Tuesday, September 9, 2008

insomnia + NetBeans = VatLife?

At least that's what I'm hoping.

So I've switched from using Eclipse to using NetBeans IDE 1.6. Originally I was considering using JavaBeans as a component model, but that seemed like overkill. I looked into OSGi and Knopplerfish but found myself getting lost in documentation...and it again seemed like overkill.

At the moment, I have controllers and environments dynamically loaded as JAR files. Nothing mindblowing there, but it's a good start.

I really love the NetBeans IDE, even if I am using just a small fraction of it. Although it does have a few quirks I'm learning about, it's remarkably intuitive and just a GREAT tool for someone like me who's learning the language. The warnings are clear and helpful, the interface is intuitive and flexible, and it's just extremely well polished. I love the refactoring (just drag code from one package to another - or even one project to another - and it fixes all the references), the automatic code formatting, the list goes on.

Excellent job, Sun engineers.