Hacker News Reader

Comment by RyanZAG | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

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 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'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.

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 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 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 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.

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com