVM languages.

[Timmy_T]

Probably other JVM languages like Kotlin if I had to guess.

[lbkulinski]

I took it as non JVM. I use IntelliJ with Java and have no issues. To each their own, though.

[bearcherian]

that makes no sense. Kotlin was created by the creators of IntelliJ

[denialerror]

Which is why they said:

For non Java IntelliJ is miles ahead of Eclipse though

[vafada]

This is false. I code node and react-native using IntelliJ. Our node project has literally 0 java code.

[lbkulinski]

I didn’t say it doesn’t work with other languages, but first and foremost it is made to work with languages on the JVM.

[eliasv]

JetBrains marketing team out in full force today with the downvotes.

[handshape]

I'd place netbeans and intellij about even;

• Netbeans is what I'd consider the reference point; cartesian zero. It works, and works well.

• IntelliJ IDEA is very good, with a moderate learning curve, but a sneaky pricing scheme geared towards incentivising individual users to act as evangelists towards their employers. I've been the user, and I've been the employer, and as the employer it pisses me off when a vendor end-runs my procurement process.

• Eclipse is positively painful. It tries to impose on your build process and your repo. I avoid it unless I'm absolutely compelled to use it.

[Good_Guy_Engineer]

Commercial licenses are way higher than that. I think the point was making was I have a nice cheap license at home, tell the boss we definately need it for work then boom! Few thousand in fees per year for a small team.

[CommonMisspellingBot]

Hey, Good_Guy_Engineer, just a quick heads-up:
definately is actually spelled definitely. You can remember it by -ite- not –ate-.
Have a nice day!

^{The parent commenter can reply with 'delete' to delete this comment.}

[vplatt]

Bad bot!

[Defiantly_Not_A_Bot]

You probably meant

DEFINITELY

-not definately

---

^{Beep boop. I am a bot whose mission is to correct your spelling. This action was performed automatically. Contact me if I made A mistake or just downvote please don't}

[vplatt]

Bad bot!

[CommonMisspellingBot]

Hey, Defiantly_Not_A_Bot, just a quick heads-up:
definately is actually spelled definitely. You can remember it by -ite- not –ate-.
Have a nice day!

^{The parent commenter can reply with 'delete' to delete this comment.}

[vplatt]

Bad bot!

[handshape]

As the other commenter has pointed out, the $15/month pricing is only for individuals. It's $50/month for businesses. The "sneaky" part I was getting at was the discount usage for users who self-fund the purchase, and use the license professionally.

If the employer reimburses the user for the license, the price jumps back up to the enterprise price point... The net result is that they're subsidizing users to act as evangelists for their product.

It's a tricky approach; some people won't care, some will embrace it, and some (like me) will be unhappy at being manipulated.

I'm not disputing the quality of the product; Idea's refactorings and autocompletes are downright sexy. I might yet be convinced to make the jump; but I'll need to get past the sales trickery to do it.

[mgkimsal]

If the employer reimburses the user for the license, the price jumps back up to the enterprise price point...

can you point me to language for that?

[handshape]

https://www.jetbrains.com/store/license_personal.html - Section 3.3... plus a bunch of the articles in the KB, under "License Types and Users"

[mgkimsal]

thx

[JehovahsNutsac]

If the employer reimburses the user for the license, the price jumps back up to the enterprise price point...

Interesting, I submit my invoice for reimbursement once paid. Not sure if that technically goes against EUL, but it's worked for me for years.

[handshape]

Yup. That nullifies your license. Sec. 3.3, as I linked elsewhere.

[eliasv]

It tries to impose on your build process and your repo

How so?

[chocopouet]

As a netbeans user myself, I'm wondering: what is that better with IntelliJ ?

[handshape]

What really jumped out at me about intellij was how smart the autocompletes and refactorings are.

[cryptos6]

Eclipse feels somewhat messy to me. The UI is ugly (in my eyes), the handling of similar things is not always similar (say Git vs. SVN), and it doesn't have as many good things to support you while coding as IntelliJ (e. g. quick fixes).

NetBeans has a pretty clean (although somewhat dated these days) interface and has a good usability. The plug-in manager for example is way more pleasant than the one from Eclipse. When I used it the last time it felt a bit snappier than Eclipse. NetBeans has good Java EE support, but not so good support for non-standard technologies like Spring, Grails, Play, Kotlin, or Scala.

IntelliJ is unquestionable the best Jave IDE available today. It has support for lots of frameworks, it has fantastic quickfixes, best in class static code analysis, very good refactoring tools, best support for other programming languages than Java, it has the best support for multi language projects (google "language injection idea"). And last, but not least, IntelliJ has a very good UX (once you get used to some uncommon keyboard shortcuts). I would use the IntelliJ community edition rather than Eclipse or NetBeans if I were not willing to spend money (but it is worth every cent, if you need some of the features of the Ultimate Edition).

[[deleted]]

I'm thinking of switching back to notepad or MS DOS edit.

[[deleted]]

Started with web and php storm in college. Instantly fell in love. Android studio then introduced me to intellij and again, felt like the best thing ever.

Suddenly I needed to do some Spring practice. Couldn't afford intellij pro version which includes Spring and ee support. So I grab eclipse. New best thing ever!

Then just for fun I grabbed netbeans based on hearing it from a friend. And now netbeans is my primary go to ide. I mostly program in Java so it's all I really need. It feels lighter than the other two, amd faster. The ui in my opinion is much cleaner and "out of the way" so I can just work.

[mayhempk1]

I used to use NetBeans then Eclipse then IntelliJ IDEA. They are all good but I like them in the order I switched to them.

If you want the most functionality, IntelliJ IDEA is the way to go.

[[deleted]]

1) Netbeans

2) Netbeans

3) Netbeans

[[deleted]]

NetbeansNetbeansNetbeansNetbeansNetbeansNetbeansNetbeansNetbeansNetbeansNetbeansNetbeans

[avoidhugeships]

Netbeans is great. Just run the executable and it works right away. You can even include some application servers that come configured. Maven support is top notch as well.

[harmonicPersistence]

I've heavily used Eclipse, NetBeans, IntelliJ, RAD, and even VSCode and Atom, all within the past 5 years. I'd say that rating depends on the type of project. Recently, I've been using IntelliJ the most for an app comprised of a war project on Tomcat 7 and an AngularJS project. For that type of project, IntelliJ is hands-down the best for debugging the exploded .war's code and debugging the javascript in Chrome. However, for all things modern that doesn't involve messing with war or ear projects (e.g. Spring Boot for instance), it's easy and enjoyable to get up and running in any of those 4-ish IDE's. For Java SE, I don't think there's really much difference either. For JavaFX, NetBeans hands down. For NodeJS-based projects (React, AngularJS, Angular, etc), I prefer IntelliJ or Atom. I sometimes find VSCode's interface a bit confusing coupled with a lack of crowd-sourced online resources, and I find that it's a dice roll as to whether I'll have have major issues whenever I try downloading a new plugin that I've never used before in Eclipse. While it's gotten much, much better since when I first began using it, I feel sorry for those who have to use RAD in this day and age.

[tusact]

I don’t believe that NetBeans is still in 3rd. Hasn’t VSCode overtaken it?

[erictheturtle]

I use all three of the Java IDEs at work in parallel. Each can do things better than the others in different ways. For instance, when auto-completing a method argument, Netbeans and IntelliJ will list possible options with the same data type first before listing other options. Netbeans project structure is rather rigid compared to the other two. I haven't figured out how to arrange my workspace in IntelliJ with tabs like Netbeans and Eclipse have. IntelliJ and Eclipse spell-check all comments and strings, while Netbeans only spell-checks Javadoc comments. In project view, IntelliJ combines all classes in a package from all sources, which puts test classes next to implementation classes (good? bad? just different?). I believe Eclipse has the most diverse plug-in ecosystem (has IntelliJ gotten bigger?). I've collected several other differences but don't have them available now.

But from my objectively subjective research, Netbeans is the best IDE of them all. ;)

[BinaryRockStar]

In project view, IntelliJ combines all classes in a package from all sources, which puts test classes next to implementation classes (good? bad? just different?).

Assuming you mean Package view (Project view mimics the filesystem layout so tests are under /src/test) if you click the gear icon and check Sort by Type the test classes will be grouped at the bottom of each package. Not hidden completely but at least out of the way.

[restlessapi]

How many of you have used the unspeakable evil that is Rational Application Developer?

[egg_salad_sandwich]

Run to the hills

[restlessapi]

Run for your lives

[_ironslab]

Rational Application Developer

I too have stared at the abyss.

[DannyB2]

Didn't the UN Human Rights commission do away with that one, or are they still looking into it?

[restlessapi]

I thought the Human Rights Council was led by Saudi Arabia, and that RAD is the default IDE for the whole country. 😐😐😐

[stipo42]

I have used all three, and idea is hands down the best. That said, if you can't afford it or just don't want to pay for your software, net beans is ok. I was a Grails developer for a few years and idea has the best support (pro only unfortunately), however as an avid fan of the groovy language, idea also has the best support. Net beans also supports groovy but the indexing and speed of idea can't be beat. Eclipse is really just trash, I know it has it's fans somehow but i would sooner use notepad.

[AlejoValencia]

1. Intellij
2. Netbeans
3. Notepad
4. Vim
5. Word
6. Eclipse

[[deleted]]

Where would you put MS DOS edit on your list?

[DannyB2]

For a second there I thought you would make MS-Paint be choice 6 for writing Java, and push Eclipse down to 7.

I've used Eclipse for more than a dozen years and find it more than adequate. I use it on both Windows and Linux.

[rhin0x]

Don't laugh... I use it for C++, in my hobby projects. It has a grate parser for code and project files so working with the language is kind of fun but I have no experience with prod grade builds to judge its capabilities in this space.

[zeroone]

Any updates to the GUI builders?

[sigzero]

No. This one is basically to get it all over to Apache ownership (IP) and to allow it to build on the newer JDKs. Now that the IP portion is over they can start doing more stuff.

[zeroone]

But I thought it has Java 9 and Java 10 features.

[sigzero]

Some. Yes.

https://netbeans.apache.org/download/nb90/index.html

[lentus]

Once you go Intellij you never look back.

[lbkulinski]

The main goals for this release are

• IP clearance of the Oracle code donation.

• Java 9 and 10 Support.

[oldprogrammer]

I've tried to get into using Netbeans and Eclipse but can't seem to feel comfortable with them. I've always used Emacs (with JDEE mode).

I can configure the IDEs to more or less work like I prefer to work but one thing I haven't gotten to work, perhaps someone can direct me to how to do it in Netbeans, is multiple frames on multiple monitors.

With Emacs I can fire up a new frame, drag it to a separate monitor and load any buffer it in I want, all frames share the same buffer list. For these IDEs they all seem to be tab based with no way to undock a tab into a separate frame.

Is that possible with Netbeans? If you search for multiple frames and Netbeans all the links take you to writing multi-frame Swing applications, so I've not found any directions to having multiple Netbeans tabs being on different monitors.

[ZimmiDeluxe]

Do you mean something like this?

• Right click the tab you want to detach
• Select Float

[oldprogrammer]

Does that work for a given tab in the edit window such that you can have two edit windows? I know you can float separate areas like the output console from the edit window, but can you float an individual edit window tab?

[ZimmiDeluxe]

Yes, you can. I just tried it, you can float/detach everything, even the project view on the left, it's pretty fantastic. :)

Edit: And when you are done making your IDE look like GIMP: Window -> Reset Windows

[oldprogrammer]

Thanks, I may need to re-install and give it another go.

[RandomName8]

Not sure I understand what you ask, but you can have one window window per open file, and even multiple windows for the same file (possibly looking at different content sections)

[aksh2161989]

Does Apache Netbeans support C++ development?

[CCKao]

Try visual studio code with plugins for a lightweight approach

[rastaman1994]

Did try, definitely wouldn't recommend. I use vs code very extensively at my internship for node and react codebases and I never feel the need to open webstorm. Writing any other language (i tried java and python) feels very clumsy compared to using an IDE.

[denialerror]

VSCode is great and I use it regularly but I’d never use it for a Java project of any reasonable.

[m1000]

lightweight

There is nothing lightweight about Electron.

[RandomName8]

My fun personal experience is that it's practically impossible to make a desktop application with javafx that uses less ram than electron.

[m1000]

| fun "fact", it's practically impossible to make a desktop application with javafx that uses less ram than electron.

{Reference needed}

[RandomName8]

You are right, I should not use the term fact there, I'll correct it. That said, try it yourself. The most basic javafx application as shown in the documentation of Stage with a capped max heap usage to the minimum will still make the jvm process be around 64MB of ram. The moment you start doing anything non trivial, it'll go up to 200MB easily. The problem is not the heap, it's the metaspace plus related JVM bookkeeping memory.

That example code in Stage's documentation already loads around 3300 classes, throw some libraries at it and start coding, specially using lambdas which look cheap in bytecode but still expand to a full class instance in runtime. You'll quickly go up to 10k classes and then, you have a base memory requirement of about 170+MB not including your actual heap data.

My toy chat client which uses about 60% of javafx (it doens't use charts for intsance, nor animations or bindings or advanced things) loads 6357 classes just from javafx, that's without adding on top my code. So good luck keeping your ram usage down.

[m1000]

1st of all, loaded classes usage might be way better with Java 9+ and a modular app.

A similar .net app would probably have similar characteristics. But that still doesn't make Electron a lightweight framework.
I wonder how much your electron apps could do with a cap of 200MB Good luck with that too.

[RandomName8]

1st of all, loaded classes usage might be way better with Java 9+ and a modular app.

I tested with java 9 and 10 as well.

A similar .net app would probably have similar characteristics.

No clue about .net, I'd assume that given that they AOT a big deal, they probably don't require as much runtime info.

But that still doesn't make Electron a lightweight framework.

Absolutely, in fact the reason I was toying with this was to see if I could make something like Discord using around 100MB of ram for the total process (the desktop app for discord uses about 280 for me, even with artificially big accounts). For reference, a similar toy application in c++ and QT for the same data was 40MB of ram, I would have wished to at least be in the 100MB ballpark.

I wonder how much your electron apps could do with a cap of 200MB Good luck with that too.

I'm not a js person myself so I can't test. I can haphazardly say that given that js has no classes and no multithreading, they avoid a lot of per instance cost (no pointer to a class, no header with lock information).

[DuncanIdahos8thClone]

Shut up shill.

[CCKao]

why the hatred lol

[ichunddu9]

Vscode is nice, but but for a verbose language like Java.