A good text editor for JAVA?

[mitcheroo]

What is a good text-editor for the begining programmer in Java?

 

[oulan bator]

eclipse is a good text editor (IMHO the best) but its much more than a
text editor, and it can be hard for a beginner. Have a look to JText,
and JPadPro

 

[mitcheroo]

Researching JText, I am seeing a lot of references to the Ericsson P800
(a cell phone?). But is JText still good for plain old Java
programming?

 

[Knute Johnson]

What is a good text-editor for the begining programmer in Java?

VIM - http://www.vim.org/

 

[mrandywarner]

Use eclipse. Best java IDE you can get, and it's free.

http://eclipse.org/

 

[Roedy Green]

What is a good text-editor for the begining programmer in Java?

see http://mindprod.com/jgloss/ide.html
http://mindprod.com/jgloss/editor.html

 

[Daniel Dyer]

Use eclipse. Best java IDE you can get, and it's free.

That would be a matter of opinion. In mine, IntelliJ IDEA is the best
(though not free). Eclipse may be powerful but it is not particularly
intuitive and not really a good choice for a beginner. In fact, I would
recommend anything other than Eclipse for a beginner (I guess I just
started a flame war there). BlueJ is apparently a very good IDE for
beginners. But since the original poster mentioned a text editor, they
should probably look at something like JEdit or, for something smaller and
faster, J (http://armedbear-j.sourceforge.net). An IDE is most useful
once you know enough about the language to understand what it is that the
IDE is doing for you.

Dan.

 

[Paul Tomblin]

VIM - http://www.vim.org/

Darn, you beat me to it. Don't forget to turn on smart indenting ("set
si") and syntax highlighting ("syntax on"), and use ctags to generate
cross references.
http://ctags.sourceforge.net/

 

[Daniel Dyer]

Darn, you beat me to it. Don't forget to turn on smart indenting ("set
si") and syntax highlighting ("syntax on"), and use ctags to generate
cross references.
http://ctags.sourceforge.net/

VIM is only good for a beginner programmer if the they already knows how
to use it. Otherwise they're going to fighting their editor as well as
the compiler.

Dan.

 

[Paul Tomblin]

VIM is only good for a beginner programmer if the they already knows how
to use it. Otherwise they're going to fighting their editor as well as
the compiler.

Every editor has a learning curve. The important thing is whether it
flattens out before you do.

I've been using vi and now vim for 20 years now, and I've tried lots of
others, and none is anywhere near powerful and flexible enough for me.
(Ok, confession, I never learned emacs because 20 years ago you couldn't
count on it being on the computer, and when you had 8 people sharing a
MicroVax GPX, we'd get pretty damn upset when somebody fired up emacs.)
Even more importantly for me, it's one of the few editors you can use
without moving your hands off the home row of the keyboard, so it doesn't
promote carpal tunnel syndrome.

 

[zero]

What is a good text-editor for the begining programmer in Java?

If you want just an editor, and not an IDE, try TextPad. IMO when you're
just starting to learn, you shouldn't have automatic code-completion and
other fancy stuff. Just code highlighting and automatic indentation is all
you need - it will force you to actually think about what you are writing,
instead of relying on the IDE to write code for you.

Basically anything that has code highlighting and adjustable indentation
will do - I just happen to like TextPad.

http://www.textpad.com/

 

[Oliver Wong]

What is a good text-editor for the begining programmer in Java?

jEdit is free (both as in beer and Freedom), has a good plugin system,
but is a bit slow.

TextPad is shareware, doesn't have such a good plugin system, but is
fast.

http://www.jedit.org/

http://www.textpad.com/

Hopefully you'll be able to figure out which link goes to which editor.

- Oliver

 

[Jeffrey Schwab]

VIM - http://www.vim.org/

I second that, but the OP should be aware that several days of use will
be required before Vim becomes more productive than more intuitive editors.

I used XEmacs for four years, with a fair amount of customization. More
recently, I tried Eclipse for about three months. I always come back to
Vim. It just gets more rewarding all the time.

In fact, this discussion has inspired me: I think I'm finally going to
give some money to those kids in Uganda!

:help uganda

 

[Thomas Kellerer]

mitcheroo wrote on 29.11.2005 17:53:

What is a good text-editor for the begining programmer in Java?

http://www.pspad.com/

Not only syntax highlighting but built in Code-Explorer to show you the
structure (== methodes) of your classes (and XML files, and SQL files
and HTML files, ...)

And it's free as well.

Thomas

 

[cbroussard]

i second that on Textpad, if you're looking for an IDE eclipse.

http://www.binaryfrost.com

 

[Patrick May]

What is a good text-editor for the begining programmer in Java?

I sat on my hands for most of this thread, but now that the vi
heads have fired the first shot, I'm morally obligated to encourage
the use of Emacs (http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs.html).
Combined with JDEE (http://jdee.sunsite.dk/) it's the best Java
development environment available (add the Emacs Code Browser if you
must).

Regards,

Patrick

 

[abrasivesponge]

What is a good text-editor for the begining programmer in Java?

Enough of this love of Eclipse....
NetBeans kicks ass.

 

[Thomas Kellerer]

Enough of this love of Eclipse....
NetBeans kicks ass.

<flame>

I agree, especially when it comes to developing web applications. I
tried Eclispe some weeks ago, and after downloading about 100 MB and
Eclispe tried to download another 90 MB just to get JSP and J2EE support
(through the update mechanism). I don't know whether that had included
code completion for XML files, HTML and custom tag libraries or support
for WebService because the download failed over and over again. I
couldn't find a description of the modules, whether they also include
support for frameworks like JSF and Struts or support WebServices
development or EJB stuff. And I forgot: I have to download the GUI
editor separately as well, still not included in the nearly 200 MB I
downloaded.

The whole NB download is only 50 MB and includes all that already.
Setting up a Web-App is a matter of seconds after extracting the archive.

</flame>

 

[abrasivesponge]

I wouldn't consider that a flame just a good comparison. I want to
agree with you that the XML file editing and code completion works very
well on NetBeans.

 

[Scott Smith]

eclipse is a good text editor (IMHO the best) but its much more than a
text editor, and it can be hard for a beginner. Have a look to JText,
and JPadPro

JPadPro really sucks hard. Don't use it. Makes the transition to a real
IDE more difficult later. Like you need another opinion.

Zero made the point the earlier that you should use a regular editor. I
like his reasoning.

However it probably wouldn't hurt to use a professional IDE right
from the start. IntelliJ IDEA if you don't mind paying, Eclipse,
NetBeans, or even JBuilder from Borland are all good IDE's. I personally
use Eclipse. These are worth the effort to learn about. Don't learn a
new editor unless you want to. I love vi but would never advocate it to
someone who isn't motivated to learn it. Not worth the effort when you're
learning a new programming language unless you really want to learn vi.

You should have a pretty good idea and you can't go wrong with any of the
these IDEs I mentioned. What you use is a matter of preference... you'll
prefer what you're used to. Happy coding.