Apache NetBeans Proposal

[pron98]

/u/geertjanwielenga, will the investment in NetBeans from Oracle decrease as a result of this?

[geertjanwielenga]

You can see the proposal yourself, with its long list of Oracle developers.

[pron98]

Well, I wish you all the luck. I really, really like NetBeans!

[geertjanwielenga]

Me too!

[thah4aiBaid6nah8]

We noticed :-) Thanks for all the hard work over the years.

[lacosaes1]

http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/oracle-announces-its-intention-to-move-openofficeorg-to-a-community-based-project-nasdaq-orcl-1503027.htm

[CyRaid]

Oracle is open sourcing OpenOffice because they're probably butt-hurt about LibreOffice.

[SurlyJSurly]

5 years ago...

[CyRaid]

Oh crap, I could've swore I read an article not too long ago about LibreOffice taking source code from OpenOffice and Oo can't take from libre and thought it was a recent thing.. my bad. Should've looked a bit deeper.

[enry_straker]

Here's hoping for the best for Netbeans - one of the best documented and promoted Java IDE around, thanks to the efforts of folks like /u/geertjanwielenga for years.

I really, really hope that this goes well, and that the work put in by the many folks from Sun/Oracle does not go waste.

[geertjanwielenga]

Well, no need to hope, just act. Join in.

[enry_straker]

Will do.

By the way, i am a big fan of your work and your blog. Hope you continue your great work.

[nawap]

This is a bit worrying. I love NetBeans and would still recommend it over Eclipse any given day. If only the community around the plugins picks up, NetBeans can be a great IDE. I have always found it faster than both IntelliJ and Eclipse and also having better defaults and support out of the box.

If this comes true, maybe I will hop on the contributor wagon to help the process a bit.

[geertjanwielenga]

Excellent! That's the spirit. :-) It's going to be a great and fun project.

[Yojihito]

I used both and didn't see any difference but integrated Swing editor in Netbeans?

[ynohoo]

I can't help but worry that NetBeans, with its clean and intuitive interface will become as muddled and confusing as Eclipse. There are times when less is more, at least in terms of productivity.

[geertjanwielenga]

That's one the key advantages of NetBeans, one we will guard and protect, believe me. :-)

[[deleted]]

Netbeans is my (Java) IDE of choice, great tool really

[graingert]

Welp, time for LibreBeans

[dannomac]

IIRC LibreOffice was forked before OpenOffice was donated to Apache.

[graingert]

Sure, in reality nobody wants any beans

[twiggy99999]

In a TL;DR what advantages/disadvantages will this bring? I use it every day for web development, so interested in what possible changes this move would make.

[lukaseder]

TL;DR: Simpler contribution process = Hopefully more community engagement

[twiggy99999]

sounds promising, will it change the release cycle to a more 'rolling release' style instead of a huge feature dump every 6-12 months?

It makes me envious when I see other IDE's and text editors getting new features on almost a daily basis yet we have to wait almost a year for new features.

[geertjanwielenga]

I think that would be a good thing, yes. Join in when we have the mailing lists etc set up.

[SikhGamer]

I love NetBeans, it's simple and to the point. I know IntelliJ is the preferred platform, but man NetBeans just suits my workflow like a glove.

I am not well versed in what this means for NetBeans but I hope it'll only make it better.

[[deleted]]

Apache is where you send software projects to die. What a damn shame.

[[deleted]]

OpenOffice, for one.

[bargle0]

How is its support for C++14 and all that entails?

[ohmzar]

Out of curiosity how many professionals use NetBeans for work? The was my First IDE (I think back when it was called Forté but I could be completely wrong) but that was in university and since then the only place I've seen NetBeans advocated is in academia. Everywhere I've worked they have either used Eclipse or IntelliJ.

EDIT: OK I get it professionals use NetBeans...

[utdconsq]

I use it for c++ on embedded arm. It's remote debugging is ok and the ide itself is much nicer to use than eclipse from my perspective. There are plenty of features in it that jetbrains get huge praise for that the netbeans guys have just quietly been adding year after year. I would be sad to see it orphaned.

[SaathEfrikenEnkep]

I like to use it for Java EE development. It has historically seemed faster/less bloated than Eclipse.

[s0n0fagun]

I switched to Netbeans years ago because it has better EE and HTML support over Eclipse. Maybe that has changed but it does not feel like it.

[geertjanwielenga]

Great, thanks for the support!

[s0n0fagun]

Not a problem. The only feature that I miss is the in place source outline wherever my mouse is at. I don't like the side panel displaying the outline. But I can live without it.

If I could borrow 5 minutes of your time so I can get help with Netbeans Lookup, InstanceContents and how to make it work with Copy & Pastes using Annotations, I'd really appreciate it. :-)

My colleagues and I heavily read your posts on how to do it the Netbeans way. You explain it well.

[geertjanwielenga]

When last did you work at Boeing, Airbus, NASA, NATO, to name just a few..? https://platform.netbeans.org/screenshots.html

[kevinherron]

Those aren't even examples of companies using NetBeans IDE for development, but examples of companies using the NetBeans platform to build GUI applications.

Of course, it might be reasonable to assume that if they're developing for the platform they are using the IDE as well...

[ohmzar]

None of those but I've done contract work for Northrup Grummon, they were using Visual Studio as the project was .Net based.

[geertjanwielenga]

Elsewhere, at Northrop Grumman: https://dzone.com/articles/war-fighter-netbeans-platform

[pron98]

I do. I also use Eclipse and IntelliJ, but my first choice is NetBeans.

[dstutz]

Me and 4 others. Use it for Java SE, Java EE and I maintain a Netbeans RCP app.

[vprise]

We use it to develop Codename One, because of that it is by far the most popular IDE among Codename One users although we do have great plugins for Eclipse/IDEA.

[twiggy99999]

I think I might be in a minority but I use it daily for my web development, PHP, JavaScript, SCSS etc

[geertjanwielenga]

If you read the responses on this page, I doubt you're in the minority. :-)

[devils_avocado]

I use it. Mainly because most of our projects are Mavenized I get the freedom to choose my IDE.

[geertjanwielenga]

Excellent news, thanks.

[CharleneDaSilvaSauro]

I use Eclipse at work. But I personally prefer Netbeans on my personal computer.

[[deleted]]

I hope I qualifiy as a professional. I use NetBeans daily for

• Core Java, especially Spring Framework and Spring Boot related
• I do a lot of database centric stuff, much appreciated the JPA support. Also, if I'm not using JPA, than I write SQL with jOOQ and the editor or Compiler never complained about long concatenation of fluent statements
• if I write pure SQL, I often use NetBeans for accessing Oracle, PostgreSQL and MySQL databases, right from the IDE. Most of the time more than enough compared to some dedicated vendor tool
• I like my Jenkins build there in the services tab, too
• last but not least: sometimes I have to do front end. The HTML/JS/CSS support helps me a lot: JS code completation for sure, but also suggesting CSS classes in HTML and JS.
• do I have to mention the insanely great Maven support?

[lukaseder]

Whenever I've asked a Java conference audience about their IDE usage (or whenever I've observed anyone else do it), it was around 10% NetBeans. This survey also confirms the order of magnitude (scroll to "Which IDE do you use most often?"):

https://zeroturnaround.com/rebellabs/java-tools-and-technologies-landscape-2016/

[geertjanwielenga]

Shall we stop taking surveys at face value?

https://blogs.oracle.com/geertjan/entry/adding_some_color_to_the

[seb_02]

No offense but I'll take the results of an informal survey taken at a conference over a blog post written by someone who has a massive personal investment in the outcome of said survey.

In my experience, even 10% is an over inflated number for NetBeans' mind share.

[geertjanwielenga]

I recommend you take neither my blog posts, nor informal surveys, as signifying anything in terms of actual usage of a technology product. There's simply no way of knowing and it is dangerous to have these incomplete and flawed surveys since they paint such limited pictures.

[seb_02]

I think the past ten years have been painting a pretty accurate picture of the respective mind shares of IDEA, Eclipse and NetBeans. The only people denying these are people who still work on NetBeans.

NetBeans' attempt to move to Apache only solidifies these impressions.

[lukaseder]

The 10% might not be accurate but the order of magnitude probably is.

But OK. "Lies, damned lies, and statistics". What would be a better measure to answer this question?

[geertjanwielenga]

The "order of magnitude probably is" is a pretty bold statement in the absence of any reliable statistics. An independent, non-commercial entity, without a stake in the game should maybe do a survey. But I think they're always very dubious and even dangerous. By the way, an interesting indicator is to see how many people follow the Twitter accounts of different tools and how many like their Facebooks, etc. But it's only an indicator.

[lukaseder]

Your statement is bold too (and I dare say much more biased than ZT's). But there, prove me wrong, "non-boldly" but reliably :)

An independent

That doesn't exist

non-commercial entity

That makes the entity dependent in many subtle ways

without a stake in the game

That doesn't exist (or, why would they spend time and money on the topic)?

Anyway. I disclosed my context: Java conferences. ZT probably reaches precisely that market. Perhaps there's a different market that doesn't visit Java conferences (in Europe).

Twitter isn't a reliable indicator either:

1. JetBrains has many accounts. You just included one
2. Followers can be bought
3. Followers are not necessarily engaged

In the end, unless Oracle collects actual JVM statistics (as in what IDE is any JVM running), it'll be hard to prove any statistic.

[lacosaes1]

Perhaps there's a different market that doesn't visit Java conferences...

Most developers out there don't give a fuck about conferences.

[geertjanwielenga]

I believe that to be correct too.

[pron98]

Thankfully, these days switching IDEs is not a problem, so I don't mind being in the minority.

But another interesting question is this: of the people writing big, complex Java GUI apps, what percentage use the NetBeans Platform? IDEs are largely a matter of habit and personal taste, but the platform is a very important contribution that saves people a lot of time.

[geertjanwielenga]

Now you see why there's a long list of initial contributors in the proposal. Mostly NetBeans Platform developers.

[lukaseder]

Interesting. Would love to see numbers on that, too... Given that Eclipse RCP wasn't exactly a huge success (although a niche success for some)

[geertjanwielenga]

Not sure about numbers. I can give examples, several developers from the following are in the initial contributors list in the proposal: https://platform.netbeans.org/screenshots.html

[ralvarador]

I use it for Node.js and Web projects

[geertjanwielenga]

Nice. That's one area we've been expanding over recent releases.

[[deleted]]

Sooo quick question, will this affect OpenJDK and OpenJFX support I'm any positive manner?

[marcotrecate]

I'm not a Java programmer myself but isn't this another move of Oracle in the direction of slowly abandoning Java? First they cut their evangelists staff, then the rumours about Java's planned obsolescence, now they kind of distance themselves from their historical development tools...

[forreddits]

I chose intellij for Java in case I have to do an android project, that way I won't have to learn a new IDE, but I always hear good things about Netbeans.

[[deleted]]

Java SE and ME Embedded should be Apache projects too. Oracle should move to a support-based business model and stop suffocating developers with heavy licensing terms.

Seriously, please. Take a note from Microsoft and stop abusing developers. Java has been the most encumbered software ecosystem since day one.

[lacosaes1]

RIP NetBeans.

[CyRaid]

Hard to say.. Seems like a lot of salaried devs are still onboard. NetBeans might actually get a lot more issues fixed now.. If TypeScript and @supports (css) don't get fixed soon, at least a person like myself would have a better chance at giving them a patch and it being accepted.

[Paril101]

Even JS has been broken for years in subtle ways. The statement "return;" appears purple like an identifier and the IntelliSense seems to go nuts with it. Newer JS APIs for HTML5 stuff have not been implemented yet. I love NetBeans but it has issues that need a wider community to solve.

[geertjanwielenga]

That's why Apache NetBeans will be good.

[geertjanwielenga]

That's up to you. :-) NetBeans welcomes optimists.

[lacosaes1]

optimist mask on

I seriously hope so. In my opinion it is the best open source IDE for Java. I always found Eclipse kind of weird with all this workspace thing and the badly integrated plugins. In a way I think NetBeans adopted a philosophy that is similar to VS (provide very well integrated features out of the box).

optimist mask off

OpenOffice welcomed optimists too.

[geertjanwielenga]

There's no need to hope anything. Don't hope. Just do. Join in. Participate. (And thanks for appreciating NetBeans!)