I'd may as well add my $.02 as a long-time (30 year) vi/ctags veteran who made the switch to eclipse recently enough to remember the tradeoffs, and the pain.
The conversion was painful, but after only 2-3 weeks I'll never go back. Detailed (line-level) editing is slow and painful compared to vi, and eclipse absolutely requires far more RAM (at least 500 mb, more if you have it).But its refactoring support soon becomes second nature, so operations that were painful in vi (like renaming classes, or reorganizing the package hierarchy) become routine and painless in eclipse. Frankly the biggest obstacle was that I didn't really know my real problem was not having enough RAM, since the 128mb I did have had been more than enough to run vi/ctags/javac/make quite comfortably. The other thing I like is that eclipse makes it much easier to explore new packages, like Jess. I really like the ability to expand arbitrary stuff into a directory and use eclipse as explore it. Just expand it somewhere, define a new project, and import the whole directory, source, dox, and all. Browse to the dox, click index.html, and read the documentation. Define a run method for jess.Main when the dox says to, and type Jess commands in the commands window, or create eclipse run scripts for the examples. Its much easier than manipulating separate consoles, vim windows, browsers, etc. Finally, there's the option of adding new plugins, something I've not yet explored in depth but will definitely do when I get a chance. I use a java preprocessor (see http://virtualschool.edu/java+) for all my servlet work, which doesn't fit with eclipse's IDE approach. But I've explored eclipse enough now to see how to add it as a plugin, and expect to do so when I get the time. On Wed, 2003-07-23 at 08:30, Rich Halsey wrote: > I also found the documentation on Eclipse to be something less than > intuitive, so I went out to Borders and ordered the two books (that have > been published to date). Learning Eclipse will be one of my "projects" over > the next few weeks. It seems to be a good IDE (especially at the project > level). The notion of buying an IDE for Java (which is free itself) is not > very appealing, so I second the idea of using tools like Ecipse (after all, > it has the backing of IBM). > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "James Owen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2003 3:52 PM > Subject: RE: JESS: Open Source Java IDE > > > > Well, a month later someone reads his back email and replies. (moi) > > Never having used IDEA (but having used many, many other IDE programs > > and editors) I found that paying $500 for some of these just to throw > > them away a couple of years later OR to not be able to use them on the > > next job because everyone had "standardized" on another tool, was not > > really financially feasible. > > > > Let's see: IDEA is $499. Eclipse is free. Guess which wannabe I'll > > use next time? :-) > > > > BTW, for those looking around, Eclipse is not really intuitive. It > > takes a bit of getting used to in order to use effectively. However, > > once you get the basics down, it's great. I was forced to use Eclipse > > on a recent job where they used all of the free software that they could > > get (yes, Richard, that one) and after a month or so, I really liked it. > > Still use it for my personal projects. > > > > SDG > > jco > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Sent: Monday, June 30, 2003 9:39 AM > > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Subject: Re: JESS: Open Source Java IDE > > > > I think sorokinru wrote: > > > Hello jess-users, > > > > > > I understand that this question is not quite correct, but I whant to > > > know jess-users opinion that I rate much highly. Shortly, what is a > > > best free open-source Java IDE? > > > > > > > > > Eclipse (www.eclipse.org) is the best open-source IDE, without > > question. The editor is very nice and very smart, and it has good > > integration with JUnit, Ant, and CVS right out of the box. > > > > Eclipse is, however, really just a wan imitation of IntelliJ IDEA > > (www.intellij.com.) The one place where Eclipse is better than IDEA is > > in the availability of third-party extensions (plug-ins) -- there are > > many more available for Eclipse. But in terms of core functionality, > > IDEA reigns. > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, send the words 'unsubscribe jess-users [EMAIL PROTECTED]' > in the BODY of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED], NOT to the list > (use your own address!) List problems? Notify [EMAIL PROTECTED] > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send the words 'unsubscribe jess-users [EMAIL PROTECTED]' in the BODY of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED], NOT to the list (use your own address!) List problems? Notify [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------
