My Eclipse experience with Java 8 was so bad, I switched to NetBeans | Hacker News Reader

My Eclipse experience with Java 8 was so bad, I switched to NetBeans

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56 pointstheotown55 comments

Is it just me who likes Eclipse? I originally used Netbeans, then swapped to Visual Studio for awhile while doing Windows dev, then moved to Eclipse. I tried using IntelliJ for awhile as well, but the javadoc popups are pretty awful and it's missing some of the nice plugins you can get for Eclipse.

Eclipse has just always worked really well for me and I like it the most. Plus I really don't like the 'open core' method and Eclipse is just plain free software.

EDIT: I'm running Java8 on my Eclipse right now including maven builds etc, and everything is working really well.

I like eclipse, or at least need its features, but it always feels like a fragile program that needs lots of babysitting. In fact right now I'm on HN because I just cleaned a project to force eclipse to rebuild it because when I tried to run my program I got an AbstractMethodError (which should be impossible when running something you just built).

I like eclipse too. It's the only editor that I know of that

- I can configure to handle spaces/tabs/line endings the way I like (for example: I use tabs, but when I open a file that someone else made that uses spaces to indent code, the editor should understand this and use spaces instead)

- works great with git

- the package explorer is functional and gives a lot of info about the files I am working on

- works great as js editor

- works great as java editor (refactor/rename stuff, generate getters and setters/override methods, ...)

- the outline view is really useful

What makes me angry every time with eclipse tho, is that it is so awkwardly slow to startup, and the pauses it makes when building stuff in the background.

If someone knows of a better editor that can do the things above, is quicker and mybe uses less memory too, I am sold.

For the record I haven't been writing java stuff for quite a long time, but recently have to help port a library to Java.

One thing with the whole "IDE" thing is that they are actually quite slow. I use sublime for my other interests (web, dynamic languages, etc.) and didn't find any problems and also could do all those magic things like line endings, respecting tabs or spaces for indentation. The only thing sublime don't provide is the constant need for refactoring and complex requirement of autocomplete down to import names. They are mostly because of Java.

> If someone knows of a better editor that can do the things above, is quicker and mybe uses less memory too, I am sold.

I honestly just dumped hardware on the problem. Get an SSD and a bit more ram and Eclipse is very fast - even startup is very quick for me. It's a lot cheaper to buy an SSD than it is to spend hours looking for another solution when the current one works fine. I don't have any pauses anymore.

While I like eclipse for java, are you sure it is great js editor?

I hope for brackets to be the next js editor. It is open source and written in javascript, so javascript programmers will have it easy to extend it however they like.

> While I like eclipse for java, are you sure it is great js editor?

For me, for now, yes. Like you I keep an eye on Brackets (and on LightTable as well).

> - works great as js editor

You must have low standards when it comes to JS editing then. Eclipse doesn't properly check your JS code* for errors whereas NetBeans actually understands the JS and highlights the errors and warnings.

* Theoretically you could use the JS(Hint/Lint) plugin, but that's something you have to install and configure separately.

Nope, I like it as well, though not much coding going on I like the simple easy IDE like Netbeans and mostly done python and C using it.

I think though it may more appeaal to those who grew up with many windows open and using CDE with windows for editing/testing/debug etc style simple approach.

For java it does have motivations to work well and that is apparent, so for java is safe bet.

But like clothes, IDE's really do get down to user preferences and style I believe for many and still oftenhave few shell terminals open approach for me still keeps me happy. But I know vi really well and with that it is the tools we fully understand that allow us to become production and focus upon the code/task at hand. So no single IDE will ever fit everybodies tastes and style of use.

But I like Netbeans and mindful many seem to view it as yesterdays news, for many it just gets the job done.

Though for Golang liteIDE seems to be my option of choice. Also last time I looked into android dev work Eclipse seemed the sain option. So each language has its own bias IDE wise and many IDE's bias towards a language or two. I can undersatnd Eclipse works well for more languages than most, but still nice to have a choice. But using different IDE's for different languages is not ideal, it is a easy sain option for many and with that the right tools for the right job for the right person plays true.

Netbeans dropped support for Python, so I guess you'll only use it for C now.

Or an older version of Netbeans, as is the case currently. Cheers for heads up, one uneeded update I can avoid when bored and thought was a good idea at the time.

Actually I am using it with NebBeans 8 ( http://wiki.netbeans.org/PythonInstall ).

I also like Eclipse and I'm using it right now with Java 8(Kepler with patch, no problems installing).

I've tried every Java 8 feature in Eclipse and they all worked very well.

I use Eclipse as my main IDE for C/C++, python, javascript, go, html, css, etc. I don't understand how some of my office mates don't use IDE's when you have things like:

Show all uses of struct field/function/global variable (ctrl shift h)

Rename struct field/function/global variable (alt shift r)

Jump to definition of anything and back (alt click, alt left, alt right)

Autocomplete for struct fields, etc.

And the best part about it is that I've spent a total of 5 minutes messing with settings, instead of 1 day+ trying to set up ctags and the 50+ vim plugins that would be required to even come close to the same functionality.

It even uses my Makefiles with -j4 so incremental C builds are super fast.

I've used Eclipse fine for years. Eclipse has joined the larger than life targets I think like Java used to be. Maybe if Twitter releases an Eclipse plugin it will be cool again. I use it for Clojure, Scala, HTML/JS/CSS, Java and Android (yes all in the same install and no it doesn't die for me).

The only thing Eclipse sucks at for me is JSDT and apparently JBoss is committing fixes to it for the next release. In the meantime eclipse-jshint does 60% of what I need out of a javascript integration. JSDT upgrades are long overdue imo.

Also I love jeeyuls eclipse themes to give it a sleek look (I use his minimalist config). With the June release finally support dark themes, Eclipse will be prettier than ever.

edit: I just upgraded to Java 8 today to try out Nashorn. I had 0 problems with Eclipse, but I switched it back to 7 just because our latest release is on 7 so I didn't want to be the odd man out on the dev team. At home I'll probably go 8 because why not.

I like it too. I'm fond of it partly cause I learned how to do plugins and can create myself one if I would want one. Not that I do it often, I just like to have the possibility.

Yes, I've been using Eclipse for years now and I'm fine with it. Although I tend to keep that to myself as it's not a popular opinion in some circles...

I've often seen developers new to Eclipse get annoyed with it and then proclaim "Eclipse is shit". What they really mean is, "getting used to any big IDE is shit".

I use eclipse for java development. There were huge flamewars on theserverside.com about IDE's, but in the end the top three are all pretty solid when a full IDE is warranted.

I was a little curious how this could be, so I checked around and came across this:

"We can't legally include Java 8 tools in an Eclipse release before Java 8 itself is released. Based on the current java 8 release date estimate, we would be able to include support in the Luna (4.4.0) release."[0]

And since the release date was 2014/3/18 [1] I really can't see why there would be much complaining, if any.

[0] https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=380190#c8

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=java+8+release+date

Because Netbeans and InteliJ were Java 8 ready on the release date?

I've stuck with Eclipse (or have been stuck with it) because of the massive ecosystem of associated tools. It takes a lot of effort to predictably develop and release those tools without various projects stepping on one another. So, being a couple of months late just comes along naturally as a byproduct of that which is keeping me with it in the first place.

Same experience here. Couldn't get it working properly and ended up with netbeans after about an hour.

Edit: for ref netbeans is pretty good. I hated it about 3-4 years ago and moved to eclipse but it's pretty amazing now.

Why not just use IntelliJ?

IntelliJ is a great IDE, but personally I prefer NetBeans. The killer feature for me is the Gradle integration that is far superior in NetBeans, but I also find the GUI nicer and much more intuitive.

I don't like IntelliJ, but I do like Netbeans for Java and PHP development. IntelliJ has a behavior that I can't stand (almost an OCD trigger for me). When I click on a page of code somewhere past the last character in a line, I expect the cursor to appear behind the last character. IntelliJ leaves it floating out in a very unsatisfying manner. I know that IntelliJ does auto formatting and that it doesn't really matter, but I feel real anxiety with this default behavior. And Netbeans is free for the full version. To me IntelliJ doesn't offer enough to pay for it.

You can turn this off easily, I believe it is called virtual space. I had the same reaction when I first started with intellij.

You know there are options and this can be easily disabled in seconds, right?

You don't really know IntelliJ if you think that behaviour like that wasn't configurable. I can see why you wouldn't feel like paying. It might take a person who has put some real time into IntelliJ to see how much it offers.

For future problems, the preferences view is searchable, as is many other view.

File -> Settings -> Editor -> "Allow placement of caret after end of line". Uncheck.

I'm not exactly a zealot for any particular tool, and I used Eclipse for almost a decade. However, after trying even the community edition of IntelliJ for a few weeks... I would feel like the guy in "Flowers for Algernon" if I ever had to go back.

The community edition is actually open-source (Apache license). I ended up buying an ultimate edition license recently because of the Chronon debugger, but you don't NEED anything beyond the community edition unless you want deep IDE integration with Spring, JEE, or some other supported framework. Frankly, I'm not really using any paid features beyond Chronon...

I'm in a similar boat. Used Eclipse forever. Even tried IntelliJ for a bit years ago and hated it. Tried it again recently after Eclipse crashed and trashed its workspace. Now I can't see ever going back to anything else.

The killer feature for me oddly enough is: fuzzy search for a file

I can't stand the overcrowded popups in intellij (e.g: intellisense popups), there's just too much going on, all kinds of icons and extra info that is unnecessary. I have been able to customize away everything I dislike in intellij except for that.

Have you submitted an enhancement report asking for a design improvement? I've submitted several to them and gotten all sorts of great responses from them. If you don't give them feedback through the appropriate channels, then you aren't going to get improvement.

It may be well worth it, but shelling out $200 is not really a no-brainer when compared to free.

If you are a hobbyist, sure. But if you are a programmer for a living, I see it as a no-brainer.

If you are a hobbyist, the community edition of IDEA is more than enough.

IntelliJ community is free & open source. It's missing some of the enterprise features of the commercial version but it's still a fantastic IDE. There is a learning curve if you're used to eclipse, but it's worth it. Give it a week.

A full throated defense of Eclipse is a difficult proposition, because there's so much very wrong with it. The article is right, getting Eclipse set up on Java 8 is a pain, and poorly documented.

But it does work. And for free. With full "enterprise" features. Let's not lose sight of that.

I would use the free community edition of IntelliJ, but I do java web development and need the full version to be on par with what Eclipse offers. The investment of time is as big a deal as the $200, so for now at least I stick with Eclipse.

How much time does that take? If it's more than about half a day spending the money is a no-brainer if you're making anything like a living wage.

Specifically which "enterprise" features does IntelliJ community _not_ supply for you?

I too am a web developer (at least when wearing one of my hats). IntelliJ community does almost everything I need.

The main thing is running (and debugging code running within) the application server... aka tomcat. Need the ultimate edition for that.

Ah, so some sort of hot deploy? Not something that I've done for a long time (jetty ftw). Remote debugging of course works well.

The difference between Eclipse and Netbeans/IntelliJ is, that Eclipse is implementing its own Compiler while the other two are using Oracle's javac. That's why Eclipse didn't have Java8 support out of the box.

I dropped Eclipse a long time ago in favor of other IDEs. I like Eclipse a lot, it was my IDE of choice. I just got tired of all the plugins, the general sluggishness I felt using it, the oddities with it when it came to Maven support (sometimes having to completely close Eclipse / Relaunch for a maven build to work right).

I had other oddities as well, such as totally biffing my SVN solution a time or two because of files getting locked that shouldn't have been locked.

In the end I moved to IntelliJ and it's been wonderful. Been a bit different getting used to the keymapping, but overall it's been a good experience I have not looked back.

Java 8 works fine for me in Eclipse? Took about 5 minutes to set up by following the instructions found on eclipse.org.

skip netbeans and move right on to intellij!

It's just an IDE. Get over it.

In the end of the day, developers spends most of their days in the IDE, so having a good environment is essential. If one is not satisfied with the working tools, it could lead to many frustrations and huge dissatisfaction.

You need to "get over" yourself, and accept that people care what work tools they use.

Exactly. That's why, if Eclipse is not making you happy, you should move to something that does. I've changed IDEs many, many times before and use different IDEs for different things: I prefer Eclipse for J2EE work and Android, but nothing used to beat NetBeans for J2ME. Many PHP'ers around me love NetBeans for PHP and I'm going to give it a try (we do a lot of PHP around here). I also used PyDev+Eclipse (after Eric) for Python stuff, but moved to Emacs a couple years ago and I like it a lot.

intellij is good all in all, but then if you want to edit php, you have to use its sibling product; phpstorm

furthermore, netbeans can recognize various amount of extension and can even format your codes nicely with alt + shift + f

and i only use intellij when i want to deploy mobile application onto android...eclipse really dam buggy with the deployment

Can't you just download the php plugin for intellij ultimate?

You can. The plugins for IntelliJ IDEA lag behind their separate-product counterparts, though: improvements to Python appear in PyCharm months before, same with PHP in WebStorm, etc.

WebStorm is a much better IDE for PHP, but if your primary language is Java, then the PHP plugin is more than sufficient.

Your comparison shows that you just don't know anything about IntelliJ, so why bother?

CTRL+ALT+L to reformat code. Either a selection, a file, a directory, a scope, the whole project etc.

You can use most PHP features in InstelliJ, just install the plugins.

IntelliJ recognizes extensions and even notifies you that it has plugins that may be installed for the open extension.

How about just switching to the best Java IDE on the market: IntelliJ IDEA? Sure, you'll have to pay for it, but you get what you pay for - both ways.

This just in: Eclipse is bad.

This is shameless clickbait.

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