2006-12-19

The contenders, Eclipse and NetBeans

I usually work alot with Eclipse. I've started developing with Eclispe 3.2 on top of Java 1.6 (Mustang). Found some issues with some platform dependent code produced lately, but I'll get that sorted out eventually as the current project gets along.

Actually I started out with NetBeans but quite early on we started using Eclipse for, at that time obvious reasons. Eclipse has taken alot of ground from that point in time, a few years back. But lately NetBeans has been gaining some attention. Found this map over NB downloads intersting. Seemingly the Western hemisphere and Japan dominates. I think I can see some purple spots around San Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, considering the noise the Brazilians are capable of during JavaOne there should be more dots around that area ...

My interest in Eclipse has centered around devloping so calles plugins for the platform. I am currently on an assignment developing the IDE for a major telecommunictaions corporation in Sweden. The IDE under development is based on Eclipse.

But, as NetBeans seems to be making a come back of some kind, I've also started looking into picking up producing what they, the NetBeans-team, refer to as modules. There is an intersting article on the subject of making plugins, modules, work across both platforms. There is also JSR-198 defining a common API for plug-ins to work across IDE:s. The specification seems to be ready, just have to download and read it. But the big pro for Eclipse, according to myself, is the fact that Eclipse is based on (since 3.1) and makes use of OSGi. I think standards works best in the long run.

2 comments:

AlBlue said...

By the way, Eclipse 3.0 was based on OSGi, as well as 3.1 :-)

The problem with the JSR dealing with plugins for any IDE is that you can't take advantage of whatever extra features the platform happens to offer. So you'll always find that an IDE-specific plugin has more functionality than an IDE-neutral one; as an example, you won't be able to deal with dynamic services in the Eclipse OSGi layer if you use the neutral API.

Alex.

R. Varttinen said...

Thanks for pointing out that version 3.0 is based on OSGi. I joined the Eclipse bandwagon quite recently, so the first version of Eclipse I made any serious development for was 3.1.

Now, I have to take careof the typos I left here and there. Maybe it is aslo time to switch layout.... other people's blogs I've seen so far looks much better than mine.