NetBeans
After talking to a number of students I thought it would be useful to describe my experience with NetBeans.
Many students I have spoken to seem apprehensive about changing to the Open Source programming IDEs, such as NetBeans or Eclipse.
I have had a very good experience with NetBeans, and I hope that it will encourage others to try it!
I use NetBeans as my Java programming environment, but it can be used with other programming languages as well.
Java
I started learning Java in 2004, while studying the Open University course, M301 - "Computing systems and their development". Although the course taught Java, it was not a programming course. As it can be guessed from the title, Java was a tool used in learning concepts related to the development of computing systems.
However, I find programming interesting (I don't work in the IT, I but have already programmed in Fortran in the past). I found myself getting deeper and deeper into Java ...
In 2005 I followed M301 with a course on developing Internet applications. And that's when, out of sheer frustration with the IDE supplied with the course, I started to use NetBeans.
The IDE that came with the course was a very antiquated version of JBuilder Pro (I must stress that this has changed: see more on NetBeans at the Open University). It was adequate enough to learn the basic concepts related to the development of the web applications, but I was not able to use with the up-to-date exciting examples that I was reading about.
As a student already paying her course fees, I saw no way I was going to pay for an up-to-date version of JBuilder Pro (standard version did not contain web modules). Giving a try to an Open Source IDE was the obvious solution.
NetBeans to the rescue ...
Having looked at both, the Eclipse and NetBeans, I thought that NetBeans would be easier for me to set up. Besides, the default, out-of-the-box (if there were a box, that is ;-)) installation of NetBeans came with all modules I needed for developing web applications. (The default NetBeans package is packed with features. Too many to mention, but I particularly like the fact that it automatically builds Jar or War archives, ready for deployment.) And so I downloaded a version of NetBeans 4 (I think it was 4.0, I have upgraded several times since then :-)).
I must stress that I am not a "techie", but I found the installation process very straightforward. And, straightaway I was able to start programming. While doing my course, I was in parallel reworking old examples using NetBeans and replacing deprecated code with the recommended equivalents.
I have enjoyed using NetBeans ever since (though, sadly, recently I had very little time left for Java - my list of things to do is growing at an increasing pace!) :-)
Give NetBeans a try and enjoy!
Goska