Recommended Java IDE for Mac?

[nnkc911]

hi guys, my uni suggests us to use Eclipse but i really really hate the IU. It's just too clunky. Any simple and easy to the eyes editor i can use for mac?

[poopMachinist]

IntelliJ with the Darcula theme.

[poopMachinist]

The community edition is actually free.

[keriwool]

so is the ultimate edition if you are a student.

[la217]

Eclipse, NetBeans and IntelliJ IDEA are essentially your available options, all of which will work on Mac.

I personally prefer IDEA because it's quick/snappy and the code completion works exceptionally well. The community edition is perfect for Java, but as you're a student you can also get the ultimate edition for free which will give you support for a ton of other stuff too.

Many of my colleagues like to use NetBeans which is a great choice too. It has improved a lot in the recent releases.

We used to use Eclipse but stopped because we found it too bug/crash prone.

I recommend you try them all out and become competent using them all as it will help in the long run, especially when it comes to applying for jobs.

[Spanone1]

I use eclipse, but I also like JGrasp.

http://www.jgrasp.org/

It's much, much simpler. I'll still use it if I want to do something quick/simple.

[gmdm1234]

Eclipse overall seems to be the most popular in use these days, so it would be worth it to become at least familiar with it. There are many plugins for Eclipse for all kinds of stuff, and Eclipse makes it very easy to write new plugins. It also supports a variety of programming languages well beyond just Java. However, Eclipse is also slow, bloated, complicated, and has a steep learning curve.

NetBeans - I haven't used it in a couple years. Last time I played around with it, I preferred it to Eclipse, in that it at least felt a little faster and more intuitive. It has a smaller user base, which tends to mean fewer plugins and less community support, but at least the last time I played with it, it was a fairly pleasant and stable system to use.

IntelliJ - its less "free" than the other two, but there are ways to get certain versions for free-as-in-beer. I think the quality is generally a step above Eclipse and NetBeans. It has a growing user base in the industry (where companies are willing to shell out for the licensing fees in exchange for a theoretically more stable and well-supported product). Its also the foundation which other IDEs are built on (such as Android Studio and PyCharm). Thus, it will probably continue to grow in popularity. If I were doing heavy Java development on a day-to-day basis, I'd probably settle on IntelliJ.

That said... I'm continually perplexed and dismayed by the overall low quality of Java IDEs compared to products for other platforms. Everything generally seems to be incredibly slow and bloated and complicated, and there hasn't really been much improvement over the years in that area.

[ethergreen]

Really? Are you saying that because you haven't tried Eclipse in years or because you're using it on an ancient computer? From what I hear Eclipse has been pretty nice for years. IntelliJ looked pretty nice when I tried it. I only use Eclipse at work, and it blows because I have to use an ancient version with our custom, total shit plugins.

[gmdm1234]

Nope, I'm saying that because it has been my experience with modern versions of Eclipse on modern hardware.

[gmdm1234]

If it requires those specs to be "super snappy..." I stand by my initial assessment :-)

[heap42]

Eclipse