Without going into details (that would make a huge blog post of its own), Eclipse is so much better than NetBeans, at least in the Java arena (can’t speak for C/C++), so it’s probably worth fixing up Eclipse.
As someone who has just started working with a huge code base, I must say that an IDE can be very useful. The ability to find definitions and display them in short order is very helpful when you have hundreds of classes. (That said, we also have a command-line build system that we use.)
Eclipse has its quirks that I don’t care for, but all in all, it hasn’t been that bad. The editor needs work, I think.
I find Eclipse to be rather ugly under Mac OS X and just as ugly under Windows, but perhaps I am spoiled.
Tim Boudreausays:
I’d be curious to know what specifically you find ugly about NetBeans on Mac OS. I wrote a lot of the UI delegates in NetBeans back in ’04, and put a lot of effort into making it look Mac-like, get the keybindings right (Command, not Ctrl).
It’s not perfect (I’ve got some patches locally to improve things but not sure if they will make it into 6.5). Specifics of what you’re looking for or what you find objectionable would help prioritize things.
Well… NetBeans is quite usable (even under MacOS) and I am very happy about it. I have now switched to it exclusively… but the look is not right. It may require a *lot* of work to get the look to be just right and I would certainly be unable to get it done (I have given up on trying to design GUIs myself).
I think most MacOS users expect the toolbar to look something like this:
Without going into details (that would make a huge blog post of its own), Eclipse is so much better than NetBeans, at least in the Java arena (can’t speak for C/C++), so it’s probably worth fixing up Eclipse.
As someone who has just started working with a huge code base, I must say that an IDE can be very useful. The ability to find definitions and display them in short order is very helpful when you have hundreds of classes. (That said, we also have a command-line build system that we use.)
Eclipse has its quirks that I don’t care for, but all in all, it hasn’t been that bad. The editor needs work, I think.
I find Eclipse to be rather ugly under Mac OS X and just as ugly under Windows, but perhaps I am spoiled.
I’d be curious to know what specifically you find ugly about NetBeans on Mac OS. I wrote a lot of the UI delegates in NetBeans back in ’04, and put a lot of effort into making it look Mac-like, get the keybindings right (Command, not Ctrl).
It’s not perfect (I’ve got some patches locally to improve things but not sure if they will make it into 6.5). Specifics of what you’re looking for or what you find objectionable would help prioritize things.
-Tim
Well… NetBeans is quite usable (even under MacOS) and I am very happy about it. I have now switched to it exclusively… but the look is not right. It may require a *lot* of work to get the look to be just right and I would certainly be unable to get it done (I have given up on trying to design GUIs myself).
I think most MacOS users expect the toolbar to look something like this:
http://smultron.sourceforge.net/screenshot2.png
I am fine with variations, for example a Windows-look… or a Motif look if we must… But the “rounded watery blob” is just not used in MacOS apps I see…
This is not a major issue but it lowers adoption for sure.