Borland comes out with JBuilder X, enhancing web development

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  1. Borland comes out with JBuilder X, enhancing web development (48 messages)

    • Posted by: Dion Almaer
    • Posted on: October 21 2003 13:43 EDT
    Borland has released JBuilder X (10). This updated tool adds a visual designer for Web application development (Struts), adds a drag-and-drop tools for building Web services applications, and adds support for JBoss Server. JBuilder X is bundled with the company's Optimizeit testing suite.

    JBuilder X Versions

    Enterprise
    JBuilder X Enterprise simplifies Web and EJB development with two-way visual designers and rapid deployment to J2EE application servers, innovative Struts and Web Services designers, and integrated performance tools

    Developer
    JBuilder X Developer puts power and control in your hands, with technologies for rapidly creating and deploying Web and database applications including, a full-featured yet nimble editor, Struts designer, advanced refactorings, unit testing, and team development support.

    Foundation
    JBuilder X Foundation is a free Java IDE that speeds development with an integrated editor, debugger, compiler, visual designers, wizards, refactorings, code formatting, and much more.

    WebLogic Edition
    Borland JBuilder X, WebLogic Edition is a tightly integrated development solution for speeding enterprise application development for Java with the market-leading JBuilder development environment on the industry-leading BEA WebLogic Platform.™

    News around the NET

    Borland looks to make Java Web-friendly

    Borland targets ease of use in next JBuilder Java IDE

    Borland Works To Evolve Java

    Borland Takes Wraps Off Significant Update To Java IDE

    See the JBuilder X home page


    NOTE: JetBrains have stated that they are working on a new tool to aid web development (which will consist of a tool + runtime)
    Reply to this

    Threaded Messages (48)

  2. Borland comes out with JBuilder X, enhancing web development[ Go to top ]

    I think the way that Borland pushes out new JBuilder versions will ultimately anger some customers. In today's world, who can afford to pay several thousand USD each 6 months to upgrade any IDE just for incremental new features? This will drive more people to Eclipse with its free plugins.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  3. Borland comes out with JBuilder X, enhancing web development[ Go to top ]

    Just because they ship a new product does not mean you have to buy it. Every year there are new cars, do you trade in your car?

    -Pete
    Reply to this Reply to original

  4. Borland comes out with JBuilder X, enhancing web development[ Go to top ]

    Just because they ship a new product does not mean you have to buy it. Every year there are new cars, do you trade in your car?

    Unfortunately, software business is not the same as car business. Have you heard of a "used software" market? In automative service business do you have something called "de-supported"?

    The mere fact that a version upgrade of JBuilder costs 2 grand is just ridiculous.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  5. Borland comes out with JBuilder X, enhancing web development[ Go to top ]

    JBuilder users will wish there was a "Used Software" business so they can get back some of their wasted money...

    not sure how these tools can compete with IntelliJ & Eclipse...
    based on cost, and even features still missing in JBuilder...
    Reply to this Reply to original

  6. JBuilder will lose customers[ Go to top ]

    THe last version of JBuilder we used was 6.0 because we were tired of paying every 6 months for an upgrade (to keep the support contract). We have been using Eclipse for over a year and this is something I do not regret.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  7. JBuilder Entreprise is a great tool![ Go to top ]

    JBuilder Entreprise is a great tool
    and I dont understand you, guys
    why you have always to underrate it.
    To keep pace with java world,
    it is not choking today, for me,
    to have a new version every year,
    even every 6 months (but I must say, I dont have to pay for my copy)

    IntelliJ is a great tool too and Eclipse also
    let them live altogether
    and dont always denigrate a tool
    because you dont work with
    Reply to this Reply to original

  8. JBuilder qualities[ Go to top ]

    Every IDE has some good and bad features; JBuilder is rather complete (some would say bloated) but its quality is far behind IntelliJ IDEA and Eclipse. The only strong point I find is the Swing GUI builder that uses just code without proprietary files, but it didn't evolve significantly between versions 5 and 9 and it still has file-corrupting bugs.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  9. JBuilder qualities[ Go to top ]

    JBuilder is rather complete (some would say bloated) but its quality is far behind IntelliJ IDEA and Eclipse.


    Please name three features that IDEA or Eclipse have or are implemented sinifically better and JBuilder 9/10 does not have or are implemented worse than in IDEA or Eclipse. It will be quite easy to do the oposite.

    Mileta
    Reply to this Reply to original

  10. JBuilder qualities[ Go to top ]

    Refactoring,
    Available Plugins,
    Size + Runtime speed,
    Cost

    both Eclipse + IntelliJ beat JBuilder in all of the above.

    -j
    Reply to this Reply to original

  11. JBuilder qualities[ Go to top ]

    Refactoring,


    JBuilder has refactoring support since version 6, and many new refactoring are added in version X. I can't try it as JBuilder X as it is not yet shipping, but looking at "what's new" it seems that JBuilder is catching IDEA and Eclipse in various refactorings support.

    >> Available Plugins,

    Literaly tons of free JBuilder Open Tools can be found at:
    http://codecentral.borland.com/codecentral/ccweb.exe/prodcat?prodid=3&catid=11
    Almost all comercial vendors has JBuilder plugins (OpenTools in JBuilder terminology) because JBuilder is, like it or not, market leading Java IDE.

    >> Size + Runtime speed,
    Many of JBuilder features are lazy loaded as needed. So if you are not using EJB or Swing GUI designer, classes that implement that support are not loaded. Sure, if you use many of JBuilder's features it will alocate a lot of memory.

    >> Cost
    This is the main IDEA and Eclipse advantage over JBuilder. Although JBuilder developer edition is a good move from Borland.

    And the three JBuilder strengths (over Eclipse and IDEA):
    - Project/Library management
    - Web, EJB, CORBA, RMI, DB development (support for various technologies like EJB designer, Web Container integration, IDL and RMI compilers and stub generators, Client side DB framework and Swing data-bound controls...)
    - GUI designer, Struts support

    Mileta
    Reply to this Reply to original

  12. Easy question[ Go to top ]

    For eclipse:
      - CVS integration (CVS server browsing, quick diff, CVS operations in background thread, CVS "Synchronize" view - eclipse is better than WinCVS),
      - Code Sense (does not get lost when there are many errors in file) & Code formatting (formats even Javadocs!),
      - Incremental compilation,
      -

    For new IDEA 4.0:
      - aspects & JDK 1.5 features (generics),
      - GUI builder that generates Swing/SWT UI (depends what you prefer, you may generate even both!)
      - "Substitute inheritance with delegation" refactoring
      - developers who really listen to what users want

    Of course, JBuilder has its strengths too, but the average "feature implementation quality" falls behind a lot. That means - if you have some feature implemented in all 3 tools, usually the JBuilder implementation is the most "non-intelligent" and buggy. After fighting with JBuilder 8&9 EJB designer randomly destroying my deployment descriptors sometimes because of bugs, I will never use the tool back. It does not deserve it.

    Regards,
    P
    Reply to this Reply to original

  13. JBuilder qualities[ Go to top ]

    Every IDE has some good and bad features; JBuilder is rather complete (some would say bloated) but its quality is far behind IntelliJ IDEA and Eclipse. The only strong point I find is the Swing GUI builder that uses just code without proprietary files, but it didn't evolve significantly between versions 5 and 9 and it still has file-corrupting bugs.


    I would think if they are at major version 10 and still have a product with these kind of problems they deserve to have people abandon ship. When I started with Java a couple year ago, I tried the eval of JBuilder6 and when I couldn't auto format my code I quit right there. I'm using netbeans now and am very happy.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  14. JBuilder's IDE is built in Swing (SLOW!!!)[ Go to top ]

    I've been using JBuilder Studio (JBuilder 6) for the past 2 years. The only thing I hate about it is that the IDE is built with Swing, which makes it so very slow. Sometimes it can take 30-45 seconds for a menu or pop-up menu to display, it's nuts! I remember the days of JBuilder 3, which did not use Swing, and man! that thing was fast!

    What's IntelliJ? I've never heard of it. Is it built on Swing? If not, I just might download it!

    sf
    Reply to this Reply to original

  15. JBuilder's IDE is built in Swing (SLOW!!!)[ Go to top ]

    IDEA (IntelliJ) is written in Swing but very very well, you would not think it to be a swing app
    Reply to this Reply to original

  16. Borland comes out with JBuilder X, enhancing web development[ Go to top ]

    Just because they ship a new product does not mean you have to buy it. Every year there are new cars, do you trade in your car?

    >
    > Unfortunately, software business is not the same as car business. Have you heard of a "used software" market? In automative service business do you have something called "de-supported"?
    >

    Yes and yes. I have had cars that became 'unsupported' by the dealer in that parts were no longer available from them.

    And I've seen used software sections in local bookstores - that's nothing new either.

    > The mere fact that a version upgrade of JBuilder costs 2 grand is just ridiculous.

    Why? I'd rather pay the 2k than spend countless hours trying to clue together a 'workalike' in Eclipse...!

    I swear sometimes I think the only reason anyone *likes* Eclipse is because it's free. I'll bet tomorrow if you had to pay 2k for it you'd be singing a very different song.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  17. Borland comes out with JBuilder X, enhancing web development[ Go to top ]

    Why? I'd rather pay the 2k than spend countless hours trying to clue together a 'workalike' in Eclipse...!

    I bet its not you who pays for it though.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  18. JBuilder is the best but..[ Go to top ]

    JBuilder X is not backward compatible. If you start playing with JBuilder X and you use EJBs, they wont work in JBuilder 9, 8 or 7. I believe that JBuilder X is a great upgrade from 9 but careful making any assumptions that you can use both 9 & X at the same time.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  19. Re: upgrade costs[ Go to top ]

    Eric,

    That's why Borland has a software assurance policy, whereby customers buy software assurance for a product for an 'x' period of time and receive all updates/newer versions of the product released within that 'x' period free of cost.

    For example, if you bought software assurance for JBuilder for an 18 month period and Borland released 3 versions of JBuilder in that timeframe, you'd receive those versions without having to pay for upgrades.

    Also, the Java technology world is evolving fast, and JBuilder attempts to keep up to date with the latest versions of these technologies as well. For example, if you take a look at AppServers supported by JBuilder, you'd find the most recent versions of products from vendors like Borland (no surprise), BEA, IBM, Sybase. You'd also find support for the latest Struts version, as well as the latest shipping JDK to name a few. If we were to release a JBuilder version once a year or once in two years, I'm sure you'd complain that Borland was falling behind on times and technology.

    -krish
    Borland
    Reply to this Reply to original

  20. Re: upgrade costs[ Go to top ]

    customers buy software assurance for a product for an 'x' period of time and receive all updates/newer versions of the product released within that 'x' period free of cost.


    Doesn't sound very "free of cost" to me if you have to pay for it.

    And if you buy this "software assurance" for 'x' months and there are no upgrades during that time, do you get your money back or have you paid for nothing?
    Reply to this Reply to original

  21. most recent versions of products from vendors ?[ Go to top ]

    Kirsh,

    AFAIK, there is no suppport for Tomcat 5 in Jbuilder 8/9 so do we have to upgrade to JBuilder X or hope someone writes an Open Tool for that?

    Adnaan.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  22. most recent versions of products from vendors ?[ Go to top ]

    As JBuilder X will be shipping before official release of J2EE 1.4 I doubt there is support for Tomcat 5 in JBuilder X.

    But, as Tomcat web container support has been reengeneered (opened) in JBuilder 8/9/X, I suppose it will not be hard to develop (extend existing) Open Tool for Tomcat 5. If I will need to use Tomcat 5 before JBuilder 11 (or JBuilder X 2.0, ;) ) ships (taking into account recent JBuilder releases that would be in June 2004), I will write one myself.

    Mileta
    Reply to this Reply to original

  23. Upgrades cost too much.[ Go to top ]

    I agree with Eric Ma that its not a good practice considering the amount of money Borland charges for upgrades. We have 10 developers using JBuilder 8/9 in our company and some of them have already switched over to Eclipse.

    I don't think we will be upgrading to JBuilder X and any other version of JBuilder. This is were we will probably jump off the JBuilder bandwagon and onto Eclipse's bandwagon.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  24. Eclipse and the MyEclipseIDE[ Go to top ]

    compare those thousands with the $29 for the myEclipseIDE plugin ..its really really worth it! atleast i have seen my productivity improve!
    Reply to this Reply to original

  25. Borland comes out with JBuilder X, enhancing web development[ Go to top ]

    The JBuilder foundation version is free. You can always have a try on this.
    Yes, foundation version lacks some important feature like team develpment support, but at least you have a familiar IDE if you are a Borland user. And you can always found some opentools to cover this.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  26. Borland comes out with JBuilder X, enhancing web development[ Go to top ]

    The JBuilder foundation version is free. You can always have a try on this.


    Looks like they have added ant support into the foundation version (minus some minor functionality) - this changes the equation for me - the foundation version in prior editions wasn't worth looking at without this.

    On the whole, in many of the projects I have been involved in recently with medium/largish teams, we tend to turn off many of the IDE bells and whistles (which are oriented towards individual productivity) and use ant to call other open source add-ons, such as testing/metrics/style/generation tools (which can be oriented towards team productivity). So all we need for most developers is a good text editor - though we like intelligent color, syntax checking and autocompletion.

    With this in mind, we might now be able to have teams where some are using foundation and a smaller number having e.g. enterprise versions. This would probably be an attractive proposition. Requiring everyone to have enterprise when we were relying more on open source tools than its features hasn't looked as attractive for a little while. This puts JBuilder back in the same ballpark as shared Eclipse/WSAD environments and other "almost free" alternatives like JDeveloper 9.0.5 and WebLogic Workshop (which we are very impressed with).
    Reply to this Reply to original

  27. Borland comes out with JBuilder X, enhancing web development[ Go to top ]

    sure a familiar interface. but then you're tied into the borland vendor. your skills to an employer are automatically going to cost them 5k per year for licensing fees for a nice familiar interface. i was once a borland user 5-6, but have since moved on to both nb and eclipse. yes, because they're free, and they're better than notepad/textedit. they give me the featues a java developer finds productive.

    if i'm deploying j2ee components, i'd better learn how to build and deploy those components outside of an ide so i can automate the process. i can't speak to gui development, except i know that nb does kinda lock you into their gui builder, perhaps jbuilder does as well.

    i have a sealed box of jbuilder 9 sitting here on my file cabinet that was never opened. some phb decided that the whole department needed to be on jbuilder9 so they bought enterprise licenses for everyone. trouble was we had 512 mb ram and were also running local weblogic servers. we learned eclipse or something else (textedit for some, intelij trial for others. the jbuilder9 boxes make for nice book ends, but i don't have time or a need to really open it.

    from a management perspective, would you rather see eclipse or jbuilder on a resume? weblogic, jboss, or your specific app server?
    Reply to this Reply to original

  28. Borland Money Machine[ Go to top ]

    I too was a loyal JBuilder fan. And here's what turned me away. We paid I think it was $1,000/year for a subscription to get all updates. But the problem is Borland doesn't release minor updates. There was one bug where the debugger didn't display the current line in an EJB during debugging, rendering the debugger useless. It was reported by several users and Borland never fixed it in an update. Instead they released a new release with an incremented version number and asked their customers to pay for the upgrade to the next version! That was the last straw for me. I switched to Eclipse and haven't looked back. I mainly work as a consultant now and using Eclipse for free is a big advantage for me. How can I recommend a client purchase JBuilder? I honestly can't. When businesses abuse their customers, I don't feel sorry for them at all when they lose business to open source.

    Michael
    Reply to this Reply to original

  29. What's happened to TOGETHER?[ Go to top ]

    Have they abandoned it? Current Together Integration is through sharing files on the file system! They have released a Together plug-in for Eclipse before their own IDE so perhaps they are trying to tell us something.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  30. i think[ Go to top ]

    Borland's been pretty smart .. the only way they can compete with such a big codebase is by going the "incremental release" route to compete with the functionality of Eclipse and IDEA.

    I used JBuilder 9 recently and was pleasantly surprised, it had many of the features of those IDE's. They are catching up, and they're not playing the Not Invented Here game. And they still have the best (only??) Swing GUI painting tool in the Java IDE world.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  31. i think[ Go to top ]

    And they still have the best (only??) Swing GUI painting tool in the Java IDE world.


    BTW a Swing GUI painting tool is available in IDEA 4.0
    Reply to this Reply to original

  32. i think[ Go to top ]

    I will have to push for NetBeans Swing UI generator-tool here.
    I personally use pretty "bare-bones" tools for everyday development (Jedit and Ant), but whenever I have to do Swing stuff, its NetBeans.

    I think NetBeans has the best UI tool I have seen so far. Mind you, I havent seen JBuilders tools for a few years, they might have progressed, but back a few years ago they were luosy compared to Netbeans.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  33. RE: I Think[ Go to top ]

    And they still have the best (only??) Swing GUI painting tool in the Java IDE world.


    Oracle JDeveloper also has a Swing GUI editor.
    But going one step beyond what Borland offers the new version also has a GUI editor for JSP/HTML applications that also lets you drag and drop data binding into your pages. (they also have a Struts gui editor and XML Schemas gui editor)
    Have a look here:
    http://otn.oracle.com/products/jdev/viewlets/905p_adf_jspbc/ADFBC_JSP_viewlet_swf.html

    Or just download the Oracle JDeveloper 10g preview and try for yourself
    http://otn.oracle.com/products/jdev
    Reply to this Reply to original

  34. ..too bad (?)[ Go to top ]

    Can't find a linux version to download.. is there one?
    Reply to this Reply to original

  35. it is not available yet[ Go to top ]

    I think that JBuilder X is not available yet so probably you should have to wait until it is finally realsed.

    Doychin
    Reply to this Reply to original

  36. Better deals possible[ Go to top ]

    Talk to your Borland sales contact if you want better upgrade deals. No one really has to pay the list prices unless its a first-time or small/single customer.

    By the way, does JBuilder X already ship? Doesn't think so.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  37. JBuilder as a tool[ Go to top ]

    I worked with IBM VisualAge/WebSphere Studio, Oracle JDeveloper,
    Sun Forte/SunOne Studio (2002 versions) and then I tried JBuilder 6.

    JBuilder exceeded my expectations, so I switched to it. From my experience,
    quality is exactly the area where JBuilder excels. This is the tool I can rely
    on to meet deadlines. Integrated OptimizeIt Suit (profiler, thread debugger),
    and Together modeling tool make the entire development cycle very efficient.

    But don't get me wrong. If you find other tools to suite your needs better, I
    won't try to sell you this particular IDE. As with any other piece of software,
    comparison doesn't make much sense without considering the development
    environment in your company and specific requirements of your current project.
    If your company standardize on XYZ solutions, then XYZ will make it easier to
    work with their tools then with the tools of their competitors. For example
    Oracle JDeveloper has many built-in features oriented toward the Oracle
    application server, database, and their technologies (web cache, portal, O/R
    mapping tool).

    But even feature-wise comparison must be interesting. How many other Java IDEs
    have built-in support for Apache Axis, SOAP, UDDI, Apache Coocon, Struts,
    Rational ClearCase, CORBA, unit testing, performance analysis with profiler,
    latest versions of WebLogic, WebSphere, SunOne, Sybase on the level of JBuilder?
    And you don't have to build it from source to get the features working :)

    Open-source tools are great and I am a big fan of Eclipse, but productivity-wise
    I rarely get a week to get the configuration I need. We often talk that we need
    tools and libraries that are developer-oriented and make life easier, implying
    that open-source tools are already there by definition (developed by developers
    for developers). In my experience though, open-source tools can be very
    frustrating to work with and often it is not related to quality of the product
    but to the quality of documentation.

    Price. In my case company bought it, and compared to other company's expenses,
    the price must be negligible. Especially if we take in consideration the
    projects that have been completed using the tool.

    Another plus of JBuilder is the extensive Help, which includes numerous sample
    applications with the source code, such as for XML-Java and XML-database
    integration. For novice users there are plenty of tutorials that cover not only
    the IDE but J2SE and J2EE in an insightful manner.

    Wow, looks like I marketing something, he-he... I dont' work for borland.
    and I know the JBuilder's weaknesses, just could not understand the prejudice.

    Take care,

    Valeri
    Reply to this Reply to original

  38. Just RAVE can save me[ Go to top ]

    Let’s put our hypocrisy apart. Being a big JBuilder fan since it’s first version and agreeing that the superiority of J2EE is unquestionable, I just wanna point that VS.NET, specially the WebForms Designer, is a great productivity tool for the web.

    I was expecting that JBuilder would include a feature like “WebForms” or similar, one of the promises of project Rave: (http://wwws.sun.com/software/products/projectrave/index.html).

    Unfortunately I’ve noticed that many customers, in order to increase developer productivity, are choosing these weak but fast web dev. tools than a powerful, scalable and time consuming development tool.

    LB
    Reply to this Reply to original

  39. Just RAVE can save me[ Go to top ]

    RAVE the replica of VS.Net. They may even be using the same icon set from microsoft.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  40. Opinion of JBuilder from user[ Go to top ]

    I've been using JBuilder for EJB development over the pass 3 years - started with version 6, currently on version 7, about to move to version 9 (unless X arrives in the mail soon - we have a subscription).

    I've always viewed JBuilder as a very feature rich IDE - terrific for developing Enterprise applications. However, I have to agree that quality is certainly an issue. JB6 was horrible - EJB Designer was riddled with bugs in generating deployment descriptors and duplicating methods in the bean classes, EAR file generation/VSS integration/remote debugging would all crash the IDE. JB7 still did not correct the duplicating methods problem and still had problems with VSS and remote debugging and introduce problems with integrating with Tomcat. I can only hope these bugs were fixed in version 9.

    Half of our team opted for Eclipse after a few months. I may find myself joining that group once the EJB-plugins have been enhanced. Borland has to learn to fix problems on their current versions first before attempting to release new versions with a bunch of new features. I suppose bragging about new features helps their bottomline but it certainly doesn't help retain existing customers.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  41. Re: Opinion of JBuilder from user[ Go to top ]

    Let me chime in here, as a long-time JBuilder user. I've been using JBuilder since version 4. Basically, as soon as it started being usable. At the time, it was hands-down better than the competition in my opinon (Visual Cafe, VisualAge, etc.). I've been happy enough with it to stick with it throughout the years, and having just upgraded from version 7 to version 9, I'm very happy with it.

    Perhaps I'm a different beast, but I don't like to spend a lot of time installing a lot of stuff just to get a useable IDE. JBuilder provides a lot of bang right out of the box. I think the 6-month product lifecycle is a little annoying from an upgrade standpoint (perhaps the pricing model should change for releases in the same year), but it really is the only way they can stay competitive in the fuild Java IDE marketplace -- things just move so fast. Just because they release a new IDE doesn't mean you have to upgrade. Larger companies can still upgrade just once a year.

    As far as quality is concerned, I think it depends on where you're using the tool. I haven't used it for a lot of EJB (which seems to be its weakest point), so I haven't noticed a lot of issues. I've found it quite stable, as a matter of fact. I played with IDEA and Eclipse, and out of the box, I didn't really find a compelling reason to switch to them. (Don't worry, I'm not clueless about the power of the Eclipse platform, and the number of plug-ins. I'm talking about out-of-the-box functionality).

    I'd like to make another point about pricing. I think Borland has two main groups of developers -- independent developers and large corporations. For the former group, hopefully the Foundation version will help them re-gain a hold. For the latter group, the $2K+ price-point is the norm. In this space, they're not competing against Eclpise or IDEA, but rather IBM and Oracle. (Remember, WSAD adds a lot of extra features to Eclpise right out of the box).

    Anyway, that's my two cents. I've been a Borland fan since the late 80's, and I think really understand developers and put out quality products.

    Kito D. Mann
    Author, JSF in Action
    http://www.JSFCentral.com - JSF FAQ, news, and info
    Reply to this Reply to original

  42. Re: Opinion of JBuilder from user[ Go to top ]

    "As far as quality is concerned, I think it depends on where you're using the tool. I haven't used it for a lot of EJB (which seems to be its weakest point)"


    EJB weakest point? I don't think so, JBuilder has great support for J2EE development and no other IDE even comes close. I've been using JBuilder for J2EE development for the last two years with projects having 200+ Entity beans with no problems. You see, unlike many here, I do know how to use EJBs. Also, I know when not to use EJBs as well - life is good and JDO, custom DAOs, Hibernate, Toplink, etc. whatever can work given the "Business" requirements.

    JBuilder has many price points, Personal (Free) to JBuilder Together (Expensive) edition, so pick your point and be happy. You also have to put a value on your time. For example, if you make $5/hour creating applet dialog boxes, then JBuilder Enterprise is not for you. If you make $100/hour creating enterprise critical systems then JBuilder Personal is not for you...

    I always take time to surrey other IDEs just to make sure Borland is not slacking off, also I owe it to my clients to make sure I have the right tool for the job.

    Borland keeps winning my votes with every product release.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  43. Re: Opinion of JBuilder from user[ Go to top ]

    EJB weakest point? I don't think so, JBuilder has great support for J2EE development and no other IDE even comes close. I've been using JBuilder for J2EE development for the last two years with projects having 200+ Entity beans with no problems.


    Hey, I was only referring to other people's comments :-). I have no comment on their EJB support, and I have only high praise of their other feature-sets. And, isn't the UML tab a great feature? You can pick any class and get a UML class diagram, which can be really helpful when you're foraging through someone else's code.

    Kito D. Mann
    Author, JSF in Action
    http://www.JSFCentral.com - JSF FAQ, news, and info
    Reply to this Reply to original

  44. The most significant release of the product in over two years[ Go to top ]

    "The most significant release of the product in over two years"

    Does this mean that customers have been over charged for the last 2 years which equates in Borland product cycle time as 4 releases, yes, JBuilder 6, probably the worst release ever.

    I have worked with Borland tools (TurboPascal, C++, Delphi, IntraBuilder, VisiBroker, AppServer, JBuilder) since I left college, a long time ago, so I might have a good idea of what represents a good release. I should also point out that I worked for Borland for 3 years as their J2EE/EJB evangelist and performance consultant.

    I stop loving JBuilder after release 5 and was fortunate to be able to stop using the product after JBuilder 6 -> 7 (beta). I now use IntelliJ and sometimes Eclipse when onsite with IBM customers. For J2EE development JBuilder ** had ** an edge but that does not necessarily mean the product was fit for use - it was the best of a bad bunch.

    Maybe JBuilder X is a good release but after so many poor releases I simply have not got the stomach to pay or even use the product. I have had access (freely) to releases up to version 9 and though I installed them I never ran them up for my own development work. It has taken Borland a long time to recognize that design (emotional and technical) play a important part in product development. Meeting some feature list with basic implementations just don't cut it anymore when there is competition from companies such as JetBrains.

    This release is probably too little, too late but I will reserve final judgement when it is available for trial use, though I suspect I won't be changing my favourite Java IDE, IntelliJ IDEA, for sometime yet.

    By the way has anybody tried out their C++Builder X tool - its based on JBuilder primetime.


    All the best,

    William Louth
    JDBInsight Product Architect
    JInspired


    PS: I hope the lack of official AspectJ support in IntelliJ 4.0 does not indicate they are losing steam.
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  45. Just RAVE can save me[ Go to top ]

    Which is a good thing, it's been 10 months since I started using VS.NET and it's a great tool. If they copy it, I'll finally have a strong argument to convince those who just want to develop fast. May be I'll bring them back to the java universe .


    LB
    > RAVE the replica of VS.Net. They may even be using the same icon set from microsoft.
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  46. Web development for JBuilder[ Go to top ]

    Well web development is not that dificult for JBuilder anymore since we have IntraWeb for JBuilder. Some of you core Java fans does noto know what is this and never heard of it but some will already know about it especialy those who coome from Delphi world.

    Yes, tehre is Java based web development tool that uses RAD technology to create web pages.

    You can find it here:

    http://www.atozed.com/IntraWeb/intros/java.iwp

    Probably some of you will say that I'm suggesting commercial product over open source technologies but it is up to you to decide which is easyer to use.

    Doychin
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  47. JBuilder / Together Control Center Upgrades[ Go to top ]

    I have the same problem some of the others mentioned, I became tired of paying for upgrades even though I really like JBuilder. I also have purchased Together Control Center prior to Borland's aquisition and havn't received any answers from Borland regarding a plan to keep customers who have invested in both products in the past.

    Any suggestions or updates would be appreciated.

    Rob

    PS: I'm enjoying Eclipse!!
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  48. Eclipse consortium, Borland[ Go to top ]

    Borland is a member of the Eclipse consortium:

    http://www.eclipse.org/org/index.html

    Is Borland actively participating in Eclipse?
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  49. JBuilder Critisism[ Go to top ]

    I am a Senior Java Architect at a Large Insurance Company.We went through several evaluations and came to the conclusion that Jbuilder was the Best Product on the market in terms of support/familiarity/productivity and
    a host of other features.Together J was overall the best tool and Eclipse
    was not Far behind but Large enterprises like Stability and Borland
    was the most Stable company to procure from.I also critisize their release
    strategy cause we have version 7,8,9 in the company but it is great to know
    that they are forward and backward compatible ...projects from 9 can be opened
    in 7 and even missing libraries can be added in.Keep up the good work Borland.
    Reply to this Reply to original