I used to eat beans, but the moon now shines more bright

Last updated on 2019-10-30

You are probably wondering what the hell I’m talking about. Well, I’ve switched to eclipse after using netbeans for the last 5-6 years. I liked using netbeans for a number of reasons:

1. It is pure java, no SWT, no bananas, no nothing. I was a purist once, but I guess growing older makes you more pragmatic.
2. It has a great GUI builder, which I used a number of times in personal apps.
3. It comes with all of the software you need for developing JEE, Web Services, Database. No need for plugins, configuration, etc. Just install and it works.

But oh, netbeans is HEAVY, sometimes the editor just gets stuck for a number of minutes and there is nothing you can do. And this is with while developing personal applications, just 5-6 editors open.

Last year I had to use eclipse at work (the project I was working on had to be developed inside eclipse), and I started to like it and learned enough so the fear of installing external plugins to make the platform work started to fade away. But I was still missing the lovely netbeans GUI builder…

And along came google and developed WindowBuilder, an eclipse plugin GUI designer that supports Swing, SWT and GWT (whatever that is, but I will probably learn in the close future). It is NICE. How long was this hiding on the internet before I found it???.

So I have said goodbye netbeans… and hello eclipse!.