Editor’s for a Java Developer…..

This is a blog for Java Developers,i say this because today i come up with some java editors which are very useful while development,among these are NetBeans , Eclipse , Idea , Jcreator,JEdit..etc. Well lets discuss one by one… with there some pros and cons.

• NetBeans of Sun Microsystems, Inc.:-
  Well hope most of the developers are using this editor for writing there java code.NetBeans is developed by very well know corporation i.e Sun Microsystems who is the founder of Java.So here are some feature which is got .
  

  Pros:-

  • Very well designed.
  • Developer friendly,like while coding you can see all the methods of that class,you can do multiple projects ,so on.
  • Easy for a new learner.
  • Trade Mark, developed by very well known Organization.So its prefered by most.
  • Its free.
  • You can run it along with your working environment so you can see all dynamic variable and its values which is very very helpful while debugging.
  • Supports other developments too like c,c++ etc.
    for full features click here.
    

    Cons:-

    • Takes much memory while running, specially when you add new Jars.
    • Only can be used as Java editor , which is a great drawback.Download…

• Eclipse:-
  Eclipse is developed my Eclipse Foundation which was created by IBM on Nov 2001. Its a open source community which provide services like IT Infrastructure ,IP Management,Development Process & Ecosystem Development.Lets discuss the pros and cons….

  Pros:-
  1.Almost same as NetBeans,like cvs commits,Seeing the methods of classes,..etc.
  2.Easy to make projects.
  3.Developer friendly.
  5.Being open source its to free.

  Cons:-
  1.Only available for java, not for JSP , JS ets.
  2.Takes more memory as NetBeans do.
  3.New Features are available as plugins.Download…..

• JCreator:-
  This IDE is developed by a Netherlands based company Xinox Software.Well JCreator is very easy to use and a bit quick than above IDE’s.

  Pros:-
  1.Simply a best IDE for the beginners easy to use and handle.
  2.It uses less run time memory compare to above IDE’s.
  3.Easy to make CVS checkin’s , checkouts.
  4.Supports JSP,XML’s editor too.
  5.The UI is kool.
  Full features list…here.

  Cons:-
  1.Less featured.
  2.The Documentation is not that much detailed.
  3.Its a paid.Download..

• JEdit:-
  JEdit is a programmer’s Text editor.I am presently using it . so lets discuss as a points about it.The core of jEdit was originally by Slava Pestov.

  Pros:-
  1.As it was developed in java it supports most of operating systems.
  2.They supports nearly 130 files…. JSP,JHTML,JAVA,JS….. so on. Really cool na.
  3.If you are too intelligent then you can create your own plugins.Already they support to the most.
  4.Being open source community we can expect large development in it as FireFox browser is.
  5.You can easily make short cut keys for all operations which are configurable.
  6.You can directly see all your server outputs as a log files in this creator.
  7.Took less memory in run time environment.
  And a list of features they provide you can see here.

  Cons:-
  1.The UI is some what dull.
  2.Very hard to configure.
  3.Not fully documented.So a bit complicated to install.Download….

So being a developer i used only these IDE’s,simply because they are free of cost except Jcreator i tested its free version.There are lot more IDE’s like Idea,MyEclipse which comes as paid so you can test those as they give 30 days trial version.Presently most of the people uses Netbeans and eclipse in my organization.So based on this we can say that most of the people uses Netbeans. If any of you have used any other editors please let me know.Hope this information is some what useful for you people.

JavaScript :-a tough job is to understand it.

Well when i was new to programming side the most difficult thing I face is the JavaScript. I developed a feature for the first time in my product then while testing testers came across some JS errors , they(testers) simply say your feature is a a bug to a user of our product,this make me so disappointed such that it make me think did i did coding any coding.This makes a great disgrace to a new beginners .

Actually Js errors occur specially when our browser is IE,where you cannot find at which place you got the error it simply say the line number.Well here are some tools and tips which may help you to debug a JavaScript.

TOOLS

• Have some JS tools like FireBug,Visual Studio,and many more:-
  

  We should be thankful to Joe Hewetti who has developed the firebug.This is the Ultimate tool which most of the client side developer use at present.Here you can see all HTML,JavaScript,CSS,Ajax requests, many more.Well even you can modify all this dynamically and see all changes directly in your browser.Well when ever you get any JS error this tool show in which is the place in a particular JS file.Firebug is a free tool and you can get it here.The only restriction to it is ,it comes as a plug-in for Mozilla Firefox only.Here is more tool for IE JavaScript Editor pro. & DebugBar.
  I don’t know about Microsoft Visual Studio as it is paid so I never tried for it.If any of you know about your reviews are welcomed.

• JS beautify for seeing compressed JS:-
  

  In most of the web based product all JS ,CSS codes are kept in a compressed format , in order to understand such a critical code. So to make such compressed code to readable format you can use an online tool Beautify.js.

TIPS-(Things i consider while writing a JS pro.)

• Test in IE:-When ever you are building a feature please test it in IE first because in todays world most of the people uses IE, and if there is no issues coming in IE means it will work almost in all browsers (in most of the scenarios).So always test in IE.If any JS issues occur use your Visual Studio to catch exact location of the issue or if you don’t have Visual Studio ,do the same operation with FireFox browser having installed with firebug now you can catch the JS issue form where its coming from.
• Putting alert():- The easy and widely used way of debugging a js is putting alert() function.Well this is used to know exactly the flow and in what way variables are coming into a function.Well one should keep in mind to not to put a alert in a unterminated loop.If you do so means alerts coming will never end and you have to kill that instance of browser.Mostly errors occur when we make any script operation on a variable which is a null ,so from this that we should make alert of variable’s before making any script operation.
  In some cases if JS is return in separate JS file and you forget to include that JS in a particular JSP, or HTML file it will throw function not found JS error.
• Make unique name to your JS functions:-While creating a new JS function keep in mind that the name should be unique so that it won’t get clashed to other JS function and there is a chance that you might not get expected result.
• Don’t make your functions too big instead divide it into small functions, this increases readability and easy to debug of your code.
• Never write JavaScript code inside a jsp/html file.As every byte of code we push for a request is costly in terms of performance.Try to move JavaScript functions to a separate JS files.
• After doing all JS related coding make it in a compressed format which is very important in case of performance.
• If you come across any error which is very unknown to you then don’t worry Google is there .Even not possible get a help from senior developers.write down such problem[in a blog or answer for similer Q] so that you can help other people who come across such problem.

Well thats it this are few which i follow while going through JS.There is a beautiful blog for JavaScript tools and tips by HR Cerqueira where you can get code for various JS tools like creating calendar,fading text.. etc.Hope this will help you to some extend.