Eclipse or Netbeans?

[Paul]

I've used Netbeans for years, and only recently started using Eclipse because has better supported for Android development.  I've reached the point now where I really like both of them, and tend to have a hard time choosing which one to use when I start new c++ or Java projects.

I'm curious what other developers think of these two IDEs.  Which one do you prefer using? (or do you use a different one entirely?)  What are the pros and cons?

[raeleus]

I love Netbeans. I started using Netbeans because that's what the college was using. Then I started training people in those courses which has solidified my dependence on it.

To be honest, I haven't really ever tried Eclipse. I heard that building a Swing GUI is much more easier in Netbeans. Since I primarily deal with students who only want to half-heartedly learn programming and I only have an hour a week with each student, allowing Netbeans handle the GUI code makes my job a lot easier. Sure they won't learn the inner-workings of Swing but they don't care to either.

I read a poll that shown more programmers use Eclipse. Some people are way too defensive about their favorites too. In any case, aren't the core features about the same on both IDE's?

[Paul]

I think their core features are about the same.  Eclipse probably has more plug-ins for it, but I don't use a lot of them anyway (except for Android development).  I like the way NetBeans does intentations (spaces, rather than tabs), because that makes the source code formatting look right in other editors (such as gedit if I want to make a quick change or look something up without loading up the whole IDE).

Lately, I tend to use one or the other based on what the subject of the project is.  For example, anything related to sound, I tend to use NetBeans, while graphics-related things I use Eclipse.  Not sure why, it just feels right for some reason, haha 

[MaXiMu]

Netbeans also support for Android development with the plugin in case you did not know Instalation step by step   

http://www.nbandroid.org/p/installation.html

[Paul]

True, but really only for the SDK.  I've seen how to get the NDK going, but it's buggy and doesn't have any debugging integrated like the Eclipse Sequoya plug-ins.

[Epic_bubble]

I havent dealt with java for a long time and even back then I only did simple stuff so ive forgotten a lot about it. Ive decided I want to delve into it again and teach myself some stuff about building programs with a GUI (never tried making a GUI in java before).

What IDE would you recommend? I dont really care about android development, I just want to create cross platform programs. Having to re-develop programs for each platform I use it a pain so learning java would be very handy for me.

[Fabian Cook]

For the past 9 months I have been using Eclipse, mainly because of its support for Android, havent really used anything else so I couldn't really comment. I just love Eclipse tho

[Paul]

I found NetBeans to be a bit more intuitive to learn, but probably if you are just starting out and don't have experience with either, it might be smart to go with Eclipse.  That way, if you later decide to develop with the Android NDK, you won't have to learn a new IDE.  On the other hand, NetBeans handles the Android SDK (Java) just fine, so.. who knows? 

[Epic_bubble]

Thanks guys, I tried both netbeans and eclipse and I definitely found eclipse to be more complicated, I think I might teach myself to learn java in netbeans and then later I will move over to eclipse if I need to.

[Paul]

Jaysean, please remove the ad from your signature block.  I ban all advertisers, but figured I'd give you a chance to correct the violation, since you provided some legitimate input to this topic.

[Tom.K]

Jaysean, please remove the ad from your signature block.  I ban all advertisers, but figured I'd give you a chance to correct the violation, since you provided some legitimate input to this topic.

Paul, you do realize that's a spambot actually, right? I'll explain a simple reason why it's spambot:
Look at text and link. Not a lot of people would put a link to their own site containing something completely unrelated with computer stuff.
Undercased letters. Almost every bot does it.
Signatures make no sense. People in general won't write like this: "cake free ice". They would write like this: "Click for free cake icing!". Though once again, why would someone put a link here about granite or cake icings?

And finally, WOT result: http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/bestgraniteforless.com?src=addon-rw-viewsc

[Paul]

I find it difficult to believe it is fully automated (although there are some pretty impressive AIs out there).  How would a bot know that Eclipse has more features than Netbeans, or that the subject is even about two things that can even have features?  I agree the small letters and poor grammar are bottish, but in case he is someone who just doesn't speak English as a primary language, I'll give him a couple days to remove the post before banning the account.  I doubt anyone's going to click the ad anyway (does anyone really still click on ads?)

[OurFriendIrony]

Does it matter? in a couple days, if its still there, you jack them. Bot or not.

[Tom.K]

Well... it's kind of strange for me when I see in some cases that someone is talking to a "spambot" on forums. I've saw too much of such spam, but I've seen a bot which actually asked about game support, and people replied, without signatures, and it actually behaved like normal person until they found out it was exactly same copy of bot from other forum. Maybe you're right about non-native English people, due to actual support you want to give out (on other forums where I've registered, they aren't so support-friendly due to let's say... not so smart replies).
I don't know about ads, but it can lead rarely to malicious exploit.

Sorry about doing such off-topic.

[Paul]

No problem, this thread's been dead a while anyway.  You're probably right it is a bot, but I have to say I'm pretty impressed with how sophisticated it is.  I've written an AI that can say contextual things, but it doesn't sound as nearly as intelligent, haha.