The Real Competition

Wow, NetBeans vs. Eclipse has been quite a pot-stirring debate!  I should've expected it when the Sun evangelists, themsleves, are involved.

Despite my current position on this matter, as a Java developer for over six years now, I'm forever grateful to Sun for their creation and stewardship of the language.  As to Charles Ditzl, for whatever valuable role he played in this, thanks.

For a parting comment on tools and platforms - I've grown to consider development tools similar to how I treat wine; I love to try new ones out and see how they stack up.  Today, as a Java IDE, IDEA IntelliJ still takes the cake.  They may not be far behind, but Eclipse and NetBeans simply aren't as good.

As for a viable rich client platform, Eclipse is the obvious leader.  But, more importantly, we should all use whatever commodity IDE floats our boat and focus on the real competition here: Visual Studio .Net.

Comments

[Charles Ditzel]

Sorry, I am not sure how I mischaracterized what you described - but perhaps you can identify what I mischaracterized ? Other than saying I mischaracterized something, can you identify what in particular I mischaracterized - you said you weren't up to speed on NetBeans (right) and yet you claimed that Eclipse is where it's at for building rich clients (right). This is where we have an honest difference of opinion. Now - I provided a study by an Eclipse developer that claims that NetBeans is superior in the building GUI clients respect. I also provided some links to other Eclipse developers that differ with what you have claimed. I think you are basing your evaluation and thoughts on your understanding of NetBeans, yet you were quite honest in admitting that you are basing it on a 2003 version. I tried to provide an update for you on this by pointing to the NetBeans platform. Hopefully you understand why I am a bit confused why you think I mischaracterized your opinion. By the way I do enjoy your blog - and I think IntelliJ is a good IDE as well.

Take care.
Charles

[Ben]

I'll email ya.

[Rob Harwood]

At the end of the day, what matters to a professional developer is choosing the right tool for the job. Here's a good example: http://javablogs.com/Jump.action?id=207102

And when it comes to Visual Studio .NET, you're mistaking the IDE for the language platform. VS.NET will remain behind Java IDEs, and in fact JetBrains will provide the competition there with their upcoming .NET IDE: http://javablogs.com/Jump.action?id=206469. The real issue is C# vs. Java, which I believe will depend on whether Java can get it's desktop client story cleaned up. If it can't, C# will dominate there and then slowly erode the server side market.