I have been using NetBeans 3.6 for a couple of days now and can say it’s a very good improvement on the previous version 3.5.1.
(NetBeans is a free, open source development tool. Mainly for Java development but also suitable for C/C++)
The intention was to wait until end of summer 2004 and release version 4.0 but because of the fierce competition (Eclipse, IntelliJ, JBuilder and etc) an intermediate version was released with promises of what is to come.
The most prominent change is that the window system has been completely redone. Away with the clunky and very Java-ish interface. In with a leaner, more native looking and intuitive one.
While I suspect that this enhancement required a lot of work input, the user will not notice too much difference (this is good).
Other useful features include code folding, smart brackets, help with overriding methods, Servlet 2.4 and JSP 2.0 code completion and much more.
In previous versions it was needed to download several modules after an install but they all seem to be included in 3.6: database explorer, XML/XSL support, tasklists and more.
NetBeans 3.6 support J2SDK 1.4.1 and above but prefers 1.4.2 so make sure to update it from Sun web site.
Tag: netbeans
Netbeans IDE, pros and cons
NetBeans IDE has been my prefered IDE for the last 1.5 years. The reasons are several. OpenSource software, continuously extended and last but not least, it is free. While it doesn’t have as many features as some £3,000+ IDEs, it has enough to keep you busy.
The features that I find most useful and use every day because they speed up the development.
There is the DB explorer that lets me browse a data base to see the tables, data types, values and lets me execute any queries (including updates).