Just saw this excellent entry on Kirk’s Blog How Free is Your IDE?
This pretty much mirrors my reasons for sticking with IDEA for the time being.
If I look at it rational there are many reasons for me to move to Eclipse, however everytime I try it I get hit by a learning curve. Granted I dont think it would take me that long to get used to Eclipse, however it frustrates me when i just want to code.
The first IDE that I really like was IBMs Visual Age. It allowed me to be very expressive and thing in terms of classes, methods etc and not ascii files.
I then due to work ended up using JBuilder, which I never liked. IDEA allowed me on the first day to be productive. I like Kirk immediately bought the license as the trial period was dying out. It took me less than a day maybe not even two hours to be productive in IDEA. Just about everyone I know who has tried it has had the same experience. I guess I am looking for the same from Eclipse. But yet to no avail.
Everytime I make a concerted effort to like it I keep having to change my way of developing and doing stuff, where IDEA just fit right in where I wanted it.
I still have hope. Maybe someone needs to do an alternative repackaged version of Eclipse that is already setup with everything you need. When Release 3.0 is complete or in a state closer to completion maybe Ill try again.
This entry was posted in the following Categories: Java
If you are happy with IDEA, why worry about switching?
We are switching from JBuilder to Eclipse right now. It took a few days to get used to Eclipse, but it isn't that difficult. If you really wanted to switch, you'd take the time and do it.
If you are doing web development with Eclipse, you should get www.myeclipseide.com. It makes web development easier.
I think Eclipse itself is simple. In its plain form, it is just as simple as IDEA. However, its plain form is pretty raw and requires some plugin help. But, unfinshed plugins or choosing plugins that expect the project to be organized two different ways that make it complicated.
i.e. a tomcat launcher plugin wants it one way, a struts plugin wants it a different way(and lomboz yet another way).
There is no guide to choosing the best ones. MyEclipse is the only setup that I got jsp code completions to work(but some its parsing is really slow).