Andrew Binstock: Java IDEs and Other IDEAs



Email    print   
December 1, 2007 —  (Page 1 of 2)
No area of technology that I know of is as fast-moving and rich in functionality as Java IDEs. Nearly every month, there is some news about features added to upcoming releases.

The market is limited to a handful of entrants—CodeGear’s JBuilder, Eclipse, IBM’s Rational, JetBrains’ IntelliJ IDEA, Oracle’s JDeveloper and Sun’s NetBeans—that are all highly aware of one another and competing to deliver better products. (See the May 1 Special Report, “NetBeans Sprouting New Features,” at www.sdtimes.com/article/special-20070501-01.html for more on this.) Recently, though, the competition has zeroed in on IntelliJ IDEA due to the superior development environment it provides.

These vendors are motivated because they recognize that despite smaller market share, IntelliJ IDEA provides the single best coding experience in Java. Very few of IntelliJ’s users would disagree with this assessment. I, for one, have been a user of IntelliJ for four or five years, and I am hooked. Unlike most developers, I have access to all the high-end, high-cost Java IDEs I care to sample as a software reviewer. But once the review is all done and I’ve sampled all the expensive high-end packages, I inevitably return to my happy home, IntelliJ, where coding is fun. What can elicit such a reaction?

The first is an intangible called “it just works.” Almost everything you want to do in IntelliJ works the first time through and almost exactly as you’d expect. There are no weird quirks that you have to get around. For example, if you have to enter a field in a dialog box such as a file name, in Eclipse, the IDE will flash error warnings as you type until the file name is entered. This behavior, which makes little sense and throws off new users, is the kind of thing IntelliJ never does. Only rarely have I looked at an IntelliJ dialog and wondered what it wants; never have I been forced to ignore spurious error messages. There are just no rough edges.




Pages 1 2 


Share this link: http://sdt.bz/31380
 
Most Read Latest News Blog Resources

Add comment


Name*
Email*  
Country     


  • Comment
Loading




close
NEXT ARTICLE
Year in Review: Java
When Oracle brought IBM back to the JCP, the future of the language suddenly looked brighter Read More...
 
 
 
 
News on Monday
more>>
SharePoint Tech Report
more>>


   

 
 

Download Current Issue
FEBRUARY 2012 PDF ISSUE

Need Back Issues?
DOWNLOAD HERE

Want to subscribe?


 
blogs tab
Are you at risk for burnout?
Burnout is a severe problem and it can strike at any time. Here's how to tell if you are nearing the edge.
02/09/2012 02:16 PM EST

Agility, mom, and apple pie
If we're to evaluate the state-of-the-art in software development, we should start with the values espoused in the Agile Manifesto.
02/07/2012 11:57 AM EST

RIM woos developers with free tablet
How do you get more apps ported to the BlackBerry PlayBook? By giving every developer a free tablet, of course!
02/04/2012 01:57 PM EST

GitHire: Use Headhunters to Find Your Perfect Programmer
Are you a hiring manager tired of scouring the job boards? Check out this new service that will find 5 people interested in your jobs.
02/03/2012 12:17 PM EST

Facebook claims hacker cred
Facebook's SEC S-1 filing form includes a short essay on the Hacker Way by Mark Zuckerberg himself.
02/02/2012 08:26 AM EST

Ryan Dahl steps down
Ryan Dahl, creator of Node.js, steps back from his position as gatekeeper for the project.
02/01/2012 04:58 PM EST

 
Events calendar tab
2/13/2012 to 2/16/2012
Santa Clara
TechWeb

2/26/2012 to 2/29/2012
San Francisco
BZ Media

2/27/2012 to 3/2/2012
San Francisco
RSA

3/4/2012 to 3/7/2012
Las Vegas
IBM Tivoli

3/5/2012 to 3/9/2012
San Francisco
TechWeb