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Netbeans 4.1, early impressions
I found the installation to be a breeze, which isn't too much of a surprise. It found the various JVMs on my machine, including 1.5, which was good, I suppose.
It looks absolutely smashing. (That's good.) The development pane is easy to understand at first glance, also good (although note that I'm not a rank newbie to Netbeans, so my prior experience may factor in here.) It's pretty fast, too, which is good to see. Maybe this will help shut up the SWT hordes.
Building a new J2EE application was also pretty easy, although you get limited module choices - EJB and Web. That's probably enough for most developers, but I'm still annoyed by it.
It doesn't expose a few core services, though. For example:
- It allows me to start a pointbase server (why?) and stop it... and that's it. No tools to work with the DB I can start and stop with wild abandon.
- I don't see an option to select which JVM to build the application with. The J2EE RI uses 1.4.2 by default and, as a minor gripe, changing the domain configuration in the administration console doesn't actually have any effect that I saw - I had to modify the configuration manually. Yet Netbeans sings with 1.5, so my deployments all complained about the class versions. It would have been nice to be able to say "target this JVM." This feature may even be present - but I didn't see it.
- It allows me to run my brand-new J2EE app in the J2EE RI - which works - but it doesn't have a simple deploy option. I can build, I can run, but I can't merely deploy. Since I run multiple machines locally and am administrating the server on a different CPU than the one I'm developing on, this means I get constantly asked by Mozilla what profile to use, etc., when I'm not interested in running the browser locally.
With all this, though, the environment's still interesting enough for me to keep pressing on with it. I don't see it supplanting IDEA in my toolbox, but it's good to see where Sun's going with it.
Hi, thanks you so much for this blog. We really appreciate it and it helps
our understanding of the NetBeans user experience, and we are here to
improve it.
Thanks for you comment on SWT: yes, this is the truth that
another competitor does not want to hear those days:-)
Our database
integration for J2EE is as follow:
- The J2EE RI (or Sun Application
Server) bundles pointbase, sot the IDE exposes Start/Stop.
- The
pointbase driver is registered to the IDE and the server. From the IDE, you
can see the list of databases, connect to them and explore there structure:
go to the runtime tab, explore the Databases node, you can add/remove
drivers, and connect to live databases. Once connected, you can see the db
schema, and enter some sql queries to test the database.
- the IDE
provides a very advanced "Create EJB CMPS From Database", for an ejb module
project type: try it, you'll see how EJB Container managed persistence are
added to your project, with all their default CMP Mapping (Field to
columns, j2ee Relationships for Foreign key/primary key constraints)
You
can also use the "Sun Resources" wizard category to create JDBC resources
for the sun application server.
-We realize it might be hard to
discover, but once you know this popup menu, you cannot forget it: On any
Java file open in the editor that belongs to a J2EE project (both EJB
Module or Web App), select the popup menu on this editor, and discover the
Enterprise menu:
Call Ejb
Send Message
and
Use Database
This one will help you to configure the J2EE resources, update automatically the J2EE descriptors and create the related Sun resources that will be deployed automatically to the server at run time...
Try it and give us feedback, either here on this great blog or on nbj2ee@netbeans.org or nbusers@netbeans.org.
For the JVM change, I am not sure why Admin GUI could not help you to change the JAVA-HOME prop used by the server. On the IDE side, did you explore the management tree of a running server and looked at the JVMs node's property: here you can change all the jvm settings.
-For Deploy versus Run, the run action does it all: -compile,
assemble, deploy, (start the server if not running) and display a correct
URL. I think there is a Deploy menu on the project node. There is also a
"verify" menu to call the J2EE advanced verifier tool.
- Did you notice
that even if the default local server domain is registered to the IDE, you
can register remote application servers? Just enter the machine name, admin
port, admin user name and password in the add server wizard.
We are still
in Beta status, and of course more documentation will be available as we
go.
You can even download the preview of a NetBeans 4.1 book that
describe some of the 'zero configuration' wizard like the "Use Database"
one.
Check:
http://www.netbeans.org/kb/articles/NBFieldGuide.html
I
hope this will help you,
Thanks again for your
post.
Ludo
ludo [lud@netbeans.org]
PointBase provides some tools not exposed in the IDE. See
SunAppServer8/pointbase/tools/serveroption/startconsole.sh
-Alexis
Clearly the Netbeans team needs to be notified that Eclipse already won the
IDE war. This "making their product better" nonsense is just silly. We need
the Netbeans team to start working on a new Maven plugin for
Eclipse.
Spiffster
@Spiffster - Because no competition is a good thing. It always leads to
better products when there is only one. *sigh*
You really should root for Netbeans to improve, even if you like Eclipse. It will simply ensure that Eclipse continues to improve itself.
Dan Martin [dmartinremovethis@andthisdmartin.org]
Umm... I do believe spiffster was being fecitous.
rich
One should notice that there are hidden considerations in every discussion.
Once getting aware to them your attitude usually changes and becomes more
positively balanced. Please find the hidden consideration in your point of
view. The common one is lack of understanding of the drivers that make
people think differently then us.
Online Casinos [johnboo@skymaila.com]
I had a lot of problem to install some plugin in eclipse, in contrast, it a
piece of cake..
Robidoux