With all the years of VI programming on linux as my ultimate IDE. Being introduced to some civilized java IDE's exposed me to a cultural shock.
With all the impressing stuff, I'm still trying to find the best out there. Trying to find the best by comparison then by elimination. First of all, they all look great. The Java IDE's sum up to the following:
1. Eclipse
2. NetBeans
3. JBuilder (by Borland)
4. JDeveloper (by Oracle)
5. Intellij IDEA
The best link I found that does a fair comparison is this one:
http://www.mojavelinux.com/wiki/doku.php?id=javaidecomparison
I'm trying them out one by one. Please note that my evaluation will be based on the best IDE for creating desktop applications.
I've just tried JDeveloper today and I think its the best. Eclipse, NetBeans and Intellij IDEA I've tried a bit. But the one that provides the best convenience I believe is JDeveloper, specially when it comes to creating GUI Desktop applications.
The problem with Eclipse is that it doesn't support Swing/AWT ui elements, but rather have to be purchased from thirdparty commercials (most notably MyEclipse).
Netbeans is good. But the layout facilities provided are so cumbersome. To that, NetBeans lacks alot of features, and its intellisense makes me mad from time to time. When I'm in the middle of typing a function name, and go back by pressing delete, intellisense dissapears. This doesn't happen with JDeveloper.
Intellij IDEA. I have to be frank here, I didnt give it a full try. Its commercial for $500 and looks great. Also lots of features, a big community, and lots of plugins, the only problem is that I didnt give it a full try since the GUI layouts it provided were a bit like NetBeans. I'm sure there is an option that makes it like JDeveloper. But I didn't find it fast enough.
The only one left to try is JBuilder from Borland. I dont think I will get there. I'm so happy about JDeveloper I dont think I'll ever go anywhere else ;)
