IDE

Integrated Development Environment

Usually thought of as an all in one [development tool] used to write code in. Some people call them a crutch and some people call them a god-send. They usually include lots of bells and whistles designed to make codeing easier. Things like syntax high-lighting, method completion, debuggers, revision control, and just about anything else you can think of.

A partial list of IDE's:

• vi/vim (for the minimalist =^>)
  • [VIM] is hardly minimalistic. Though not as Java-featureful as NetBeans, Eclipse and IntelliJ? it is still very rich of features. Works very well together with Ant as well. I use VIM it for all my Robocoding, with the occational code review session through NetBeans or IntelliJ? developer preview. But you have to prepare for VIM working in its own way, quite different from many other editors and IDEs'. Once you are past that and realise the VIM way is superior you'll be flying. -- PEZ
• Emacs (for the macsimalist =^>)
• Eclipse
• Forte/SunOne?/NetBeans?
• JBuilder
• [IntelliJ] Like Eclipse but more
  • It costs a bit more as well. Whopping $500 compared to Eclipses' or NetBeans' $0.
  • More in every way! =)
• Countless others

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I use Forte. I have been using it for about 3.5 years now in it's various incarnations. The Community Edition is free of charge and available for download from http://wwws.sun.com/software/sundev/jde/buy/index.html. For what it's worth I am not affiliated with Sun in any way. I have also heard great things about Eclipse. I have no personal experience with it but if you are just starting out and looking for a good IDE I would recommend you at least look at it. I would love to have time to explore it but that would cost me development time better spent on Jekyl --jim

• I have been using Eclipse for about 10 months now. I think I converted right after I wrote this. Eclipse 2.1 was pretty good. Eclipse 3.0 flat out rocks. -- jim

Jim, if you like Forte, try NetBeans. It's basically the same thing, only better in every way! :) I use it for just about everything, and I've even developed applications in the OpenAPI?. It's a great platform. -- nano

I downloaded and installed "Sun One Studio" the other day, and there is no going back, it is so much better than what i was using before (JedPlus?). From what i can gather it's the sun replacement for Forte. Hopefully it'll speed up my robot development. Oh, and Pez i've tried using VIM on more than one occasion and i have to say i have no idea how you can bare to use it, it seems to be for the diehards fans only... :) --Brainfade

I guess you might need an introduction to using VIM if you're not like me and have been using "vi" for 15 years. =) -- PEZ

Hmph. I used to use Forte and I liked it, but I could never wrap my head around the whole 'Beans' thing. What's up with these 'Beans'? Anyway, since my computer has recently been downgraded (and Forte was too slow back then!), I haven't bothered installing Forte on here yet, so I'm using the good old Robot Editor for my robot. Hey, it works! And a fine job of that it does. :-) If/when I eventually write an applet to show me my bot's statistical data output, I'll switch back to Forte, because I love all of its IDE building stuff. Anyway, go Forte! -- Vuen

I've used the robot editor, GVim, JPad, and JCreator for my bots. I think I like JPad the most, but its the only one without a freeware version :-\. JCreator is a little more "Project" based, so it has become preferable to the robot editor and Vim for projects like FloodHT or SpareParts. -- Kawigi