5 ms·

The thing I love most about Java versus working in Ruby / JS / anything else, is the IDE (read: eclipse). Right now we are building an app in SproutCore and I f

The thing I love most about Java versus working in Ruby / JS / anything else, is the IDE (read: eclipse). Right now we are building an app in SproutCore and I find my life spent mostly in TextMate, which is quite nice and their JSLint integration makes me very very very happy (hunting down missing commas is much easier this way). IMHO there is nothing like the refactoring tools in eclipse, and the code completion. Say what you want about the verbosity of Java, man is it nice cranking out 200 lines of code in 2 minutes with eclipse. And extract method / variable are just fantastic. .joe

randomtask 16y ago
Having used Eclipse for 6 weeks now I still despise it. Give me Visual Studio any day.
- melling 16y ago
  Switch to IntelliJ: http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/index.html http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/index.html I even prefer Netbeans to Eclipse. http://netbeans.org http://netbeans.org There are 3 fully featured Java IDE's. You have only tried one of them.
  - steverb 16y ago
    Coming from VS I love netbeans for writing Rails code in. I became very spoiled by Visual Studio's ability to let you explore libraries via intellisence. Netbeans is the only Ruby IDE I've found that comes close to letting you do that.
    - daveoflynn 16y ago
      IDEA does that rather nicely. Its maven support can reduce your box to a paperweight when it reindexes, but other than that, it's a very nice product indeed. If you're not working on a complex codebase, it is total overkill though.
  - randomtask 16y ago
    I don't have much choice for the project I'm on at the moment, we've standardised on Eclipse, but I'll give it a look in the future. Thanks.
    - melling 16y ago
      Why do you need to "standardise" on a Java IDE? Do you standardise on vi, emacs, or Notepad? Can't developers simply use whichever IDE they prefer, keeping the code formatted in the desired format?
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
      - kragen 16y ago
        Pair-programming teams often standardize on an IDE, so that when you hand the keyboard to your pair, they don't have to exit your IDE and start up theirs in order to type the next few lines of code. Standardizing on Notepad is a bad idea, because there's no way to enhance it to meet your team needs better.
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
- brown9-2 16y ago
  What are some of your issues with Eclipse? With only 6 weeks in, it might just be a matter of being unfamiliar with certain things or not being aware of others.
- guelo 16y ago
  It's just a matter of getting used to the way of doing things, like any big app it has its quirks that you just have to know. Learn the keyboard shortcuts, you'll start liking it soon enough.
psadauskas 16y ago
Whats even better, though, is not needing 200 lines of code in the first place. The thing I hate about java, is that you're required to use an IDE, or you'll never get anywhere. In Ruby, you just metaprogram in 10 lines what takes 200 in java. Its `attr_accessor :foo, :bar, :baz` in ruby, vs 8 loc for each in Java. Want to change the name? Go change the one word in ruby. No need for an IDE with refactoring support.
- binaryfinery 16y ago
  Once you've changed that one word, how do you change all the places that reference it?
  - shadowfox 16y ago
    You can always fix it after you get the run time error ;)
  - mathias_10gen 16y ago
    sed?
    - mst 16y ago
      find lib -name '*.pm' | xargs perl -pi -e 's/.../.../' is usually quite sufficient for purpose if you have a reasonable idea what's going on in your codebase (and if you don't, you probably don't want to be renaming things yet). Doesn't mean a real refactoring tool such as the ones people've been playing with for http://padre.perlide.org/ http://padre.perlide.org/ wouldn't be better, but it's amazing how well a simple brute force replace works on a reasonably tested codebase.
      - binaryfinery 16y ago
        Might work for classes. Good luck with "count" or "item". But I take it from your third paragraph that you agree with the OP and myself that IDEs with good refactoring tools are a good thing.

randomtask 16y ago

Having used Eclipse for 6 weeks now I still despise it. Give me Visual Studio any day.

melling 16y ago
Switch to IntelliJ: http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/index.html http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/index.html I even prefer Netbeans to Eclipse. http://netbeans.org http://netbeans.org There are 3 fully featured Java IDE's. You have only tried one of them.
- steverb 16y ago
  Coming from VS I love netbeans for writing Rails code in. I became very spoiled by Visual Studio's ability to let you explore libraries via intellisence. Netbeans is the only Ruby IDE I've found that comes close to letting you do that.
  - daveoflynn 16y ago
    IDEA does that rather nicely. Its maven support can reduce your box to a paperweight when it reindexes, but other than that, it's a very nice product indeed. If you're not working on a complex codebase, it is total overkill though.
- randomtask 16y ago
  I don't have much choice for the project I'm on at the moment, we've standardised on Eclipse, but I'll give it a look in the future. Thanks.
  - melling 16y ago
    Why do you need to "standardise" on a Java IDE? Do you standardise on vi, emacs, or Notepad? Can't developers simply use whichever IDE they prefer, keeping the code formatted in the desired format?
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - kragen 16y ago
      Pair-programming teams often standardize on an IDE, so that when you hand the keyboard to your pair, they don't have to exit your IDE and start up theirs in order to type the next few lines of code. Standardizing on Notepad is a bad idea, because there's no way to enhance it to meet your team needs better.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
brown9-2 16y ago
What are some of your issues with Eclipse? With only 6 weeks in, it might just be a matter of being unfamiliar with certain things or not being aware of others.
guelo 16y ago
It's just a matter of getting used to the way of doing things, like any big app it has its quirks that you just have to know. Learn the keyboard shortcuts, you'll start liking it soon enough.

psadauskas 16y ago

Whats even better, though, is not needing 200 lines of code in the first place. The thing I hate about java, is that you're required to use an IDE, or you'll never get anywhere. In Ruby, you just metaprogram in 10 lines what takes 200 in java. Its `attr_accessor :foo, :bar, :baz` in ruby, vs 8 loc for each in Java. Want to change the name? Go change the one word in ruby. No need for an IDE with refactoring support.

binaryfinery 16y ago
Once you've changed that one word, how do you change all the places that reference it?
- shadowfox 16y ago
  You can always fix it after you get the run time error ;)
- mathias_10gen 16y ago
  sed?
  - mst 16y ago
    find lib -name '*.pm' | xargs perl -pi -e 's/.../.../' is usually quite sufficient for purpose if you have a reasonable idea what's going on in your codebase (and if you don't, you probably don't want to be renaming things yet). Doesn't mean a real refactoring tool such as the ones people've been playing with for http://padre.perlide.org/ http://padre.perlide.org/ wouldn't be better, but it's amazing how well a simple brute force replace works on a reasonably tested codebase.
    - binaryfinery 16y ago
      Might work for classes. Good luck with "count" or "item". But I take it from your third paragraph that you agree with the OP and myself that IDEs with good refactoring tools are a good thing.