The JavaOne fun is about to begin. Attendees at this year's JavaOne show in San Francisco will be the first to see JetBrains, Inc.'s IntelliJ IDEA 4.5, as well as JetBrains Fabrique, a Rapid Application Development framework for creating custom Web and enterprise applications.

New Features

IntelliJ IDEA 4.5 features more than 200 code inspections and improved on-the-fly code analysis capabilities. IntelliJ IDEA 4.5 also introduces other new and extended coding features, including Locate Duplicates and Analyze Dependencies, and a user Productivity Guide. The new functionalities prevent introduction of errors into application development and not only help developers put code on the coding canvas faster, but evaluate what the developer is adding and suggest ways to optimize how it is written. A complete list of new features and benefits is available at www.jetbrains.com/idea.

Read more in JavaOne Attendees to Get IntelliJ IDEA 4.5 Eval Copy and JetBrains Preview

No matter how cheap Eclipse is this is definitely the IDE to go for. Unless you're really hard up for dosh then you'll have got pay-back with InteliiJ's IDEA before you've even downloaded the latest Eclipse plug-in!

Was that a bit bias? I've just started playing with Eclipse 3RC4, it's come on a long way since the earlier versions, it's almost caught up with IDEA 4.0 now, worth a try. :-)

-John-

I agree. IntelliJ is an excellent product. Five hundred bucks is a helluva deal. I'm currently using WSAD 5.0 because the client forced me to. I miss IntelliJ and the productivity that I experienced with it. Considering that the WSAD license costs TEN TIMES AS MUCH as IntelliJ...

<IBM rant>
IBM is quietly taking over enterprize development and I don't like it. Why is it that it's OK for IBM to rule the IT world but bad if Microsoft tries the same? Is it because IBM is a faceless corporation and MS is synonymous with Bill Gates? But I digress...
</IBM rant>

IDEA is great and keeps getting better. I certainly prefer it over WSAD 5.1 and eclipse 3.0 RC2

IDEA is great and keeps getting better.

I love IDEA, but I am afraid that it is getting worse. 4.0.3 simply does not work properly and slow (especially at new library parsing, if it does it at all) although latest preview releases work much better, so I hope 4.5 will regain quality of 3.0.5

I love IDEA, but I am afraid that it is getting worse. 4.0.3 simply does not work properly and slow (especially at new library parsing, if it does it at all) although latest preview releases work much better, so I hope 4.5 will regain quality of 3.0.5

I haven't had the same experience but I asked our head programmer, Simon, if he's using 4.5 (EAP) yet and apparently he's still on 3.x. He has tried several times to move to 4.x and had lots of problems, the config files didn't upgrade, it crashed and even when he started with a fresh project it crashed while debugging. Now this guy uses IDEA 99% of of his 48+ hours a week (we drive 'em hard here), I strongly suspect we'd get even better code out of him if he was using 4.x but we have to risk losing a few hours work while he makes the move again. Still on the bright side, even I can get Eclipse to crash so that's out of the question. Also in defence of IntelliJ I think it's more likely to be something else on his machine than IntelliJ IDEA but again the argument will lose us another few hours so I'll just keep quiet and let him program in 3.x.

Time for a beer Simon, bring your laptop!

-John-

I will definitely recommend moving from IDEA 3.x to 4.x. I did the same a while ago and it has definitely paid the price (and time I spent in the move).
I agree that your existing projects wont probably go smoothly to IDEA 4.x. But it took me less than 1 hour to setup my 2 medium-sized projects in IDEA 4.x so I dont think its a big deal.

IDEA rocks.

I will definitely recommend moving from IDEA 3.x to 4.x. I did the same a while ago and it has definitely paid the price (and time I spent in the move).I agree that your existing projects wont probably go smoothly to IDEA 4.x. But it took me less than 1 hour to setup my 2 medium-sized projects in IDEA 4.x so I dont think its a big deal.IDEA rocks.

At my work we have a setup where we use a config file to describe which "tools" the project uses. Ie. jax 1.1, log4j 1.2.7, weblogic 6.1sp5 and so on.
This list is parsed and mapped to a network drive where all the "tools" are placed. They are then copied to your workstation and used for generating an Idea project file where all src, docs, classpath, webapps an so forth is setup.
This is rather cool. The Idea files is just xml files and therefore can be created from scratch.

regards

Anders Holmbech Nielsen

The Idea files is just xml files and therefore can be created from scratch.

You'll find Maven can create then using a built in target "idea", it's a pretty useful feature. I often go into the IDEA files and hack them to change directories.

-John-

INow this guy uses IDEA 99% of of his 48+ hours a week (we drive 'em hard here), I strongly suspect we'd get even better code out of him if

Sounds like a great place to work. You'd probably "get better code out of him" if you used the XP 40 hour work week.

No doubt. Anyone who works over 40 hours a week on a salary is stupid. I advise everyone to become contractors and get paid by the hour.

No doubt. Anyone who works over 40 hours a week on a salary is stupid. I advise everyone to become contractors and get paid by the hour.

We pay our contractors a daily rate, anything from GBP 450 to GBP 1,200 ($ 850-2200), the day is as long as the job takes. It's a "take it or leave it" offer and we've never had any complaints.

We've even bought IDEA licenses for our contractors, all part of the deal!

-John-

No doubt. Anyone who works over 40 hours a week on a salary is stupid. I advise everyone to become contractors and get paid by the hour.

We pay our contractors a daily rate, anything from GBP 450 to GBP 1,200 ($ 850-2200), the day is as long as the job takes. It's a "take it or leave it" offer and we've never had any complaints.We've even bought IDEA licenses for our contractors, all part of the deal!-John-

That's cool John. Good luck to you and all others who pay fairly.

INow this guy uses IDEA 99% of of his 48+ hours a week (we drive 'em hard here), I strongly suspect we'd get even better code out of him if

Sounds like a great place to work. You'd probably "get better code out of him" if you used the XP 40 hour work week.

He does work XP and he gets a shit load more annual holidays than your average American gets in a decade of work. He's also got quite a bit of valuable equity worth, at the last estimate, several $100k. I think you'll find he's well rewarded for is effort.

You won't get anywhere in this modern world without working at it, if you think you're going to achieve anything on a 40 hours week then dream on! When I retire I look forward to working a "half time" 35-40 hour week, that'll be a welcome break.

-John-

I'm currently using WSAD 5.0 because the client forced me to. I miss IntelliJ and the productivity that I experienced with it.

I'm using WSAD 5.0 and IntelliJ in parallel on the same project. WSAD has the WebSphere Test Environment and IntelliJ the "Java Productivity Environment".

No matter how cheap Eclipse is this is definitely the IDE to go for. Unless you're really hard up for dosh then you'll have got pay-back with InteliiJ's IDEA before you've even downloaded the latest Eclipse plug-in!Was that a bit bias? I've just started playing with Eclipse 3RC4, it's come on a long way since the earlier versions, it's almost caught up with IDEA 4.0 now, worth a try. :-)-John-

Since Eclipse is currently at RC3 is suspect you are using Eclipse RC3. I am an Eclipse fan working in an environment where all my colleages are using IntelliJ IDEA 3.0.
All my colleages where pointing out features in IntelliJ that I was lacking in Eclipse, but as Eclipse progresses to 3.0 that list is getting smaller.

Since Eclipse is currently at RC3 is suspect you are using Eclipse RC3. I am an Eclipse fan working in an environment where all my colleages are using IntelliJ IDEA 3.0.All my colleages where pointing out features in IntelliJ that I was lacking in Eclipse, but as Eclipse progresses to 3.0 that list is getting smaller.

I think you've summed it up, Eclipse RC3 is just catching up with IDEA 3.0, JetBrains released IDEA 4.0 several months ago and they're now on 4.5. Eclipse is now very good but it's still playing catch-up. If your business is coding then you need the best tools, IntelliJ is the best tool.

Take a look at IntelliJ's new code inspection stuff (in 4.5 EAP), the list is incredible!

-John-

All my colleages where pointing out features in IntelliJ that I was lacking in Eclipse, but as Eclipse progresses to 3.0 that list is getting smaller.

It's not primarily the list of features which makes the difference. It's the way the features are presented and how they can be used.

For instance: How do I find out what the keybord shortcut is for "resolve imports"?

Both products have that feature on their list. In one product I'll never ask, because I see it, when I have to resolve imports.

What is the TSS consensus on Fabrique? I tried a demo version a few months ago and didn't get on that well, but then I never tried to RTFM ;). Has anyone spent much time trying to create a web-app with it. Looking at the favourable reviews they have always received for Intellij I can't see Jetbrains releasing a dud IDE...