Richard Davies wrote: The UK has a good crop of technology pioneers in cloud computing - for example ElasticHosts, FlexiScale, Flexiant, OnApp - and also some strong government initiatives such as G-Cloud.
We will have to see whether this kind of technical leadership converts into swift mass-market adoption or not.
I must admit, until recently my idea of an integrated development
environment was Emacs, a couple of shell windows, and a six-pack of Dr.
Pepper. I had nothing against IDEs, in fact I was all for them, I just
couldn't find one that worked for me, instead of the other way around.
Everything I tried either didn't format code the way I liked, required the
entire development team to convert to it, didn't run my build scripts,
wouldn't talk to my source code control system, or otherwise forced me to
bend to its will. Maybe I'm too picky, but hey I like to do things my way.
For the past several months, however, I've been developing almost
exclusively with various beta builds of IntelliJ IDEA 3.0. It still has some
bugs, of course, but this new IDE is so spectacular that even in its
preproduction state I can't imagine coding without it. I introduced a few
co-workers to the software to hear their opinions, knowing each of them
already had established their own favorites NetBeans, Forte, JBuilder,
JRun Studio, and Visual J++. They're all using IDEA 3.0 now.
IntelliJ IDEA 3.0
JetBrains, Inc. (formerly IntelliJ Software), is based in Prague, Czech
Republic, and St. Petersburg, Russia. They have released a number of
successful Java development tools, most notably their Java IDE, IntelliJ
IDEA. The latest version, 3.0, is scheduled for release this fall and will
include some major enhancements, such as full JSP/EJB support, integration
with Ant and JUnit, XML support, and a rich plug-in API for developing
extensions. Like IDEA 2.5, IDEA 3.0 includes support for macros and code
generation shortcuts, all dramatically improved. Of course, all the basics
are there as well a nice debugger, code completion, searching, replacing, code formatting, syntax/error highlighting, and source code control
system integration. The popup code completion and JavaDoc hints are first
rate, and super easy to use and configure. I'm finding new features every
day and, unfortunately, it's impossible to cover all the goodies in one
article.
Notably absent from the feature list are GUI builder tools like the ones
found in NetBeans and other IDEs. While there's plenty of room for
discussion regarding the vices and virtues of GUI builders, it's an
important distinction worth noting for those who find them useful.
The IDE itself is written in Java and, unlike Eclipse, uses Swing for
the GUI. While complex Swing applications tend to suffer from Java's
overhead, IDEA's interface is fast and responsive, even on a mid-level
machine. It even behaves well with large projects with thousands of source
files. The software should run on any platform with JDK 1.4 installed (a JDK
1.3compatible version is planned), but the primary supported platforms are
Windows, Mac OS, and Linux.
Figure 1 shows a typical shot of IDEA 3.0 in action. The interface
should be comfortably familiar to anyone who has used an IDE before; nothing
radical here. Apart from a toolbar and menu selections, IDEA 3.0 uses a
series of tool windows that dock along the margins to provide access to such
things as code structure, compilation messages, and debugging stack frames.
These windows can be moved around and displayed however you see fit. You can
dock them, float them, make them slide in and out over your main window, and
make them hide themselves when not needed.
As with most IDEs, you work on code as part of a project. A project
includes your classpath, pointers to your source files, and build and run
targets. Each project you define is stored as an XML file to keep on your
local file system. One of IDEA's strong points is that it doesn't force you
to set up your code structure any particular way, nor does it force you to
use its internal build engine to compile. It's perfectly happy to call out
to Ant to perform the build, for example. You can even choose to store
source and library-path references relative to the project file, making it
easy to share a project file with a team of developers or between machines.
Flexibility Is the Key to Happiness
IDEA 3.0 is as flexible as a three-legged rubber monkey. It's like no
other IDE (or any other tool for that matter) I've encountered. You can
customize everything about this program from code formatting, syntax
coloring, imports organization, and error highlighting to how your windows
and tool bars are oriented. Perfect for particular programmers like myself!
Take the issue of spacing in your code. Unlike other IDEs that offer two
or three spacing choices, IDEA 3.0 gives you literally dozens of options. As
you can see in Figure 2, you can control every nuance of your code spacing
style. Similar options are provided for controlling how braces, blank lines,
and other stylistic choices are handled.
Your formatting options can be applied selectively to a section of code,
an entire file, or even all the files in your project or directory. When you
cut and paste code in the editor window, IDEA automatically formats the code
appropriately, including inserting appropriate indentions and keeping
everything nice and neat. IDEA's flexibility doesn't end at source-code
formatting, of course. You can control the positioning of all the tool
windows, the various aspects of code completion, coloring, and the entire
collection of hot keys.
Refactoring Support
IDEA 3.0 would be an excellent IDE even if its flexible configuration
and ease of use were its greatest assets. Its support for code refactoring
is by far the most exciting feature. Refactoring, the process of continually
improving your code and its structure, is one of those things that we all
know is important, but we tend to slack off because it can be a pain to
reorganize our code and class structure without breaking everything. Not so
with IDEA. It supports many of the refactoring patterns discussed in Martin
Fowler's seminal work on the subject, Refactoring. Some of the capabilities
include:
Changing a method's signature to include new arguments
Renaming or moving classes, methods, and members
Extracting selected items from a class into a new interface
Introducing a variable from a selected expression
Encapsulating field references into a method
Pulling members up into a super class
IDEA makes it trivial to rename a class or move it to another package.
Not only does it make the necessary changes to the code, it tracks down and
corrects all the references to the class in Java code, import statements,
JSP scriptlets, even Javadoc comments and XML files (like your Struts config
file). In addition, it removes the old file from your version control system
and adds the new one. It's so seamless that you don't think twice about
moving a method from one class to another or reorganizing package structure
as your project evolves. This is the first time we have such powerful tools
in such a reasonably priced IDE.
J2EE Support
IDEA is way ahead of the game in terms of supporting JSP and EJB
development. Most IDEs stop at syntax highlighting for JSPs, but IDEA adds
much more. It allows you to define the roots of your Web applications in
your source tree, providing internal awareness of your tag libraries,
classpaths, and other properties. It can then perform code completion on JSP
tags, bean properties, and even the file path include statements. It
highlights Java errors in scriptlets and complains about invalid object
references just as it does with Java source code. It generates EJB
interfaces and allows full refactoring of them as well. JetBrains also
promises integrated JSP and EJB debugging in the final release, but it was
not yet available at the time of this writing.
Summary
I feel as if I haven't scratched the surface of everything this IDE can
do and how well it does it. Overall, I'm very impressed by this as of yet
unreleased product. Beginners will appreciate its good, easy-to-use editor,
code completion, version-control system integration, and flexible
configuration options, while advanced users will marvel at its seamless
support for powerful refactoring operations and its rich plug-in API.
Developers who are used to code wizards and GUI builders may be
disappointed, however, as this tool does not attempt to address these areas.
Everything is wrapped up into a nice, reasonably priced package that
most development shops should actually be able to afford. IntelliJ IDEA 3.0
will be available this fall.
Product Snapshot
Target Audience: Java and JSP programmers
Level: Beginner to advanced
Pros: Flexible code formatting and interface, extensible API,
first-class J2EE support, powerful code generation, Ant and JUnit
support
Cons: Limited support for non-Java source files, no GUI builder
About Duane Fields Duane Fields is a Java programmer with over 10 years of software development experience. He has written numerous articles on all aspects of software development and is the co-author of the best selling “Web Development with JavaServer Pages,” now in its second edition. Duane is based in Austin, Texas and can be reached through his Web site, www.deepmagic.com.
Reader Feedback: Page 1 of 4
#53
Wiktor Lukasik commented on 4 Jun 2003
Idea is possibly the best IDE I have used so far.
However, I had some problems using Ant with Idea... but it is not a major thing anyway.
What I do not like?
1. UI builder is missing
2. Under windows it runs fairly fast, but I am using Linux and Idea'a performance on this system is... well... not perfect ;)
3. Prices - I am CS/SE student and the price is way to high for me. Further, I would like to see the source code ;-)
Wiktor
#52
Java Programmer commented on 13 May 2003
Why doesn't JetBrains give away the source of IDEA? Even more people would start using IDEA that way, and it would get even better if people started fiddling with the code. I think IDEA is a nice IDE, but I am not willing to pay the high license fee.
#51
Joe McDonnell commented on 6 Apr 2003
Im a CS student taking java classes. I first tried java out of the command prompt and notepad, then forte, then netbeans, and now IDEA. Idea is the best IDE ever made. Netbeans is way too frigging slow.
Idea is so intuitive! The OSX support needs work. This program works beautifully on OSX, XP, and Linux. Ive also tried to use eclipse (counterintuitive) and borland (blech). I'm never going back to anything else ever again!
You guys are great!
PS, could it be too much to offer a free version of IDEA that doesnt have the J2ee stuff built in?
#50
Tele commented on 26 Mar 2003
As for those who said it doesn't support chinese. I should say it does and does it pretty good.
p.s. May be cn users need to adjust their "font.properties.zh". But that's not IntelliJ's problem.
#49
Martin Sieber commented on 11 Mar 2003
I used Netbeans and JDeveloper quite some time. But IDEA ist miles ahead. Netbeans is great, but way to slow. It also lacks some nice features like refactoring. JDeveloper isn't very good, but it works very fine when developing on Oracle and with SQL. The SQLJ support is actually exactling what I'm missing at IDEA right now. If developing SQLJ I switch back to JDev. I hope there will be a Plugin or sth similar out soon... Maybe someone has experienxe and some help on this?
#48
olly commented on 5 Jan 2003
IDEA makes you feel less of a programming drone. IDEA takes away all the meaningless drivel that comes with programming, WITHOUT hiding you from it (ie. GUI builders). I feel like less of a zombie now when coding in Java - my productivity has doubled, and my brain is fully focused on DESIGN, rather than typing out another iterator loop.
#47
blazer commented on 4 Dec 2002
using eclipse for some months and now idea for a week i have to admit they are very similar. same refactoring, same template stuff, nearly the same good editor.
eclipse has better project-support, better UI-flexibility, faster / better debugging. why needs IntelliJ 4x the time for debugging-startup compared to eclipse? ;)
on linux idea has a faster editor, faster io-operations and a smaller memory consumtion. It has multicolumn-tabs :) and a better Navigation.
Both have a great comunity with lots of nice plugins.
So out of the box idea is more easy to use but beware eclipse if they increase the speed and add some needed features (back-button, tabs)
#46
kelum commented on 3 Dec 2002
Idea is the best,
it' very use full for me to learn coding staille.
#45
Vit commented on 28 Nov 2002
>>I saw IDEa one time and I said:
>>Eclipse Forever!
Only once? Well, it explains everything :)
I did try boath Eclipse and Idea. Nothing can match Idea. Just take a look at Idea's features.
Vit.
#44
Johnatan Linke commented on 18 Nov 2002
It is the same situation as it was with many of other rather good products.
More features=>requires more memory/becomes slow=>Outcome: "why do I have to pay for it instead of using eclipse"?!
I love Eclipse JDT and I hate gui applications that are using swing. I saw IDEa one time and I said: Eclipse Forever!
Version 3.0 is out! TONS of features, lots are new, many are improved. Speed and stability has improved greatly over the past few weeks. Give this IDE a try again if you tried an earlier EAP build and were disappointed.
#42
Elmo commented on 11 Nov 2002
There is one thing that I sometimes don't like about IDEA: the code completion shortcuts (like itar) automatically pick all the default variables correctly all the time -- I can only assume by READING MY MIND. No software should do that.
#41
Elmo commented on 11 Nov 2002
IDEA is one of those rare pieces of software that just gets everything right. The guys that wrote it are gods, period.
I've started thinking more since I started using it about those code management tasks that could possibly be automated. Every time I get a new idea, I think "I bet they didn't think of *that*!". But they have. (i.e. the replace function help just mentions that it supports "perl like" regex. So I start trying some of the more esoteric little regex tags that perl supports ... they all work)
Another great new feature in 3.0 is the Plugin architecture. The independent plugin community is thriving and has produced a number of quality plugins, 56 so far.
#39
jjs commented on 11 Nov 2002
Answering two questions back, yes, 3.0 has multiple project support. Futhermore, a great plugin is available called "Workspaces" that allows for various distinct file views within one Project.
Wiktor Lukasik wrote: Idea is possibly the best IDE I have used so far.
However, I had some problems using Ant with Idea... but it is not a major thing anyway.
What I do not like?
1. UI builder is missing
2. Under windows it runs fairly fast, but I am using Linux and Idea'a performance on this system is... well... not perfect ;)
3. Prices - I am CS/SE student and the price is way to high for me. Further, I would like to see the source code ;-)
Wiktor
Java Programmer wrote: Why doesn't JetBrains give away the source of IDEA? Even more people would start using IDEA that way, and it would get even better if people started fiddling with the code. I think IDEA is a nice IDE, but I am not willing to pay the high license fee.
Joe McDonnell wrote: Im a CS student taking java classes. I first tried java out of the command prompt and notepad, then forte, then netbeans, and now IDEA. Idea is the best IDE ever made. Netbeans is way too frigging slow.
Idea is so intuitive! The OSX support needs work. This program works beautifully on OSX, XP, and Linux. Ive also tried to use eclipse (counterintuitive) and borland (blech). I'm never going back to anything else ever again!
You guys are great!
PS, could it be too much to offer a free version of IDEA that doesnt have the J2ee stuff built in?
Tele wrote: As for those who said it doesn't support chinese. I should say it does and does it pretty good.
p.s. May be cn users need to adjust their "font.properties.zh". But that's not IntelliJ's problem.
Martin Sieber wrote: I used Netbeans and JDeveloper quite some time. But IDEA ist miles ahead. Netbeans is great, but way to slow. It also lacks some nice features like refactoring. JDeveloper isn't very good, but it works very fine when developing on Oracle and with SQL. The SQLJ support is actually exactling what I'm missing at IDEA right now. If developing SQLJ I switch back to JDev. I hope there will be a Plugin or sth similar out soon... Maybe someone has experienxe and some help on this?
olly wrote: IDEA makes you feel less of a programming drone. IDEA takes away all the meaningless drivel that comes with programming, WITHOUT hiding you from it (ie. GUI builders). I feel like less of a zombie now when coding in Java - my productivity has doubled, and my brain is fully focused on DESIGN, rather than typing out another iterator loop.
blazer wrote: using eclipse for some months and now idea for a week i have to admit they are very similar. same refactoring, same template stuff, nearly the same good editor.
eclipse has better project-support, better UI-flexibility, faster / better debugging. why needs IntelliJ 4x the time for debugging-startup compared to eclipse? ;)
on linux idea has a faster editor, faster io-operations and a smaller memory consumtion. It has multicolumn-tabs :) and a better Navigation.
Both have a great comunity with lots of nice plugins.
So out of the box idea is more easy to use but beware eclipse if they increase the speed and add some needed features (back-button, tabs)
Johnatan Linke wrote: It is the same situation as it was with many of other rather good products.
More features=>requires more memory/becomes slow=>Outcome: "why do I have to pay for it instead of using eclipse"?!
I love Eclipse JDT and I hate gui applications that are using swing. I saw IDEa one time and I said: Eclipse Forever!
Ian Zabel wrote: Version 3.0 is out! TONS of features, lots are new, many are improved. Speed and stability has improved greatly over the past few weeks. Give this IDE a try again if you tried an earlier EAP build and were disappointed.
Elmo wrote: There is one thing that I sometimes don't like about IDEA: the code completion shortcuts (like itar) automatically pick all the default variables correctly all the time -- I can only assume by READING MY MIND. No software should do that.
Elmo wrote: IDEA is one of those rare pieces of software that just gets everything right. The guys that wrote it are gods, period.
I've started thinking more since I started using it about those code management tasks that could possibly be automated. Every time I get a new idea, I think "I bet they didn't think of *that*!". But they have. (i.e. the replace function help just mentions that it supports "perl like" regex. So I start trying some of the more esoteric little regex tags that perl supports ... they all work)
jjs wrote: Another great new feature in 3.0 is the Plugin architecture. The independent plugin community is thriving and has produced a number of quality plugins, 56 so far.
jjs wrote: Answering two questions back, yes, 3.0 has multiple project support. Futhermore, a great plugin is available called "Workspaces" that allows for various distinct file views within one Project.
Mark wrote: Just as there are some who still beleive that the earth is flat, there are also those who do not like IntelliJ Idea.
The rest of us know better.
Constantine Vasilyev wrote: I remember how back in the 80s I first discovered the Borland IDEs for Turbo Pascal/C/Prolog, and how convenient and fast they were compared to all others. Later, as a C/C++ developer, I had many excellent IDEs to chose from, MS Visual Studio being just one of them. For a long time, there has been no IDEs for Java development that would even remotely compare to, say, MS Visual Studio... Until now! Finally, the Java community is treated to an IDE that blows MS Visual Studio out of the water! And unlike Forte, JBuilder, and many others, its very elegant, well-designed, not overbearing, has a reasonable memory footprint, doesn't overwhelm you with tons of stuff that you don't need at the moment... I have been using it for a couple of months now. Yes, sometimes I do find that it's a bit sluggish in performing certain tasks, it froze on me a couple of times - when it shouldn't have really, an...
Mike Brown wrote: ... Anyone who hasn't tried this product really owes it to himself or herself to go to the IDEA site (www.intellij.com) and look over its list of features. To me, it was like Christmas morning for developers.
By the way, I have had no performance problems with the product. I don't think its a memory hog, but I believe it is caching the whole logical structure of your code base, so it might slow down if it has to do a lot of IO to your disk. I think it all depends on the size of your code base and the size of other programs you're running concurrently, so make sure your have enough RAM.
Mike Brown wrote: ... Anyone who hasn't tried this product really owes it to himself or herself to go to the IDEA site (www.intellij.com) and look over its list of features. To me, it was like
Mike Brown wrote: ...have an elegant way to navigate their code.
Also worth the license price is the rename function, which allows you to instantly rename anything; long gone are the days of using the compiler to catch every line of code to modify. Also, IDEA has an automatic import statement feature which makes sure your import statements are always adequate for your code (and prompts you for input if there happen to be ambiguous class names in your source path). There's also an automatic try/catch block utility that gives you all the appropriate exception catches for the code you're "trying."
Anyone who hasn't tried this product really owes it to himself or herself to go to the IDEA site (www.intellij.com) and look over its list of features. To me, it was like
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Apache Deltacloud, the Red Hat-contributed ReSTful API that abstracts differences between clouds so services on any cloud can be managed – provided of course there’s a driver – has graduated from the Apache Foundation’s incubator and is now a full-fledged Top-Level Project (TLP).
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AMD said late Tuesday that its chief sales officer Emilio Ghilardi had left the company and that CEO and president Rory Read is going to do his job while a replacement is sought.
AMD didn’t say why Ghilardi left but it’s assumed Read wants his own people. Read is relatively new to th...
During the lifespan of M3 (Monitis Monitor Manager) there has always been something lacking – timers.
M3 execution procedure was outlined in this previous article.
The execution mentioned in the latter was a one-time-execution, whereas server monitoring requires periodic invocati...
Red Hat is putting its bought-in Gluster scale-out NAS storage technology,
acquired in October, on the Amazon cloud.
It’s styled Red Hat Virtual Storage Appliance for Amazon Web Services and
other clouds are supposed to follow in short order.
A new episode of the screencast series is now available at the OpenNebula YouTube Channel.
This screencast demonstrates the new easily-customizable self-service portal for cloud consumers. Its aim is to offer a simplified access to shared infrastructure for non-IT end users. The scree...
