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Hey,
Beginner Java dev here, as I have been doing my own research and learning about the language. I noticed that most if not all developers I have come across don't use VS code as their IDE. They use other IDE like IntelliJ or NetBeans.
I have been using Vs Code since I started to code. Do you Java devs recommend for me to use another IDE for best practice?
Thank You
Hey everybody,
I haven't tried vscode for java before, but I was wondering what others think of using it for an IDE?
I have used eclipse and intellij before, but was considering vscode. If you have tried it, what packages have you found useful, what are the things you like and what are your pain points using it?
I am going to experiment with it tomorrow and make a workspace in vscode for it.
Cheers!
A few points…
People tend to like what they know.
It is quicker to get up-to-speed in C# as the IDE and most of the tools / docs come from a single source.
In the Java world you have a lot more chooses, this is great for expert that spend times learning about them all, but does also lead to its own problems.
Adding ReSharper or Refactor to Visual Studio may give you what you want.
The Visual Studio debugging is great.
Visual Studio tries to make life easy for you by trying to find missing dlls etc and then storing where they are in the registry. This may be great for a 1 man project, but can often lead to build problems across developer’s machines if you are not careful. In the Java world you have to edit more config file by hand, but at least you can put these files under source code control.
There is not a small command line tool that works well on a build server that will build all types of Visual Studio projects. However in day to day usage you don’t need to learn how to use command tools, as Visual Studio hides them form you.
I think these days most programmers are just happier with the IDE they know best.
Note I wrote this over 6 years ago, since then C#/.Net has got a lot more complex, with lots of open source projects. Microsoft has also open sourced a lot of the .net framework. For web and server side development I expect there is now little to choose between the Java world and the .Net world. For “smart clients” .net still have a lot to offer including the new support from cross device phone development.
For multi-threaded IO, I think c# is years ahead of Java, but that could change as C# and Java keeps learning from each other...
Visual Studio has definitely been coming on over the last few years - although many of the improvements have basically been things that Eclipse has had for ages (I haven't used IDEA myself).
You may well want to look at ReSharper, which brings more goodness to Visual Studio, along with the VS2010 Productivity PowerTools.
Also, have a look at Scott Guthrie's blog series about improvements in VS2010. Lots of goodies in there.
All tools have their strengths and weaknesses - these days I'm about as happy in Visual Studio as in Eclipse... although I'm much happier writing C# than Java :) One area where Visual Studio really shines is debugging though... I find things like the VS Watch window to be much better than Eclipse's equivalent.
You can use the WindowBuilder plugin for Eclipe. More info here: https://eclipse.org/windowbuilder/
EDIT: As mentioned in the comment to the other answer, if you do not like WindowBuilder you can give a try to JFormDesigner
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