Top 6 Alternatives To Eclipse Ide For Java Ee Developers For Mac

Top 6 Alternatives To Eclipse Ide For Java Ee Developers For Mac 3,9/5 2690 votes

Let me just start out by saying that Eclipse is a fantastic IDE for Java and many other languages. Its plugin architecture and its extensibility are hard to rival and the fact that it's free is a huge plus for smaller teams or tight budgets.

A few things that I hate about Eclipse. The documentation is really lacking. I don't know who writes the stuff, but if it's not just flatly missing, it's incomplete.

If it's not incomplete, then it's just flat out wrong. I have wasted many precious hours trying to use a given feature in Eclipse by walking through its documentation only to discover that it was all trash to begin with. Despite the size of the project, I have found the community to be very lacking and/or confusing enough to be hard to participate in. I have tried several times to get help on a particular subject or plugin only to be sent to 3 or 4 different newsgroups who all point to the other newsgroup or just plain don't respond.

This can be very frustrating, as much smaller open source products that I use are really good about answering questions I have. Perhaps it's simply a function of the size of the community. If you need functionality beyond the bundled functionality of one of their distros (for instance, the Eclipse for Java EE Developers distro which bundles things like the WTP), I have found the installation process for extra plugins excruciatingly painful. I don't know why they can't make that process simpler (or maybe I'm just spoiled on my Mac at home and don't know how bad it really is out in the 'real' world) but if I'm not just unsuccessful, oftentimes it's a process of multiple hours to get a new plugin installed. This was supposedly one of their goals in 3.4 (to make installation of new projects simpler); if they succeeded, I can't tell. Documentation in the form of books and actual tutorials is sorely lacking. I want a master walkthrough for something as dense and feature-rich as Eclipse; something that says, 'hey, did you know about this feature and how it can really make you more productive?'

As far as I've found, nothing like that exists. If you want to figure out Eclipse, you've got one option, sit down and play with it (literally play with it, not just see a feature and go and read the documentation for it, because that probably doesn't exist or is wrong). Despite these things, Eclipse really is a great IDE. Its refactoring tooling works tremendously well. The handling of Javadoc works perfectly.

All of features we've come to expect of an IDE are their (code completion, templates, integration with various SCMSs, integration with build systems). Its code formatting and cleanup tools are very powerful. I find its build system to work well and intuitively. I think these are the things upon which its reputation is really built. I don't have enough experience with other IDEs or with other distros of Eclipse (I've seen RAD at work quite a few times; I can't believe anyone would pay what they're charging for that) to comment on them, but I've been quite happy with Eclipse for the most part.

One tip I have heard from multiple places is that if you want Eclipse without a lot of the hassle that can come with its straight install, go with a for-pay distro of it. Is a highly recommended version that I've seen all over the net that is really very affordable (last I heard, $50 for the distro plus a year of free upgrades). If you have the budget and need the added functionality, I'd go with something like that.

Anyway, I've tried to be as detailed as I can. I hope this helps and good luck on your search!:). IntelliJ IDEA was awsome. Now it is just 'better than Eclipse'. You can code in IDEA several times faster than in Eclipse in my experience (I moved from being an Eclipse early-adopter to IDEA and haven't looked back) but IDEA has a number of flaws:.

Top 6 Alternatives To Eclipse Ide For Java Ee Developers For Mac

Full version is not free. It hogs memory. Project management is not great. Jetbrains keep bringing out minor enhancements and calling them major releases.

IDEA is now slower and buggier than it was a few years ago. And you get charged for the pleasure! (IDEA now has a free Community Edition) I still wouldn't go back though; the code refactorings and intentions in IDEA are just too good. A major version of Eclipse came out a while back and it took me about an hour of searching on the website to figure out what was actually contained in the release which might persuade me back into the fold. Visit to see how to sell an IDE! Eclipse can't remotely be called an IDE to my opinion.

Okay that's exaggerated, I know. It merely reflects my intense agony thanks to eclipse!

Top 6 Alternatives To Eclipse Ide For Java Ee Developers For Mac Windows 10

Whatever you do, it just doesn't work! You always need to fight with it to make it do things the right way. During that time, you're not developing code which is what you're supposed to do, right?

Eclipse and maven integration: unreliable! Eclipse and ivy integration: unreliable. WTP: buggy buggy buggy! Eclipse and wstl validation: buggy! It complains about not finding URL's out of the blue even though they do exist, and a few days later, without having changed them, it suddenly does find them etc etc. I Could write a frakking book about it. To answer your question: NO ECLIPSE IS NOT EVEN CLOSE THE BEST IDE!!!

IntelliJ is supposed to be MUCH better! I used IntelliJ for almost 5+ years (from v1.5 to v7) and around 8 months ago I migrated to IBM RAD (which is built on top of old eclipse platform) and around 3 months ago I settled down with Eclipse (Ganymede). I used IntelliJ on a mid size projects (with 10k classes) and I'm using Eclipse on one with just few hundreds of classes. I found both of these IDEs (IntelliJ and Eclipse) to be good.

IBM RAD is just a waste of money (ofcourse one could be stuck in an IBM shop without choice). IntelliJ has far superior refactoring capabilities and keyboard shortcuts for most of the features compared to Eclipse. It supports importing projects from Eclipse. It has better built in xml handling capabilities (with refactorings applicable almost like for the java code). Built in Intelli Sense is also very good. Eclipse is a great tool and its free. It took me around 1-2 months to get used to Eclipse from IntelliJ (lot of unlearning of shortcuts), but I got hang of Eclipse, it has been pretty smooth.

I havent used Eclipse on mid size project. Both IntelliJ and Eclipse have active plugin communities and both integrate well with version control systems, unit test frameworks, application servers and profilers. IntelliJ started becoming slow and bloated starting from v4.0. It was slow with mid size projects. I would not use IntelliJ unless its performance can be improved. I havent used these two IDEs for anything other than java development. If you are a java developer and your company pays for IntelliJ and if your project is not too big, go for it.

Otherwise, dont despair: Eclipse is always there. I gave Eclipse a 3 months ride at my new work, but after that I found out that normal Maven project can be run in IntelliJ IDEA too (unless it's Eclipse plugin/EMF/something of course;-)). 3 months are not enough to compare it with 8+ years with IDEA, but it's enough to claim I gave it a fair try. I decided to live with its perspectives (other IDEs don't need them), with its poor debugger (doesn't show date values unless you click on them! Etc.), with its comparatively worse completion than IDEA has. Now after all those years IDEA is also free (community edition) and I use it without much trouble. Of course I miss some of those 'Ultimate' features of paid version, but it's far better than Eclipse.

Biggest difference is the whole mindset needed for both of these IDEs. But after you master the mindset of either I can't understand what can anyone hold to Eclipse - unless you need its plugin ecosystem or you have some serious investments there. Example of 'mindset' differences: You have to save in Eclipse, not in IDEA, and I don't care what is better or worse - but you have to save in Eclipse to let him clean up underlined errors that are not errors anymore, etc.;-) You have to save there in order to get rid of errors in other files too, because other file doesn't see the changes otherwise. I blogged much more about this topic - and yes, I'm biased, though I tried to be as little as possible. But after some time it wasn't simply possible::-). And no, not even IDEA is perfect, I know it. Because I use it a lot.

But it is the best Java IDE if you ask me. Even the Community edition. This is not really an answer, just an anecdote. I worked with guys who used emacs heavily loaded with macros and color coded.

Why do that when there are so many good IDEs out there? if you know you way around emacs you can code 100x faster then an IDE. And it can handle bunch of diffrent languages so you do not need to change your coding enviroment if you need to code in another language. Works on all operating systems, you can custimize/add anything you want. Even edit files half way across the world over ssh.(no downloading or uploading). Before calling them crazy you gotto use it first.

Java

I am sure they are calling you crazy for using an IDE:). I don't know if Eclipse is THE BEST Java IDE, but it is definitely very decent and my favorite IDE. I tried IntelliJ briefly before, and found that it's pretty similar to Eclipse (IntelliJ might offer some nicer features, but Eclipse is free and open source). I never really tried NetBean because I know Eclipse before I know NetBean. Eclipse is my favorite because:. Free.

Extensible (to a point that you can turn it in to C IDE or DB Development IDE). Open source. I know how to write Eclipse plugin. Best use android phone as controller for mac. You can develop a product easily with Eclipse (exp. Lime Wire is Eclipse under the hood) If you are used to using conventional Java IDE like JCreator you might need some time to get used to Eclipse. I remember when I first learned Eclipse, I didn't know how to compile Java source. I would suggest that in order to find the best IDE FOR YOU, try what people recommended (NetBean, Eclipse, and IntelliJ), and see which one you like the most, then stick with it and become an expert of it.

Having the right IDE will boost up your productivity a lot in my opinion.

News, Technical discussions, research papers and assorted things of interest related to the Java programming language NO programming help, NO learning Java related questions! These have separate subreddits - see below. Please seek help with Java programming in! Upvote good content, downvote spam, don't pollute the discussion with things that should be settled in the vote count.

Do not post tutorials here! These should go in. No programming help questions here! These should be posted in.

No surveys, no job offers! Such content will be removed without warning. Join us on IRC Related Sub-reddits: ← Seek help here JVM Languages Want to practice your coding? List of useful Frameworks / Libraries / Software.

Eclipse, because over the years I tuned it with settings and plugins to do exactly what I want it to do. I am not looking for much more, it gives me instant feedback, immediate control, I can see exactly what I need to see when I need to see it. That said, I tried to migrate to IntelliJ a few times (because everyone says it's so much better), but every time the time investment to get things working similarly well was simply too much. It is perhaps possible to do the transition, but I'm used to many automated tasks and setting things up simply took too long. Also, I'm from central Europe and the business license costs as much as my monthly appartment rent. Not all businesses are eager on purchasing those in mass. I recently switched from Eclipse to IDEA, the main reason being that I am also doing kotlin development and keeping the keyboard shortcuts straight in my head was difficult.

Top 6 Alternatives To Eclipse Ide For Java Ee Developers For Mac Download

Here are the things that I miss from Eclipse,. JDT (the Eclipse Java compiler) can compile only changed code (like down to the line), you get very immediate feedback on errors. If I make a change that breaks usage in another file I know immediately.

Ide

In IDEA you have to run a test, build, open the file. Additionally in IDEA you have to wait for javac to run, this can mean waiting a few seconds before a test will start running. There is also built in code hot swap, but it only works in limited cases. IDEA has some funky keyboard shortcuts by default (at least on macos) lot's of things involving FN keys which are awkward on the laptop keyboard due to them also being for media control, brightness, etc.

Eclipse's vim plugin has support for the argument text object. Eclipse has better maven integration, I really wish IDEA had the dependency viewer that Eclipse has. It makes it so easy to track down conflicting transitive dependencies. Eclipse has built in save action support (need a plugin with IDEA). This is obviously just a list of pros, there are also plenty of cons and things IDEA does better. In general I find them to be close enough on the things that really matter (refactoring support and code generation) that I can work with either one and don't find it a huge deal. Happens quite a bit with complex generics.

I have quite a lot of experience in this area as I had to roll an implementation of the type inference algorithm in the Java 8 spec at one point, and I explored a lot of the corner cases in my own testing. I found the same thing as, that the ECJ is usually more permissive. In fairness to the Eclipse engineers, anecdotally the bugs seemed to be fairly evenly split between ECJ and javac whenever they had a disagreement. Part of the problem is that javac intentionally deviates from the spec in some places where they realised they could get better behaviour, but my understanding is that they hope to close these gaps in future versions. In fact they may already have started to do so in 9 I've not checked.