I have been a NetBeans user since inception. I am retired now, but when I
worked, I was one of the few people in my company that was an advocate of
NetBeans, and used it instead of the company line, Eclipse product.
Retired now for 10+ years, I used NetBeans to develop my products, and
really getting involved in JavaFX big time. I love the cross platform
capability, and use it on both Ubuntu and Windows. Raspberry Pi, no problem.
Windows, no problem. I loved it. Then boom, Oracle takes JavaFX out of the
mix, and NetBeans and I start having major problems. It gets harder and harder
to use NetBeans with it’s incompatibility with JavaFX without going through
hoops every single time we upgrade. I have a ton of projects that are a major
pain to go back to without having to dance on a high wire to get to work. And
I am still not sure I can do this anymore.
I have been a computer programmer, designer and architect for well over 53+
years. I have see many systems come and go, many IDE rise and fall, many
languages surface and crash. The move to Maven is beyond my scope now. I want
to program, not to have to regenerate and rehash my build system every release.
I have tried to move over to 11, and mostly failed. I have too many modules
and programs in play to hack this out.
It would have been great if NetBeans had a seamless transition , built in
conversions for old projects to current format. Seriously, I would love to be
on that train. But nope, it seems too much handholding and dancing. I
currently have a half dozen active Beta’s that are stuck in a NetBeans 8.1.x /
Java 8 scenario, that I want to port into NetBeans 11.3 / Java 13+ area, but
really don’t believe that it is 1: Easy, 2: Lasting, 3: Enduring more than
another release.
I still have reported bugs > 5 years old that are not resolved.
I see streams of notes that are asking questions about compatibility. (
The latest straw is the Ant image ... ) I see how once the major players in
NetBeans get on a wagon, the trail off is almost impossible. If you’re new to
NetBeans, perhaps this is a good trend. If you have dealt with NetBeans as
long as I have.. it becomes more than just an annoyance. It almost easier to
find another IDE to settle in on, as the amount of work to transfer 100+
projects, probably more, from old NetBeans to new NetBeans is formidable.
Maybe a 3rd party can produce a product that 100% transfer old projects to
Maven.. I’d rather develop and code than mess around with trying to make
things move up the NetBeans chain anymore.. Coding is fun, transitioning is
not. I am 100% committed to JavaFX, I like the layouts, I like what Gluon has
done, I like the look and feel.
NetBeans 8 –> NetBeans 11+ –> convert ...
I would normally apologize for my rant, but nope. I feel that I am now
progressing backwards...
