Ask HN: What is the best Java IDE?

#1

Post by jsharpe » Sat, Jul 17, 2010, 6:15 AM UTC

I've been using Java for several years, but have never really yet felt the need for an IDE. I've toyed with Eclipse a bit, but for the most part my projects have been small enough that I've just done them in vim.

At work I've begun using Java much more heavily, and have been introduced to IntelliJ IDEA. I really like it so far, and it's making me wonder how I ever made do without the awesome code completion and refactoring features of a great Java IDE.

I've had a hard time finding a really good comparison of recent versions of the major IDEs (Eclipse, NetBeans and IntelliJ), so for those of you who have used a few different Java IDEs (or even those who have only used one), what are your favourite features, or the things you most missed when you switched IDEs. Which one would you recommend to someone new to the world of Java IDEs who hasn't yet developed too strong an allegiance?

Re: Ask HN: What is the best Java IDE?

#2

Post by jonpaul » Sat, Jul 17, 2010, 6:26 AM UTC

I really like Eclipse, although lately I've read a lot of vitriol towards it. It works for me, but then again I only use Java for GWT and Google's plugin is only for Eclipse. But its refactoring capabilities are satisfactory for me.

I use Netbeans for Rails, but I've never really gotten into using it for Java. Although, I hear their Swing WYSIWYG editor is nice.

I've never used IDEA, but I've never read one negative thing about it. In fact, I've also get the impression that a lot of developers swear by it. I just don't want to pay for it.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best Java IDE?

#3

Post by mindcrime » Sat, Jul 17, 2010, 7:42 AM UTC

I prefer Eclipse, but I haven't spent much time using Netbeans or IntelliJ, so I can't really say that Eclipse is "best." I can just say that it works very well for me, and has a rich ecosystem of plugins and additional tools that I find handy.

On the downside, Eclipse is awfully memory hungry in my experience. Not sure how it compares to Netbeans or IntelliJ though.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best Java IDE?

#4

Post by fusiongyro » Sat, Jul 17, 2010, 8:16 AM UTC

I strongly prefer NetBeans to Eclipse. I haven't used IntelliJ, but would like to.

The big feature of NetBeans is simply that it's fully-integrated. Out of the box, it works with Maven, Subversion, Mercurial, etc. Comes with Tomcat and HSQL so you can deploy your web apps from within the IDE. It requires far less setup and just generally "does the right thing" without really requiring me to make a bunch of decisions and install a ton of plugins. With Eclipse I never managed to make any of that stuff work; there are many different plugins you'll find for any given task by searching, and many of them have plugin dependencies or are outdated or just suck. My time is too valuable to spend it making Eclipse into the one IDE to rule them all. I have not been disappointed by NetBeans, and three of my coworkers have switched to it since I've been there, I suspect because they got tired of configuring Eclipse.

Just my two cents. I'm sure a lot of what I gripe about is "easy" to do, and I certainly would admit that more is possible with Eclipse, but the tradeoff just doesn't seem worth it to me.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best Java IDE?

#5

Post by skybrian » Sat, Jul 17, 2010, 8:30 AM UTC

jonpaul wrote: post #2

I really like Eclipse, although lately I've read a lot of vitriol towards it. It works for me, but then again I only use Java for GWT and Google's plugin is only for Eclipse. But its refactoring capabilities are satisfactory for me. I use Netbeans for Rails, but I've never really gotten into using it for Java. Although, I hear their Swing WYSIWYG editor is nice. I've never used IDEA, but I've never read one negative…

There is a free, open source version of IDEA now (without all the plugins):

http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/free_java_ide.html

Re: Ask HN: What is the best Java IDE?

#6

Post by snprbob86 » Sat, Jul 17, 2010, 10:04 AM UTC

I am currently a serious Vim user, but I was once an IntelliJ addict. I highly recommend it. It is orders of magnitudes better than Eclipse and NetBeans. If you do consider plunking down the cash for a license, force yourself to use the refactoring tools as much as possible. If you are primarily editing a single, strongly-typed language, then you can't go wrong with anything from JetBrains. IntelliJ IDEA, Resharper, etc. All brilliant.

On a bit of a tangent: If you are editing many different types of text (In my case: HTML/Templates, Sass/CSS, Javascript, Python, config files, a little bit of Java/Scala, etc.) then go completely IDE-free and learn Vim or Emacs. For me, the IDE vs Text Editor debate comes down to the question "Am I primarily editing one type of code in a single strongly typed language, or am I primarily edited text?"

Re: Ask HN: What is the best Java IDE?

#7

Post by jomohke » Sat, Jul 17, 2010, 10:07 AM UTC

We've used Netbeans and Eclipse for previous projects, but moved to IntelliJ last year.

The language integration is much richer - and it has a more solid foundation for working with multiple languages. For example, find usages and refactor-rename will work across different languages and templates. When I find usages for a field, for instance, it shows me where it is used in hibernate queries, EL expressions on pages, etc.

Languages can be arbitrarily nested in each other, a lot more so than other IDEs I've used - for instance, I can still use command completion and refactoring in nested SQL, HTML, CSS or even Javascript (eg. GWT's JSNI methods) when it is inside java strings, or XML documents, or wherever else.

The JavaScript support far exceeds either Eclipse or Netbeans. IntelliJ has fairly decent refactoring and completion for Javascript, which the other IDEs (at least as of last year) barely supported.

It has full completion, find usages, and jump-to-usage within JPA/Hibernate queries, which all ties straight back to the original entity classes.

The refactoring tools are a lot richer, and a lot faster than Eclipse or netbeans offered. On a largish project the refactoring commands still feel near-instant in IntelliJ -- it may not sound like such a big deal, but after becoming accustomed to it, I use the refactoring tools constantly while writing code. I didn't do it nearly as much with the other IDEs.

The refactoring commands are all extremely solid -- for instance, the extract method refactoring will detect similar code snippets and ask you if you want to replace them with the method call. I never had Eclipse or Netbeans ask me that (Have they changed in the newer versions?)

I've also found the support for Git far exceeds the other IDEs.

While the price seems expensive compared to the free competition, most programmers use their IDE 8 hours per day -- given programmer wages, it only takes a tiny improvement in productivity to pay for itself.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best Java IDE?

#8

Post by jomohke » Sat, Jul 17, 2010, 10:31 AM UTC

snprbob86 wrote: post #6

I am currently a serious Vim user, but I was once an IntelliJ addict. I highly recommend it. It is orders of magnitudes better than Eclipse and NetBeans. If you do consider plunking down the cash for a license, force yourself to use the refactoring tools as much as possible. If you are primarily editing a single, strongly-typed language, then you can't go wrong with anything from JetBrains. IntelliJ IDEA, Resharper,…

I would phrase that question as "Am I editing one file, or a project of files?". As a Vim user, who previously only used IDEs for java projects, I now use IntelliJ for HTML/CSS/Javascript projects too. If you learn the refactoring and completion shortcuts, I believe it beats VIM at most multi-file projects.

If you install the Ruby plugin (also built by JetBrains, for their Ruby IDE) you get support for Sass - and they've just announced support for Less and Sass3 in the next version, including command completion and jump-to-declaration. http://blogs.jetbrains.com/ruby/2010/07/whats-mining-leaner-...

The Scala plugin doesn't seem too bad either, but I haven't used it extensively. It already has some simple refactoring features.

They're also working on a Python IDE, which is in beta, so the Python plugin will get fairly good too.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best Java IDE?

#9

Post by drfugly » Sat, Jul 17, 2010, 12:56 PM UTC

Netbeans with the jVi plugin for my vim bindings is where it's at for me.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best Java IDE?

#10

Post by gizmomagico » Sat, Jul 17, 2010, 1:59 PM UTC

Notice a common theme here? Everyone who's worked with IDEA says it's the best, and I agree.

A few years ago, IDEA was even more the-best than now, because the gap with Eclipse was wider. Nowadays Eclipse probably has most of the functionality, but there's still the difference that usually exists between open-source and commercial software. The commercial software tends to be better to use.