The NetBeans open source project is proud to announce that the NetBeans IDE 4.0 Beta 2 is now available as both an individual download and also bundled with the newly released production version of Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition Development Kit 5.0 (J2SE 5.0 a.k.a. "Tiger").
Since the NetBeans IDE Beta 1 release, over 900 bugs have been fixed including 65 in the performance area. The NetBeans IDE provides a pure Java technology integrated development environment for Windows, Linux, the Solaris Operating System and Mac OS X.
Download:
* NetBeans IDE 4.0 Beta 2:
http://www.netbeans.org/downloads/index.html
* NetBeans 4.0 Beta 2 bundled with Java's next generation J2SE 5.0:
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/download.jsp
You may continue to the full NetBeans IDE 4.0 Beta 2 announcement (http://www.netbeans.org/community/releases/40/beta.html) or wish to visit the documentation list (http://www.netbeans.org/kb/articles/doclist-40beta.html) for the NetBeans IDE 4.0 Beta 2</a> which includes: Quick start guides, import and migration guides in addition to tutorials and other articles.
-
NetBeans IDE 4.0 Beta 2 Released (15 messages)
- Posted by: Robert Demmer
- Posted on: October 01 2004 04:02 EDT
Threaded Messages (15)
- NetBeans IDE 4.0 Beta 2 Released by Rob` Clevenger on October 01 2004 14:32 EDT
- Nice release by Undisclosed Undisclosed on October 01 2004 14:40 EDT
- Better than Eclipse ? by Arnaud V. on October 04 2004 04:31 EDT
- NetBeans IDE 4.0 Beta 2 Released by Iwan Eising on October 04 2004 01:56 EDT
- Nice release by Undisclosed Undisclosed on October 01 2004 14:40 EDT
- Netbeans 4.0-Beta2 -- Very good by kunka bonka on October 01 2004 15:26 EDT
- Still a touch slow by hai boon chin on October 01 2004 17:56 EDT
- Not for me by Srinivas Chidumalla on October 01 2004 22:48 EDT
- New focus on usability and Ant by Frank Cohen on October 01 2004 18:05 EDT
- New focus on usability and Ant by Gerry G on October 02 2004 01:14 EDT
- New focus on usability and Ant by Munenari Fukuda on October 03 2004 09:52 EDT
- New focus on usability and Ant by Gerry G on October 02 2004 01:14 EDT
- Excellent Progress by Arjuna Chala on October 01 2004 18:59 EDT
- NetBeans IDE 4.0 Beta 2 Released by Michael Li on October 04 2004 17:07 EDT
- NetBeans IDE 4.0 Beta 2 Released by han theman on October 05 2004 04:49 EDT
- Competitive matrix by null on October 05 2004 06:21 EDT
- Competitive matrix by Mike Cornell on October 05 2004 13:58 EDT
-
NetBeans IDE 4.0 Beta 2 Released[ Go to top ]
- Posted by: Rob` Clevenger
- Posted on: October 01 2004 14:32 EDT
- in response to Robert Demmer
-
Nice release[ Go to top ]
- Posted by: Undisclosed Undisclosed
- Posted on: October 01 2004 14:40 EDT
- in response to Rob` Clevenger
Netbeans is looking like a nice product, congrats!
After years of eclipse usage, this is the first release that made me think about actually using it.
It's a waaaay much better then 3.x series. -
Better than Eclipse ?[ Go to top ]
- Posted by: Arnaud V.
- Posted on: October 04 2004 04:31 EDT
- in response to Undisclosed Undisclosed
I think NetBeans could be better than Eclipse.
Before I used Eclipse but now I use Eclipse for debugging only (I have some pbls with NetBeans...).
But NB Beta 2 is faster than Beta 1 with J2SE 5.0.
Project organization of NB 4.0 is better than Eclipse : src, test, build .. directories -
NetBeans IDE 4.0 Beta 2 Released[ Go to top ]
- Posted by: Iwan Eising
- Posted on: October 04 2004 01:56 EDT
- in response to Rob` Clevenger
It's way better than beta 1 which rendered unusable after a week of using it, because of some error in the MDR.
I've been using beta2 since it was released on an JXTA project as well as a J2ME project.
Iwan -
Netbeans 4.0-Beta2 -- Very good[ Go to top ]
- Posted by: kunka bonka
- Posted on: October 01 2004 15:26 EDT
- in response to Robert Demmer
Woooooowwwwww.
Beautiful product.
Tahnks for producing such a great product. I recommend to evry java developer. -
Still a touch slow[ Go to top ]
- Posted by: hai boon chin
- Posted on: October 01 2004 17:56 EDT
- in response to Robert Demmer
I have used both eclipse and netbeans. With jdk1.5 underneath, netbeans 4.0 still a touch slower. -
Not for me[ Go to top ]
- Posted by: Srinivas Chidumalla
- Posted on: October 01 2004 22:48 EDT
- in response to hai boon chin
It runs as fast as Eclipse 3.0.
Anyway, i have 1 GB of RAM on my laptop, so may be that is the case.
I am using JDK 1.5.0
Srini -
New focus on usability and Ant[ Go to top ]
- Posted by: Frank Cohen
- Posted on: October 01 2004 18:05 EDT
- in response to Robert Demmer
NetBeans 4 looks like a winner to me. I downloaded Beta 1 last week and began to use it. The major difference for NB 3.x users is 4.0's new usabile interface. Projects are built around Ant build scripts. The New Project Wizard is able to parse Ant scripts for build elements. It automatically creates an NB project. The code browser lets you navigate among Ant build elements, by package, or by file/directory. That's a whole-lot-better than 3.x.
I also like that for the first time I am able to use the debugger while I use Ant as my build mechanism. I never did figure out how to add breakpoints and use the NB 3.x debugger when I used an Ant script to build. It's probably obvious but I didn't find an answer.
New in Beta 2 are New Project Wizards specifically for Web Applications. This makes packaging EJB and Web apps easy. I went from code to a Tomcat Web app in about 10 minutes. Nice!
I've always been a fan of NB and still find myself losing productivity navigating through Eclipse's modal user interface. NB 4 is a very nice present.
-Frank Cohen
Author of Java Testing and Design: From Unit Testing to Automated Web Tests
http://thebook.pushtotest.com -
New focus on usability and Ant[ Go to top ]
- Posted by: Gerry G
- Posted on: October 02 2004 01:14 EDT
- in response to Frank Cohen
I *really* like the new UI and the sidebar sliding windows in NB 4.0. I agree totally about Eclipe's modal views/perspectives on things -- it slows me down, all the buttons and tabs are distracting, and it feels too multiple-personality disorderish.
Eclipse in general has lots of good features, and a few great ones, but the interface sure is cluttered and messy, IMO, and could use some polishing. It looks to me like NB 4.0 has pretty much everything I need, and has caught up feature-wise in addition to having a a really nice UI feel.
I don't know why people are so concerned about instant responsiveness, though, when the UI design itself makes more of a difference in terms of workflow and number of steps to accomplish what you want to do. NB 4.0 seems plenty fast.
I'm going to try living with NB 4.0 Beta 2 for a week or two and see how it goes. -
New focus on usability and Ant[ Go to top ]
- Posted by: Munenari Fukuda
- Posted on: October 03 2004 21:52 EDT
- in response to Gerry G
I don't know why people are so concerned about instant responsiveness, though, when the UI design itself makes more of a difference in terms of workflow and number of steps to accomplish what you want to do.
I guess it depends on how much responsiveness you get when you work. It can be very annoying when you are constantly interrupted with subtle operations..
I'm not sure why this is the case, but I haven't got a good experience with both Forte and NetBeans.. I just downloaded NetBeans 4.0 Beta2. Every time I tried choosing a file from file dialogue ("Add project" button), it just became *very* slow. I wonder why this is the case. I'm not using a slow machine either (P4 2.8GHz, 1GB RAM).
Of course, this could be just me and/or my PC getting cluttered up with stuff. I'll have another try later this week with another machine.
But the point is, it's quite important to have fast IDE.. otherwise, I would stick with JDK, ant, vi combination like I used to.
P.S. I'm not recommending nor bashing any particular IDE, and I have no association with any IDE vendor, but I haven't had much trouble with IntelliJ IDEA and Eclipse. (I've been just using JDK console for my development) -
Excellent Progress[ Go to top ]
- Posted by: Arjuna Chala
- Posted on: October 01 2004 18:59 EDT
- in response to Robert Demmer
After wasting time with previous versions of Neatbeans I was hesitant to try this one (4.0). I must say I was very impressed after taking it for a spin. Congratulations guys. Keep up the good work. -
NetBeans IDE 4.0 Beta 2 Released[ Go to top ]
- Posted by: Michael Li
- Posted on: October 04 2004 17:07 EDT
- in response to Robert Demmer
Very nice window system. But the default Font&Color is crab. It is so hard for me to read on my LCD monitor. Sure, I can change the setting. However, it is inconvenient for everyone to do that. It even does not have a naming schema to manage the settings like IDEA does. -
NetBeans IDE 4.0 Beta 2 Released[ Go to top ]
- Posted by: han theman
- Posted on: October 05 2004 04:49 EDT
- in response to Robert Demmer
Huge improvement over 3.x, but after having used IntelliJ for three years, NetBeans still feels a bit slow and cumbersome to use. -
Competitive matrix[ Go to top ]
- Posted by: null
- Posted on: October 05 2004 06:21 EDT
- in response to Robert Demmer
Highlights from the competitive matrix on the website:
1. Eclipse has limited JavaBeans support, while NetBeans has full support. Wonder what this means?
2. Says "Ant as a first class build system" is applicable only to NetBeans. What's that supposed to mean? I've been using Ant with Eclipse for few months now!
3. Awards a check to NetBeans for "XML Support: Source Editing (better than plain text, e.g. coloring)". Hmm, funny, you get plugins for Eclipse to do that.
4. XSLT Support - Now this I know isn't supported by Eclipse (though I'm sure there would be plugins out there that do that).
By its own competitive matrix, the only section NetBeans has more boxes checked is the "Web Applications Development" section. However, it says Eclipse doesnt' have Tomcat 4 or 5 support, or webapps debugging, etc, which I find a marketing BS. I have been using Eclipse with both tomcat 4.x and 5.x without any problems.
I'm all for open source options, but I haven't yet found a compelling reason to switch to Netbeans -
Competitive matrix[ Go to top ]
- Posted by: Mike Cornell
- Posted on: October 05 2004 13:58 EDT
- in response to null
Highlights from the competitive matrix on the website:
My assumption is that has to do with the ability of the GUI to manage JavaBeans properties and generate everything you need to build a bean properties without coding a line?
1. Eclipse has limited JavaBeans support, while NetBeans has full support. Wonder what this means?2. Says "Ant as a first class build system" is applicable only to NetBeans. What's that supposed to mean? I've been using Ant with Eclipse for few months now!
I believe that means that Ant is integrated with the IDE. If you create a project, you get an ant script. It's part of the product, not an addon.3. Awards a check to NetBeans for "XML Support: Source Editing (better than plain text, e.g. coloring)". Hmm, funny, you get plugins for Eclipse to do that.
As above...it's a part of the IDE as shipped, not a plugin.4. XSLT Support - Now this I know isn't supported by Eclipse (though I'm sure there would be plugins out there that do that). By its own competitive matrix, the only section NetBeans has more boxes checked is the "Web Applications Development" section. However, it says Eclipse doesnt' have Tomcat 4 or 5 support, or webapps debugging, etc, which I find a marketing BS. I have been using Eclipse with both tomcat 4.x and 5.x without any problems.I'm all for open source options, but I haven't yet found a compelling reason to switch to Netbeans
Hmmm, Eclipse doesn't ship with a Tomcat container as Netbeans does. I think it has more to do with what you can do out of the box rather than the plug ins available.
That's why if I'm providing a free Java IDE to a beginning Java programmer, I'm choosing NetBeans over Eclipse. I found it much easier to learn on than Eclipse, and I wish it was as good as NB 4 is when I was learning on it.
NetBeans 4 is that good. Eclipse will be even better in its next iteration because of it too. Competition is a good thing!