Suns new Forte for Java Release 3 is now available for free download from the company's Web site. The development tool competes with Borland's Jbuilder, WebGain's Cafe and IBM's VisualAge for Java. The Free community edition includes a Class Browser, integration with Ant and CVS, JNDI/CORBA/RMI/LDAP support, a JDO development environment, support for Servlets/JSP and XML, and more.


Read Sun Updates Forte For Java.

Check out Forte 3.0.

I had downloaded it earlier and the community edition did not appear contain jsp support. I'm not sure about most of the other features you mentioned, but it is feature packed. Speaking of JSP, anyone know of a free IDE that supports jsp syntax highlighting and auto complete features? I know Jbuilder foundation and personal series don't have it. I'm forced to use servlets instead to cut on design time.

I use Forte for Java 2.0. It supports syntext highlighting and auto-complete for JSP. You can compile the JSP files also.
I tried Forte for Java 3.0 beta. It had some bug. It was unable to identify JSP.

We will integrate our JDO implementation with an IDE in the next few months.

- Niles
www.rexip.com

you dont use jsp because you dont have syntax highlighting or auto-complete? oh my we are jaded arent we? Are you saying you wouldnt have been able to program 5 years ago when most ide's didnt have these features?

all i can say is,"kids today, sheez"

:)

Just to clarify: Forte 3.0 CE does support full JSP editing and debugging.

Many features that were previously in the "Internet Edition" of Forte 2.0 are now in the free "Community Edition" of 3.0.

Also, there are now modules available to allow you to integrate your favourite editor - such as Emacs or VIM. See the Netbeans site - http://www.netbeans.org/ for more details.

What is meant by support for JDO development? Does it mean they will charge for the production systems when you want to deploy the JDO?

What if I want to use JDO today?

Well I've donwloaded it. It appears to be a rebadged version of the most recent NetBeans (3.2.1) and has lotsa cool extras. 3 cheers for the NetBeans team and for Sun.

Simon: The whole idea of IDEs is to shorten develompment time. The efficiency gained from using an IDE is tremendous. Yes I can program without all those cool features like highlighting and autocomplete which(to your dismay) reduce the number of typos and gets stuff done in 1/10 the time. Keep picking corn by hand, I'll use a Combine Harvester whenever I can.

Cheers!

Can Forte compete with JBuilder Enterprise Edition or other cool IDEs like IDEA?

This is a subjective question. Based on my experience (I've used Forte for about 6 months now), I think it is pretty good. The best thing I like about Forte is the speed at which they fix problems and add new features. I also like its support for XML and the way it can integrate with XML tools from other vendors.

I have been using Forte in a production environment since May 2000. From the start, the most important feature for me was the web application support, i.e. JSPs and Servlets. The project was a complex Java-based web application, and so I looked for good IDE support to be able to integrate people with various skills into my project team, like HTML scripters, not only Java freaks.

Starting with the Community Edition 1.0 in May 2000, we switched to Internet Edition 2.0 when it was released in December 2000. Just about a week ago, we switched to Community Edition 3.0. The amazing thing about Forte is the progression of the IDE and especially its web application support from the ambitious beginnings in release 1.0 CE to the best web app support in the industry since release 2.0 IE, continuing for free in release 3.0 CE!

You won't find comparable JSP and Servlet support in a single IDE even in high-priced enterprise editions of competitors like JBuilder, VisualCafe and VisualAge. Especially the debugging support and the association between JSPs and their generated servlets is exemplary and unrivalled. Furthermore, only JBuilder also has full JSP and Java development features in the same IDE. You have to use different tools in other development environments.

And the best of it all is that you now get all this cool web application support in the free Community Edition! If you want to develop Java-based web application and do not need EJB support, IMHO there is no reason to not consider the free Forte 3.0 CE. You would have to buy the 3000 USD enterprise edition of JBuilder to get their full web app support (JSP debugging, etc.) that is still beaten by Forte 3.0 CE.

IMHO the competitors in the IDE market have a strange licensing strategy. If you want to do web app development without EJB, you have to buy expensive enterprise editions to get all relevant features, and you have to pay for their EJB support that you do not need. Furthermore, some of the IDE vendors give you important team support like version control only in their enterprise editions (yes, there is in Forte 3.0 Community Edition :-) ).

Concerning EJB support: Forte 3.0 Enterprise Edition is not really cheap (2000 USD), so you would have to compare it to its direct competitors, the enterprise editions of JBuilder (3000 USD), VisualCafe and VisualAge. I have no experience here.

So if you want to know if Forte is the right IDE for you, it depends on your needs:
- plain Java development (CE): well-suited, but with a lot of competition (other Java IDEs, full-featured multi-language editors, etc.);
- JSP/Servlet web app development (CE): excellent and really hard to beat (I have not seen JBuilder 5 yet; any major differences here to JBuilder 4?);
- EJB development (EE): other enterprise IDEs might be more mature I guess but that does not have to be so; any experiences?

Juergen

I have used JBuilder, Forte and JDeveloper and for developing with JSPs, javabeans and servlets I really like the price on the Forte CE, so that is what I use. IMHO JDeveloper does make life a little easier with the integrated OC4J server, although when I use Forte the best and easiest server I have used so far has got to be the Resin server. It's faster than a standalone Tomcat and you don't have worry about getting Tomcat and Apache to play together, because it doesn't use'em. : )
  If I had to purchase an IDE and was planning on developing IDEs, I would probably get JDevelop from Oracle though.

Is Sun Studio is formerly known as Java Forte. Please give some information.