Thursday, January 05, 2006

Things I like about NetBeans 5.0

For those who don't know about the amazing NetBeans IDE Sponsored by Sun Microsystems here's your chance. NetBeans and the NetBeans Platform are totaly open-source therefore enabling small companies acces to very high performace IDE's. NetBeans is created for java development mainly and can be used for developing J2SE, J2Me and J2EE applications. All though the NetBeans team will be working on support for other languages in future releases it is not implemented in the NetBeans 5.0 release. There are however plugins that enable some support for other languages. For more support visit: http://www.netbeans.org/catalogue/index.html. Another great thing about the open-source platform of NetBeans is developers can build on the NetBeans Platform which is great because it saves much time in the development stage.

As a side note i would like to see equals features for other languages like C++, C, and other languages of the alike. Another thing i would like to see is the features from Java Studio Enterprice 8 and Java Studio Creator add to the NetBeans IDE. This makes sence becase both Java Studio Creator and Java Studio Enterprice 8 are build on the NetBeans platform and have a very close design. Therefore it would not be to difficult to turn Java Studio Enterprice 8 and Java Studio Creator Moduals into NetBeans Moduals and build on them. One Modual i really want in the next release of NetBeans is UML support with code completion like that of Java Studio Enterprice 8. Anthor reason why this makes sence is because recently if you didn't know Sun Microsystems open-sourced many of thier development tools. What is the point of having three open-source IDE's made or sponsered by Sun. Why not bring all them together? I asked this question to James Gosling at the NetBeans world tour confrence in Toronto Canada. His answer was sometime in the future this is a plan. This would be a dream come true for many developers...Java, C++, C and many other languages supported by one "super IDE".

A Little History about me and NetBeans
I have been using NetBeans since the 4.1 release because i needed a good IDE with more features than just a plain editor (JCreator). Tools like this are great when some one in new to programming but as time goes on the knowlede of the individual evolves and so should the tools he/she is using. With only one year programming experiance i headed into using a full-featured IDE. It was quite simple to use and after a little while i would use no other. Spending 6 hours a day reading my book-shelf of java books and coding brought me to a point where i have surpassed the knowledge of everybody in my class, school and even the knowledge of my teacher. I has skiped to a grade 11/12 split and still am not challenged at all (i am a grade 10 student). Now so i don't gloat any more i will give some insight on my favourite features of NetBeans 5.0.

My Favourite Features
Of course one of the first on my list is the feature everybody has been talking about...Matisse. Matisse is the new GUI builder in NetBeans and is revolutionizing the way JFC/swing is developed. As many java developers may know getting that interface just perfect can take quite a bit of the deveopment time. Matisse makes swing developent much easier so the developer can focus on the logic instead of the interface. Matisse lets developers drag and drop components into a Frame much like Microsoft Visual C++ Studio Enterprice. This is a first for java. Check out the Matisse flash demo. In NetBeans 5.0 many new refactoring have been added that help developers to safe delete code and much more!! Another feature i like about NetBeans 5.0 is the new CVS support. It has been totaly redesigned for the NetBeans 5.0 release adding many new features. To see more on the new CVS support visit: http://www.netbeans.org/kb/articles/cvs-announce.html. In the NetBeans 5.0 release the debugger has been enhanced making it even more powerfull than before. You can find problems quickly and effciently. Another few features would be faster and smarter code completion, java hint and the error stripe located on the side of the editor. Many other features have been added besides these ones but these are some of my favourites. On closing one of my favourite features of the new NetBeans 5.0 release is the new NetBeans modual support. There is extensive documention thier site to help guide developers throught the process of creating moduals (a plugin for NetBeans). You can chech out the more at http://www.netbeans.org. One thing i think is "cool" about NetBeans is how "modable it is. You can create a costom look and feel in minuites. At the moment there is a contest you can enter to show off you new NetBeans look and feel. If this intrested you visit: http://www.netbeans.org/competition/look-and-feel.html.

For more information about the new features of NetBeans visit: http://www.netbeans.org/community/releases/50/

Finaly, I have tried Eclipe and other IDE's of the alike but nothing come's close to what i and many others see in NetBeans. So make the Switch to NetBeans

9 comments:

Juan Pablo Chaclan said...

Collin, your blog its really good. I'm also a fan of NetBeans. NetBeans is the only devolpment tool I use. It's very nice to know that there are young people devolping on Java. Congratulations you are a really young smart guy. I will keep an eye on your Blog. JP CHACLAN

Anonymous said...

Hi Collin, Roumen has a post on his Weblog about your blog, cool eh. Congrats. Your famous buddy :P
The link to his entry is http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/roumen?entry=i_think_i_m_getting

Anonymous said...

Here now its a link
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/roumen?entry=i_think_i_m_getting

Collin said...

Thank you for the support ;)

Anonymous said...

I started working a year before you were born. I suddenly feel very old :-)

I have to agree with previous commenters. Interesting read! Good point about merging the different IDE version!

I agree with you about Netbeans. It runs circles around Eclipse, which feels like a collection of very individual components stuck together with duct tape! Netbeans are also very modular, but you feel like you are using just one tool. Everything integrates very well.

/Tommy

Anonymous said...

Hi! You are smart. Keep it up. Steve

Anonymous said...

Collin, good to hear about your programming experience. I remember being in high school so many years ago. I too have started using NetBeans. It is fantastic. I hope your dream of having C/C++ support comes true because I'll be using JNI a lot in the future. I have just finished reading Joshua Bloch's book "Effective Java" and now I'm reading Doug Lea's book "Concurrent Java"; perhaps you have read them or will find them interesting. Keep up the good work on your blog; I would be interested to hear what programs you are writing. When I was in high school, the thing to write was an email/chat program.

Collin said...

No i have not read either of the books you mentioned but i have seen them at my local book store. I have books very much like it so i decided i did not need to get them. I find all java books interetsing as well as any programming books that will teach me something new. I will read basicly any computer releated book. I have writen a very simple chat program when i was learning the java.net package a year and a half ago. I am working on getting some server space so i can show source code, have multimedia and things like that. At the moment i am working on a 2D java game engine with costom awt and swing components. It is very versitile and extensable.If you want more information on what i am coding i can post some. Thank you for you support.

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