Several IDEs are available for Java developers. We have tested a few of them and will give a brief introduction to these IDEs.
NetBeans is one of the free IDEs and is available under the Sun Public License. This is our IDE of choice at this time.
NetBeans includes basic IDE functionality like code completion, projects, automated building of projects and so on. NetBeans
includes an update module enabling developers to easily install new modules and update existing modules. Support for MIDP
development is available through the update module. A few clicks and you are ready to go (for Linux and Windows users).
A nice feature I have not seen in other IDEs is that NetBeans shows you Javadoc for the various functions when using code
completion. This saves you some browsing in the APIs.
Several Enterprise tools are also available in NetBeans. I have not explored these.
NetBeans is available from http://www.netbeans.org
We have tested trial versions of JBuilder 9, JBuilder 9 Mobile Edition and JBuilder X. JBuilder is great software!
Unfortunately it is also quite expensive. JBuilder 9 Mobile Edition and JBuilder X Developer Edition support mobile development.
They work very well with different SDKs and wireless toolkits. To-Do lists and compilation errors in a small window, as you type are
great features. Auto-generation of try/catch statements and several other features are available through keyboard shortcuts. This
can save you a lot of time when developing Java applications. JBuilder is definetely my favorite IDE, unfortunately it is not an option
due to our very limited research budget.
More information and trial versions of JBuilder can be found at http://www.borland.com/jbuilder/
Eclipse is a very extensible IDE. It provides core functionality through the standard installation, but can be extended with several plugins.
I have not tested this IDE myself, but it seems there is lacking a plugin for MIDP development. I know several students who prefer this IDE
for J2SE development.
Check out the Eclipse website for more information: http://www.eclipse.org/
This page was last updated 14. Jul. 2006
Comments and feedback are highly appreciated.
You can reach me at: klings (at) nowires (dot) org