Anybody use Eclipse here ?

[namgor]

Hello,

I am working on some java projects and came accross the term "Eclipse"... which according to eclipse.com, it is development environment.

As I read more, it seems like that it is nothing more than simply a text editng tool with the ability to run some java files, compiles and debugs... so why shall I use Eclipse instead of the JDK editor ?

i m really new to this, so mayb i m missing many things

thanks,

[anfpunk]

eclipse will do a ton of things for you. there are many many plugins. check out eclipse-plugins.2y.net It has absolutely awesome text formatting which you can specify how you want it done.

[namgor]

what about Visual Age, is it another name for Visual J++ ?

[rock]

Visual Age is IBM's answer to Eclipse - just another Java IDE.

As you shop around for IDEs, take a look at NetBeans. I have never really liked using an IDE (they act as a crutch when writing code: even if you don't lean in the beginning, you will eventually), but many colleagues use NetBeans and I've been using it to write GUIs lately. It's got a lot of functionality, it's 100% Java, and it's free.

[anfpunk]

Eclipse was also started by IBM. Which I thought you had it backwards but yah, both are by IBM, weird business decision.

[znaps]

Visual Age is IBM's old product - I wouldn't use it since it's only compatible with an old version of the JDK (1.2.2 I think).

The same IBM people who created Visual Age wrote the core code for Eclipse, then IBM released that part as Open Source, and continued developing their new proprietery IDE on top of that, which is called WebSphere Application Developer.

oh yeah, Eclipse is a great IDE.

[bryce777]

Eclipse has swidgets, which are native widgets to replace swing.

It has 80% of the functionality of swing, 20% of the memory usage.

It does require client side installation, though.

It looks pretty impressive, but I have not ever used it....