NetBeans Java IDE Might Become An Apache Incubator Project

[Veerappan]

I've been using Netbeans as my main IDE for something like 14 years now. I still use it daily for Java/JSP/JS/HTML dev work.

And that is paired with VirtualBox, which we use with vagrant for dev environment provisioning.

Anything that can resuscitate Netbeans development is a good thing to me.

If Netbeans dies, I guess I'll have to join my coworkers using IntelliJ...

[ua=42]

Still, I cannot stand the circular dependency that all Java IDEs exhibit. Want to use <insert name of Java IDE>? You need Java to run the UI!

Ummmm....
You need java installed in order to compile and run java as well... so a JAVA ide requiring JAVA to be installed to run it isn't a problem. Since if you are developing JAVA you will need JAVA installed anyway.

[Michael_S]

I tried to use it at work some time back but hit a snag. I can't remember exactly what. It's a shame, it ran more smoothly than Eclipse for me. Some of my colleagues like IntelliJ, but I haven't tried it.

Ummmm....
You need java installed in order to compile and run java as well... so a JAVA ide requiring JAVA to be installed to run it isn't a problem. Since if you are developing JAVA you will need JAVA installed anyway.

I suspect what Sonadow was requesting, in a roundabout way, would be that the IDE installation would include the JDK. That would certainly make it easier on completely new users.

But it wouldn't work for everyone else. Companies tend to standardize on specific JDK versions, so IDE+JDK downloads just mean you have to skip part of the installer. And on the IDE side, every JDK point release would prompt a repackage of the whole project.

[Sonadow]

I suspect what Sonadow was requesting, in a roundabout way, would be that the IDE installation would include the JDK. That would certainly make it easier on completely new users.

But it wouldn't work for everyone else. Companies tend to standardize on specific JDK versions, so IDE+JDK downloads just mean you have to skip part of the installer. And on the IDE side, every JDK point release would prompt a repackage of the whole project.

Actually, I was hoping for the IDE UI to not have a dependency on Java. For example, sometimes on a new system that is yet to have Java installed, I just want to get a feel of a few IDEs' interfaces before making a decision on which one to settle on for primary use.

[theghost]

Some years ago Netbeans was a pretty good IDE but it's development has pretty much stalled today.
If you ever worked with JetBrains IDE's you can't hardly go back to Netbeans because you realize how much it has fallen behind and how messy the UI is.

[Luke_Wolf]

Actually, I was hoping for the IDE UI to not have a dependency on Java. For example, sometimes on a new system that is yet to have Java installed, I just want to get a feel of a few IDEs' interfaces before making a decision on which one to settle on for primary use.

If you absolutely must develop in java, I'm going to join the Intellij circle-jerk and say it's the only way to go. Eclipse has always been practically unusable and while NetBeans was better than Eclipse it still sucked hard, whereas Intellij is finally a Java IDE that operates at a level comparable to C++ IDEs, although the IDEs that are freely available are nowhere near what's available for C#.

That said what you're requesting is rather silly, IDEs are pretty much always written in their primary target language, with languages that aren't that one usually being afterthoughts in development.

[bug77]

Netbeans is definitely my favorite IDE, whatever they do I hope than they will get more developers to work on it. But I wonder if this is good news.

Out of curiosity: why?
Of all the Java IDEs, Netbeans is the one that makes me cringe the most. Eclipse comes second, but its weakness usually comes down to a rogue plugin.

It seems at this point Geertjan is the only one who cares for Netbeans and even he puts out some plugins only to never update them again.

[vein]

Out of curiosity: why?
Of all the Java IDEs, Netbeans is the one that makes me cringe the most. Eclipse comes second, but its weakness usually comes down to a rogue plugin.

It seems at this point Geertjan is the only one who cares for Netbeans and even he puts out some plugins only to never update them again.

Well I basically agree with him. Eclipse is the worst (nothing works as expected). But comparing IntelliJ and Netbeans, I personally like Netbeans better... it just feels faster and more robust. I have had a lot less problems with it. (IntelliJ + Gradle gave me some headache due to a bug).

[bug77]

Well I basically agree with him. Eclipse is the worst (nothing works as expected). But comparing IntelliJ and Netbeans, I personally like Netbeans better... it just feels faster and more robust.

You're either joking or trolling. Netbeans is the mother of slowness loading projects. And it kills me that in 2016 it can't figure out a class' name when I only type the capital letters. That alone makes using it a nightmare for me. It's also missing plugins for many things (e.g. drools).
It also doesn't know what an integration test is. Try having failsafe running your integration tests and then telling Netbeans to run a single integration test. It will graciously run the test phase, resulting in no tests being run.
As for Eclipse being the worst, it depends on how you look at it. I look at Eclipse as a platform for running plugins. From that point of view, it does its jobs pretty well. At the same time, it's good for nothing without plugins and if only one of the plugins you need is bad, it will mess your whole experience (m2eclipse is a prime example). It's also got a nasty habit of slow autocomplete. Every single install I have used eventually started taking seconds to show the autocomplete list. I've tried many tricks, some of them appeared to work for a while, but nothing really rid me of the problem.
Idea on the other hand is like a breeze to me. Of course, only one or two of my employers were using Idea, because hey, the other IDEs are free.

I have had a lot less problems with it. (IntelliJ + Gradle gave me some headache due to a bug).

That must be why Android Studio is built upon Idea and Gradle: because of the terrible Gradle support. But, while bugs happen in any projects, they tend to hurt a lot more when they affect your particular workflow. And Gradle support is indeed a bitch for IDEs, because instead of a well known XML, they now have to deal with groovy code...

[Leprechaunius]

I use Netbeans on my personal projects. As somebody said a few posts before me - it's a great IDE, fast and with good UI, but it fell asleep. It can't catch up with newer technologies. It's JavaFX support is downright horrible.
I use Eclipse at work, because Netbeans somehow can't handle the generated sources through maven plugins and bitches about classes not found in our projects.
What I don't use is IntelliJ. My first impression of the IDEA was through Android Studio, based on IntelliJ. And oh my god. I can't even put into words how incredibly fkin slow that was. I mean, even Visual Studio seemed to be 10x faster than that android crap. To be fair, it was at least partly because of gradle, and things may have improved since then, but who knows. Also, what I really hate about IntelliJ, is its retarded autocomplete on constructors. Why on earth can't it be in 2015/16 on par with other IDEs in basic functionality? All IntelliJ offers is the inconvenient ctrl+p shortcut that just shows some parameter types. Absolutely great. No context, no autocomplete, no javadoc, just nothing.