Javalobby has been stirring with NetBeans buzz and I've had some unexpected interest in my "NetBeans vs. Eclipse - No Real Debate" post. In the end, to businesses such as webMethods, what's really important is knowing how viable each will be as an application platform. One way to measure viability is with raw popularity; enter the ENP Index.
ENP Index
I'll Google-search "NetBeans Java" and "Eclipse Java" and regularly post the unique hits
for each, right here. You can do this yourself by entering the same
search key words and flipping to the last returned page. Look for the
message at the bottom saying "...we have omitted some entries very similar to the <some number> already displayed..." I'll factor in the Google News hits as well.
Non-Eclipse.org pages are filtered by including the "Java" keyword. Including "Java" has the effect of normalizing the search for relevance. Factoring in Google News hits minimizes propaganda bias. This formula equally weighs the web and news hits, something we may want to revisit later. Someone else can figure out the actual variance; I'm just looking for a high-level comparison and trendline.
I'll do this periodically until I lose my internet connection, die, or just get tired of it. I may automate it or even graph it some day. This ratio can be a basic popularity meter that we can all reference over time. I'll name it the "ENP Index." The Eclipse and NetBeans column values are in the format <web hits>/<news hits>.
The formula:
ENP Index = ("Eclipse Java" unique web hits / "NetBeans Java" unique web hits) + ("Eclipse Java" news hits / "NetBeans Java" news hits) / 2
History
Eclipse NetBeans Index
3/30/2005 748/243 451/37 4.12
4/01/2005 753/248 714/37 3.88
4/06/2005 729/176 719/27 3.78
UPDATE: As of 4/6/2005, the ENP Index is officially dead after discovering this more highly advanced tracker. Click on the "Eclipse vs. NetBeans link" once you get there. It also has some interesting comparisons for the other Java IDEs. You might also try Alexa's site tracking graph.
The comparison is not really fair -- "eclipse" is an English word and NetBeans is not. Even though you're also searching for Java, the fact that Eclipse and Java are on the same page could just be a coincidence, not necessarily related to Eclipse.org. :)
Posted by: Ryan | March 30, 2005 at 05:35 PM
Try clicking through the results - you'll find that Google does a good job of returning only Eclipse.org stuff.
Posted by: Ben | March 30, 2005 at 05:45 PM