Java IDE Practical comparisons: Eclipse, NetBeans, IntelliJ

As the IDE for Java development, Eclipse has been around for several years now, with its rich features, ease of operation, and the popularity of developers in improving productivity. Of course, when it comes to the Java IDE, one cannot help mentioning other Java ides like Netbeans,intellij, so what are the similarities and differences between these Java Ides? So in the Java development space, it is necessary to make a comprehensive comparison of these major Ides, by comparing us to identify these major ides in four common development areas: Swing, Jsp/struts, JavaServer faces and J2EE/EJB Which IDE in 3.0 is performing better. This article compares eclipse, Netbeans,intellij, from these four common development areas.

Of the three Ides, Eclipse is the only one with multiple versions, from a basic version to a pre-packaged, with additional open source Plug-ins (like easyeclipse) and open source/commercial (like MyEclipse).

NetBeans 5.5:

First look at the basic information of NetBeans 5.5,netbeans 5.5 as follows:

Vendor:sun Microsystems
Website:www.netbeans.org
Price:free/open Source
Distribution:base + enterprisepack + Visual Web Pack

Installation:

NetBeans 5.5, including the packages it carries (like a Uml/bpel/soa enterprise pack and a Visual Web pack to develop JSF) can be downloaded as a zip file and can be installed across platforms. Under the Windows platform, the installation will be seamlessly integrated with the operating system, including shortcuts to the desktop and adding the Install/Unload Control Panel. Under the Linux platform, NetBeans 5.5 is only installed in a specified directory and created a startup icon on the GNOME or KDE desktop, but under the Linux platform, NetBeans 5.5 cannot be packaged in RPM or a. deb file, nor can it provide a standard knowledge base that enables Linux users to install NetBeans 5.5 according to other applications.

General Features:

The early NetBeans version was very slow to develop swing, and the interface was so unattractive that it didn't get a lot of people's welcome, and since the 5 version, the NetBeans development team has completely changed the situation, NetBeans 5.5 and JDK The 1.6 combination gives users a much better user experience, especially under the Windows platform (Linux still has some minor UI problems, and these issues are expected to improve in the NetBeans 6.0 version.) The appearance support for local GTK is missing from version 5.5. ）

In Windows, NetBeans is easy to use, such as shrinking/hiding/switching functions, Panel/editor configuration is also very easy, in addition, NetBeans menu layout is very logical, easy to use, most of the general features are easy to start, has always been , NetBeans has excellent stability and performance.

The basic Java editor is also pretty good, although it's a little bit less than other Ides in terms of code completion, but it's still available, and NetBeans provides refactoring (especially the most common renaming/removal features), and in some tests, It does not always have contextual awareness (context-aware), such as renaming the package where the action class resides in the Struts project, and the corresponding struts-config.xml cannot be synchronized in a timely manner, but in the refactoring JSF backing Beans and updates perform well in faces-config.xml entities, while also performing well in synchronizing updates to the 1.4 sessions beans and ejb-jar-xml entities.

Swing Development:

NetBeans includes a set of features to develop swing applications, such as automatic alignment based on the location of the actual text, and its powerful dimension recovery and retention capabilities make the UI designer unmatched in any language on any platform. NetBeans 5.5 also includes new features that help improve productivity, such as automating internationalization (Controlling every Form/dialog/panel to resourcebundle including all internationalized strings), and using custom forms/dashboards (as long as they are compiled at least once in your project).

For swing developers, using NetBeans's powerful rcp (Rich-Client Platform) wizard to create new, mature swing applications is a good use of NetBeans.

Jsp/struts Development:

NetBeans comes with a very good JSP editor, which includes the basic features we expect, the basic wizards, and the creation of a new struts project. The inline tomcat period makes it easy to develop and debug JSP applications, as shown in the NetBeans Web Application Wizard:

NetBeans The Web Application Wizard automatically configures Web.xml files and Struts-config.xml files to increase support for tiles and validator, and NetBeans also provides content menu options in the Struts-config.xml file, and wizards to add action Forms, actions, and forwards. Provides a non-visual editor to display the page navigation features in your application, providing full support for tiles and validators configurations.

NetBeans 5.5 is very good for struts, but not as perfect as the release document says, and the Non-visual editor can be used to edit JSP or HTML pages without support for the JSP editor for embedded JavaScript. The JSP editor also comes with only a basic CSS editor (the installation of the visual Web Pack is better). All of this needs to be improved. Below for the support of struts for NetBeans:

JSF Development:
NetBeans support for JSF, like struts support, provides a basic wizard to create a project, including a class library, configure all the required files, and even provide code completion for the backing Beans property in the JSP editor. Also includes wizards for navigation rules in the Faces-config.xml file.