Well I just don't know about this eclipse thing.  Have been struggling now for some days and it still hasn't convinced me to swap away from IDEA. I recently saw dear Erich (Gamma) in Antwerp showcase features I've known about in IDEA for (I don't remember since when) with a very anoying *giggle* in between.  Since you never get a second chance to make a first impression, here is mine:

• The features that made good ol' Erich go: "Oh my! Look at this..." (read: IDEA-like productivity enhancements) are only availlable in the 2.1 release (so go for the M3 at this time)
• shortcuts, shortcuts, shortcuts, shortcuts, shortcuts, shortcuts, shortcuts, shortcuts, shortcuts, shortcuts, shortcuts, shortcuts, shortcuts, shortcuts, shortcuts, shortcuts, shortcuts, shortcuts, shortcuts, shortcuts, shortcuts, ... why is eclipse doing us short in those?
• I fail to see why there is no XML editor (at least highlighting, hopefully some smart completion) in there (have to check the available plug-in list probably?)
• eclipse has this attitude of wanting me to think differently about things: why do I need to think about 'perspectives' it hasn't been in my vocabulary before, and I don't understand why an IDE should learn me new words.  Would be nicer if it just did things, rather then 'talk about it'.
• Haven't found the CVS stuff which is said to be great... first impression is: it is hard to find back :-)
• ant integration is better in the help then in my personal experience.  Hope I'll get the ${project_loc} to work to be able to re-use the 'external tool' setup across projects.  Again the IDEA intergration (looks like the jedit one) was more natural (even the ant-specific classpath there)
• Clicking a build.xml file in the navigator made my screen flicker for 10 minutes between eclipse, internet explorer (his *xml editor* of choice apparently) and some "File Download" dialog... Great news: it just stops after that time :-)
• closed projects remain there... something I need to get aquited to. (reopen last projects in the IDEA menu seemed so much more natural)

Hopefully I'm indulging it enough to get to find the things that are better done in eclipse then in IDEA.

In every case I talked myself into looking at it  for a customer that has some people to be trained in Java.  So let's bite through this for some longer.  I found the use of IDEA in previous courses a real snap with a plus on 'educational advantage' through the self-explaining behaviour...  The OSS believer in me would definitelly like a free alternative to the IDEA.

In every case the name 'eclipse' is well chosen, for it will probably put the 'sun' in the shadow. (Netbeans is out of my shortlist for sure)

1:29:52 PM    

My favourite Sun Employee (harold.ogle@SUN.COM) is sending me loads of mails again.  Some of the ones actually resulted in a mental note:

• [final] JSR38 : Application Installation API Specification (might be something to do for our xreporter)
• [proposal] JSR198 : A Standard Extension API for Integrated Development Environments (makes me wonder how it will (ever) fit in to the SWT move at eclipse)
• [proposal] JSR199 : Java^TM Compiler API (makes me hope that runtime compilation will become more of a commodity)

(If you want Harold to mail you too about these, just follow the instructions at: http://jcp.org/en/participation/mail)

12:53:13 PM    

I really can't state that this blogging has been taking an awful swift and voluminous start.  The good news however is that the "House" (aka The mansion) is getting into it's final states of preparation before moving in... We'll be happy movers soon.

12:07:24 PM