Hacker News Reader

Comment by spapas82 | Hacker News Reader

I remember using netbeans around 15 years ago as a java IDE. Since then I changed it to eclipse which I also changed to Intellij Idea.

I wasn't aware that netbeans was still developed! Is anybody using it as his primary java (or other lang) IDE? How is it compared with Intellij Idea and friends? How resource hungry is it?

View on HN

I prefer Netbeans for what little Java programming I do anymore. It doesn't seem more intensive than Eclipse is (I've never used Intellij. I know, I know). I love Netbeans' code completion engine, in that it takes types into account, e.g. if it knows that you need a string for this parameter of the function you're calling, it will suggest string variables first, but in, say, Eclipse, it will put everything in there alphabetically (down to things like ints), regardless of type.

IntelliJ completion takes into account both type and name. For example, if you have two string variables, it will suggest the one that matches or is similar to the method parameter name.

In general, IntelliJ has a lot of features that feel like magic (likely a pile of smart heuristics that have been added over the years).

All the major Java IDEs take type and scope into consideration for code completion precedence. Eclipse did this at least as far back as around 2005 when I first was using it.

Excellent I'll give it a go!

Idea, even the free version, is light years ahead of either, imo.

NB and Eclipse are just...janky.

How do you do mixed mode debugging of Java / C++ code, or incremental compilation on save, disable continous indexing on project startup, in that light years ahead IDE?

All features easily supported on Eclipse, Netbeans and Oracle Studio.

And without making the CPU fan run at full throttle, if possible?

EDIT: I forgot to type disable

Everything except mixed mode debugging Just Worked (tm) last time I used IntelliJ to write Java code. I didn't notice performance problems and never had to configure those features. We used the Maven build system. I last used NetBeans maybe 12 years ago and it was very janky and prone to crashes, freezes, etc. Since then I haven't had a need to try it again because other IDEs were good enough and I hadn't seen it ever praised anywhere online, also I haven't had to write any Java in the last 6 years or so.

As far as I'm aware, Intellij does do its own incremental build process and index things on start up. For debugging JNI there's no great option but supposedly there's a plugin that will do the job.

It was a typo, I meant being able to disable the continuous indexing on start, that brings the computer to a crawl every time I start Idea.

InteliJ incremental compilation is so good that many use Eclipse's compiler running as daemon as workaround.

As for the plugin I rather use a properly integrated feature.

>How do you do mixed mode debugging of Java / C++ code

You don't, and it doesn't matter much, since that's a niche concern.

The others, sure.

From my point of view it is a trick to sell two licenses instead of one.

Using JNI isn't such a niche concern.

That's not true. Every Java Programmer who cares about the right amount of performance writes native code.

So, like 5% at most?

I bet it is more, but just to go with your number, it is still 5% more Clion sales due to those devs.

The same trick that they are playing with Kotlin/Native by the way, whose graphical debugging support is only available on Clion.

I agree. I'm a long time intellij user, but now increasingly looking at eclipse and netbeans for exactly those reasons.

I still use Eclipse but only because I'm accustomed to ignoring the problems (e.g. the "marketplace", Orion, defaulting to external editors, etc).

How about the bugs in IDEA? You try to refactor, and it does a search-and-replace even on text literals, messing up not just comments but strings. Sure, there is an option to disable that, but you have to use a special shortcut to bring up a popup to disable it, and you have to do it every time. Same feature, behaves differently when started from menu or from shortcut.. Then the where-used-list not working, just because, well it bugs out from time to time... For features i need, for the way i work, Netbeans is more dependable, and fun to code in. I see features in IDEA that are similar to Visual Studio, and its a bit funny, how they try to copy it.

If you copy-paste some code, Eclipse can manage the imports with one command (ctrl-shift-o if i remember correctly). In Idea, I haven't found a better way than to visit each line that has a new type and import each class with alt-enter. Idea seems to have more features, but Eclipse has the smoother workflow.

Try optimize imports?

Yes, that didn't work as expected.

It does the opposite of what you want. It removes the imports that aren't used and consolidates or expands the used ones. When you copy and paste code from within the editor the imports should also come along. Copy and pasted code from outside sources seems like it should be looked at line by line for the proper imports.

Eclipse can do it both ways. There is no need to look at a line if there is just one class to choose from. If the line is important, i will look at it. But the first priority is to get it running.

Netbeans is my go-to Java editor. I find it a better Java editor than Visual Studio is a C# editor. My workplace has a love affair with Resharper and I can't help but think that it's an inferior copy of what Netbeans does for free

Reply on news.ycombinator.com