NetBeans team just released their 6.1 Beta release and I was itching my hands to try it out. I’ve been using NetBeans from 5.0 release onwards (Matisse converted me from Intellij IDEA to NetBeans). I can see the progress NetBeans is making at an astonishing rate. (That too as an open source project)
Though I like and use NetBeans 6.0 a lot, I found it to be very slow when compared to Eclipse 3.3. I have explained about it here.
Especially I felt that code completion needed improvement. Eclipse beats NetBeans hands down in this area for sure.
So when the 6.1 Beta release promised me that “improved performance” is the theme of the release, I thought of trying it out.
I had a quite a few number of projects in my new notebook. NetBeans 6.0 use to take anywhere between 30 to 40 seconds to startup and load the mainwindow. To my surprise NetBeans 6.1 started very very quickly. Mmm great…!
I’m developing a small web application which is used to maintain the statistics of cricket players. (Yes, I’m a cricket fan). I use JSF as the presentation layer framework with JSP as the view technology. (I’m planning to use Facelets + Seam shortly). The code completion especially in JSP pages use to be annoying. I normally prefer typing the jsf attributes myself quickly rather than waiting for NetBeans to offer it suggestions. Often, I use to see the text “Please Wait”…
But with NetBeans 6.1, I haven’t seen that happening till now. (I installed 6.1 Beta today only)
JSP/Java code completion looks very fast. I think it’s as good as eclipse.
Congrats NetBeans team and keep up the spirit.
(Side note: But the faces-config.xml editor in eclipse is way superior than in netbeans. And I don’t like the visual navigation editor in netbeans as well. It looks very ugly when there are lots and lots of navigation rules. I feel this can be improved)
James Selvakumar's Blog 
Hmmm! Faster…but not enough. Keep up the good work, lads!
Comment by Rada Burjandur — March 12, 2008 @ 12:30 pm |
I second @Burjandur, faster, but not fast enough and it’s not just the editor.
Comment by Damien — March 12, 2008 @ 11:50 pm |
[…] NetBeans 6.1 stands up to its Promise — James Selvakumar’s Blog, 3/8 NetBeans developer James Selvakumar writes about his […]
Pingback by NetBeans developer reviews of this week… | sun — March 13, 2008 @ 10:52 pm |
I was already using NB6.0 and couldn’t wait for 6.1 to try out the javascript support. Unfortunately, it’s still doesn’t recognize any of the external JS libraries and still doesn’t sort by function names alphabetically in js files. But anyways, it’s still 100x better than 2 years ago.
Comment by javaboom — March 15, 2008 @ 3:08 am |
Hello James. I represent Sun and based upon the valuable content you’ve contributed to the community about NetBeans [or other topic], Sun would like to make you aware of opportunities for bloggers at JavaOne in May. If you would like to know more, please e-mail me at ted_weismann@lpp.com. Thanks very much.
Comment by Ted — March 18, 2008 @ 9:09 pm |
Not just improved performance, the javascript editor is also pretty cool… I think netBeans 6.1 is an amazing IDE for all kinds of developers…
Comment by Saptarshi — March 19, 2008 @ 2:01 pm |
I use it for Ruby on Rails atm and i’m pretty happy with it. The cries of “Oh NETBEANS!” have decreased somewhat during the day. 😀
Comment by cassini — March 21, 2008 @ 9:14 pm |
Yes Netbeans 6.1 beta is d bomb. Keep up d good work guys. I posted this as soon as I got the IDE installed and tried my hands on a few things. http://ladokites.net/forum/index.php?topic=88.0
Comment by Don — March 27, 2008 @ 3:03 pm |
The windows style plugin update is really cool.
Comment by Karthikeyan — June 12, 2008 @ 11:04 am |