What's a good Java IDE

I want to learn some Java, and would like to know what a good IDE to start with would be.

I like Eclipse...it's free also.

http://www.eclipse.org

Others popular IDE's are IntelliJ (which is really good too), Netbeans (Free also), Oracle9i Developer and JBuilder.

I would always suggest just starting with a good editor, preferably with syntax highlighting (see jEdit). But if you really need an IDE, I've had some luck using Source Navigator. I'm starting to use netbeans to help build complex GUIs. In discussions on Sun's forums, it appears that IBM's Visual Age rules the roost, but it costs $$.

BTW, I ran across this page on choosing an IDE while trying to find the IBM link. Worth reading.

I used codewarrior and was happy with that. What ever you do, don't use microsoft's J++, it's EVIL, it defaults to making you use Microsoft's version of Java, blek.

Quote:

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Originally posted by rock
[B]I would always suggest just starting with a good editor, preferably with syntax highlighting (see jEdit). But if you really need an IDE, I've had some luck using Source Navigator. I'm starting to use netbeans to help build complex GUIs. In discussions on Sun's forums, it appears that IBM's Visual Age rules the roost, but it costs $$.

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Visual Age is out - it doesn't support any versions of the JDK above 1.2.2. It has been replaced by WebShere Application Developer which is basically Eclipse with bits added on.

Great, this should get me started, everyone mentioned a bunch of stuff I never heard of, so there are a lot of things out there for me to try.

Thanks