The NetBeansTM open source project is proud to announce Early Access release 2 of the NetBeans IDE 4.1.
For downloads of this release go to:
http://www.netbeans.org/downloads/index.html
For the quick start guide, see:
http://www.netbeans.org/kb/41/quickstart-j2ee.html
This early access release has over 15 new modules for developing Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EETM) 1.4 applications and is built on
the novel and breakthrough NetBeans 4.0 technology. Users can develop programs for Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SETM), Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition (J2METM), and now J2EE Enterprise Java Bean (EJB)components and Web Services. Using the free SunTM Java System Application Server Platform Edition 8.1 Release Candidate as the deployment runtime and with NetBeans guiding the developer and automatically building the underlying J2EE infrastructure, learning about and developing J2EE 1.4 applications has never been easier. To further assist the developer, J2EE Java BluePrints catalog is also included.
With a pure Java technology integrated development environment and cross platform availability for Windows, Linux and the SolarisTM Operating System, this is the best time to get a look at the future.
The next release is the Beta release and planned for February, 2005.
Key Features
Create an EJB Module (Container Managed Persistence, Message Driven Beans and Session Beans)
- The NetBeans IDE guides the user through the process to easily learn how to write MDBs, CMP EJB components as well as Session Beans
- Deployment Descriptor editing is available through both a visual and XML editor with code completion and validation
- All infrastructure methods are generated automatically and are hidden in a power code fold
- The NetBeans project structure matches J2EE Java BluePrints standards (integrated into the release) and relies on the Ant open standard for the build system
Develop Web Services
- Developers can create Web Services from existing Java files, WSDL or scratch and deploy, package and test them from the IDE.
- Developers can register existing Web Services to the IDE, and then easily add the code that will call these Web Services
- Developers can test all the registered Web Services from the IDE by simply entering the input parameters of each operation
- The NetBeans IDE guides the user through the process to easily learn how to write EJB components and J2EE Applications to select a web service and perform required tasks
Other J2EE Elements:
- Enhanced Debugger so that you can see just your application code stack; not the server runtime stack.
- Improved J2EE Project logical views: libraries, deployment descriptors, and unit tests
- Improved J2EE artifacts consumption: Call EJB component,Send Message, Use Database, Use Web Service
- Refactoring is available for code and deployment descriptors.
- J2EE verifier tool integrated into this release.
One gripe I have with NetBeans is that the thing is like a bear in terms of responsiveness. I use both it and Eclipse and will choose Eclipse any day.
Cant’t agree with you on this. NetBeans doesn’t “feel” any slower than native apps on my machine.
Besides, I think NetBeans out-of-the-box usability is way better than Eclipse.
I agree with Sebastian. I do not notice any performance differences. Once up and running both IDEs are blazing fast. Also I agree on the point that out of box usability is excellent in the Netbeans IDE. I am not taking sides but I am repoting what i feel are pros and cons as well. For example, Netbeans needs to have mor plugins that we can download and thus add more funtionality like Eclipse does. In this respect Eclipse rules. Hmm lets see, a UML plugin would be excellent. There is gentlewar’s poseidon plugin for eclipse but that plugin is not available for users using Netbeans because of the simple fact that Eclipse seems to be more popular than Netbeans. I personally think that phenomenon is prevalent because Netbeans could be a newer project than Eclipse maybe? I dunno but I think both are brilliant products.
Surya
On reasonable hardware it is reasonably responsive. Netbeans is nice, Eclipse is very nice, IDEA is very very nice. And they all feel fast enough even on a celeron with 256MB RAM; I never notice any difference on my laptop on whether it is running at 600MHz or 1.8GHz. Both java and computers have come a long way in terms of speed.
I use both Netbeans 4.0 and Eclipse 3.0 and I have to say Netbeans does seem a bit slower, but not terribly bad either. I agree that Netbeans is much more useable out of box for web applications. Also, Netbeans GUI editor for swing apps is much more mature than the Eclipse VEP plugin. The refactoring options have quite a bit of catching up to do to even get close to Eclipse’s refactoring tools.
It seems the new form designer the netbeams team is working on based on SpringLayout will not come out with this version. I guess I will have to wait some months.
“One gripe I have with NetBeans is that the thing is like a bear in terms of responsiveness”
That’s simply not a fair comparison. The feature-list for NetBeans 4.1 is closer to Websphere Application Developer than Eclipse. Of course it’s less than the barebone Eclipse 3.0 IDE. Those people who believe Eclipse is a responsive platform should really take a look at those commercial IDEs based on Eclipse to understand how wrong they are.
What Sun should have done, though, is to try to release NetBeans in two versions, one with full J2EE support, and one with J2SE/Swing support. That would surely make the application more responsive.
We use Rational Application Developer 6.0 and find that it performs faster than NetBeans (just).
byw, all the web and j2ee stuff in Rad 6.0 has been donated to the Eclipse project. Once this is integrated this year then it will blow NetBeans into a cocked hat. Also check out BIRT (Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools). This will give Eclipse real power.
I’m not looking back, only forward.
daz
i tried netbeans and eclipse on a 550mhz (2 cpu xeon) with 256meg of ram and eclipse is very very slow, netbeans is it is reasonably responsive
on a 1800mhz (512meg of ram) netbeans is very responsible whereas eclipse start to be usable
the eclipse ve plugin is very bad if we compare it to the visual editor of netbeans…
i don’t understand why eclipse is so slow.. netbeans, jbuilder, intellij are more responsible
I tried Netbeans 4.0 and Eclipse 3.1 on My linux workstation.
My linux workstation is a PC with AthlonXP 2000+, 512MB DDR ram and Nvidia Geforce FX5200.
Official Nvidia driver is installed.(it means Hardware acceleration for OpenGL is enabled)
In fact, Linux’s SWT implmentation is slower.
However the result is interesting.
For Netbeans, it takes 5 seconds to show splash screen and it takes 20 seconds to finish initialization.
For Eclipse, it takes less than one second to show splash screen and it takes 13 seconds to finish initialization.
Eclipse is not so slow as Marc Collin’s description.
And I feel that eclipse responses faster and looks better.
22 second to start eclipse, when the visual editor is active, all is slow in eclipse
intellij take 25 second to start… but at use is faster to respond then eclipse
16 second to start netbeans same thing then intellij… at use is faster then eclipse
i use a 1800+ with 512meg of ram under suse 9.1
The linux distribution on my machine is MDK Official 10.1.
I don’t know why eclipse run slowly on your machine.
Eclipse is faster than Netbeans on my workstation.
Netbeans’ menu sometimes lag to display.
I tests the two IDEs on IBM JDK 1.4.2 and Sun JDK 1.5.0. The results are quite close.
IBM 1.4.2:
eclispe: splash < 1s, finish = 15s
netbeans: splash = 5s, finish = 20s
Sun 1.5.0:
eclipse: splash < 1s, finish = 9s.
netbeans: splash = 3s, finish = 14s.
BTW, The font display of Swing is so poor and ugly.
Swing’s L&F is also not consistent with WM.
SWT use Native widget. The font display is as well as GTK.
During my Netbeans installation
The Swing window is as the follow image.
http://www.ccns.ncku.edu.tw/~champ/netbeans.jpg
You can compare the Swing’s Chinese characters with those on the title bar(GNOME WM = GTK).
Undoutedly, Swing is poor and Sun keeps the problem almost 10 years.
For CJK users, SWT/JFace provides better UI to program/use.
I do know that Eclipse/SWT runs better than Netbeans/Swing. And that’s enough.
we don’t care about the time to display the splash screen, it’s not usefull
i get about the same result on a 550mhz and a p4 3ghz (hyperthreading)
with the 550mhz, eclipse is too slow to work, with netbeans is slow… with intellij is ok
the time to start the application is not so important, the most important is the responsiveness of the programm and with my 1800+ eclipse eclipse is not responsiveness like jbuilder, intellij and netbeans
eclipse cannot to be used on a little machine
i hope eclipse performance will be improve…
when the visual editor is active, eclipse responsiveness is very bad… other ide have not this problem…
I don’t know why you get the conclusion.
I feel that Eclipse is more responsive than Netbeans/Jbuilder(I’m sorry that I don’t use intellij).
On my machine Netbeans’ actions always lag.
And I have try several times.(Now I try it again…)
I had ever used Eclipse 2.0 on Duron 700 w 128MB SDRAM on Win2K.
On that machine eclipse is still more responsive than netbeans.
I agree that eclipse need to improve its responsiveness.
However, I don’t think that it is slower than netbeans.
In my opinion, both of them are great IDEs.
And I prefer to use Eclipse than Netbeans.
Netbeans is not too slow to work.
For me, it’s not a good choice.