What we love and hate about Java IDEs

Being a non-technical person when it comes to programming I didn’t realize there were different integrated development environments (IDE) which my colleagues used for working with Java and HTML5.

For those that don’t know what a IDE is, it can be summarised as a programming environment integrated into a software application which then provides a GUI builder, a text or code editor, a compiler and/or interpreter, build automation tools and a debugger

I found that everyone here at IDR Solutions had a preference to which IDE they used, the most common were NetBeans, Eclipse and Intellij’s IDEA, the reasoning for using different IDE’s rather than just sticking to one was because everyone here had a personal preference and felt that all had something different to offer and that differentiated it from each other.

Over the coming two weeks I’ll be taking a look at NetBeans, Eclipse and Intellij’s IDEA and taking a look at what we love and what we hate about each of these IDE’s.

In the first of a series of articles next time I’ll be taking a look at Eclipse.

This post is part of our “NetBeans article Index” series. In these articles, we aim to explore NetBeans in different ways, from useful hint and tips, to our how-to’s, experiences and usage of the NetBeans IDE.

In the meantime why not tell us What IDE’s you use? and what you love and hate about it.