VJ++
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I use many IDE to do some JAVA code and the good point of VJ++ is the command completion. You can also use the form editor but you have to follow VJ++ rules. 2LKIT provides add-ins to do pure JAVA code with swing and awt components in the editor. I don't like Borland JBuilder because it is slow. JAVA IDE made in JAVA are slow. Forte could be very nice, but a little slow too. Kawa is great but you have to pay. A free and nice alternative is JCreator. It is a windows application, so fast. So if you already have VJ++, I would recommend to use it.
Thanks to everyone for the replies.. I forgot to mention that I have installed Forte CE with jdk1.2.2 at home on a PIII machine and it's slower than a week in jail - and that's just to load up. Is this a common problem? I'd like to be able to try Forte as I know some Jave developers who swear by it. I just don't understand why it takes so long to get going... Doug
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Hi folks, I'm doing a college project using VC++ 6.0 and it's a compiler I really like. Soon though, my primary language will be Java. - I'd like to have a VC++ style compiler for Java, but I've heard unencouraging remarks about the VJ++ compiler. What I'd like to know is: After using VC++, will it be easy to use the VJ++ compiler? Do the 'negative' aspects of the VJ++ compiler really matter to a college student? Should I go for the Borland option? I know this is probably a politically loaded question, but I don't want any political answers - just some simple ones please. Thanks! Doug
Several years ago I used both VJ++ and Visual Cafe. VJ++ was terrible, almost unusable, and Visual Cafe was excellent. I don't know how VC has evolved, but VJ++ is still unusable. It doesn't support the current java language or many of the core java libraries. The IDE is only useful if you're writing java applications that use Microsoft's proprietary WFC library. If you're writing applets for web pages or using the standard Java libraries, it's pretty useless. One of the things I usually love the best about Microsoft development tools is the high quality of the documentation. Again, here VJ++ falls short of the usual MS standards. The documentation of the core java libraries seems to be nothing more than the javadoc documentation with no notes warning you about the parts Microsoft decided not to support. If you're looking for cheap java tools, I would recommend you also check out two freeware object modeling tools: Together, which has a teaser freeware "whiteboard" version to get you interested in their expensive commercial product (although they have a steep discount for educational users). While this has many features disabled, it is brilliant at reverse-engineering a UML class diagram from your Java or C++ code and allowing you to edit the code from within the object diagram. There is also Argo UML, an open source object modeling tool written in and for Java. This is not ready for prime time yet, but it shows a lot of promise. Note that Argo UML requires Java 1.2 or 1.3 and Swing, so you can't build it with VJ++. I am starting to spend most of my development time inside object-modeling tools (I like Together, of which I prefer an obsolete version from before they made the switch to Java, and Genitor for working with C++) and you may also find that you evolve away from the IDE as your main way of looking at code. Good luck. Hope these opinions are mildly useful to you.
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Hi folks, I'm doing a college project using VC++ 6.0 and it's a compiler I really like. Soon though, my primary language will be Java. - I'd like to have a VC++ style compiler for Java, but I've heard unencouraging remarks about the VJ++ compiler. What I'd like to know is: After using VC++, will it be easy to use the VJ++ compiler? Do the 'negative' aspects of the VJ++ compiler really matter to a college student? Should I go for the Borland option? I know this is probably a politically loaded question, but I don't want any political answers - just some simple ones please. Thanks! Doug
I generally prefer using a text editor and command line for programming, rather than the helpful tools that get in your way. However, I've found that JBuilder can be made unobtrusive enough to make it extremely usable - all the visual tools and helpful bits can be ignored. I've never used VJ++ on principle (nuff said), but there are free versions of Jbuilder 3 out on cover discs/websites. I suggest you grab one and have a look.
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I generally prefer using a text editor and command line for programming, rather than the helpful tools that get in your way. However, I've found that JBuilder can be made unobtrusive enough to make it extremely usable - all the visual tools and helpful bits can be ignored. I've never used VJ++ on principle (nuff said), but there are free versions of Jbuilder 3 out on cover discs/websites. I suggest you grab one and have a look.
I got VJ++ when it came out, blindingly fast compiler. Useless debugger. To make breakpoints work you had to have executed the line first, so that the JIT had converted to real code. Useless. I got the upgrade of VJ++, it was worse. I've got VJ++ 6.0 (when I got my enterprise MSDN). Not even opened it. I use a mixture of C++ /Java in my work. For Java we've been usign Symantec Visual Cafe, (now WebGain). Its OK, could be better. If you get a JDK from Sun/IBM, the compiler will be very very slow. I think this is deliberate in order to encourage tool vendors. Visual Cafe is now at 4.0 + I think. I heard that 3.0 was on the front of a UK magazine last month for #5.00 I don't know which magazine. Stephen Kellett (Couldn't remember my password to logon, forgot I had an account!)
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Several years ago I used both VJ++ and Visual Cafe. VJ++ was terrible, almost unusable, and Visual Cafe was excellent. I don't know how VC has evolved, but VJ++ is still unusable. It doesn't support the current java language or many of the core java libraries. The IDE is only useful if you're writing java applications that use Microsoft's proprietary WFC library. If you're writing applets for web pages or using the standard Java libraries, it's pretty useless. One of the things I usually love the best about Microsoft development tools is the high quality of the documentation. Again, here VJ++ falls short of the usual MS standards. The documentation of the core java libraries seems to be nothing more than the javadoc documentation with no notes warning you about the parts Microsoft decided not to support. If you're looking for cheap java tools, I would recommend you also check out two freeware object modeling tools: Together, which has a teaser freeware "whiteboard" version to get you interested in their expensive commercial product (although they have a steep discount for educational users). While this has many features disabled, it is brilliant at reverse-engineering a UML class diagram from your Java or C++ code and allowing you to edit the code from within the object diagram. There is also Argo UML, an open source object modeling tool written in and for Java. This is not ready for prime time yet, but it shows a lot of promise. Note that Argo UML requires Java 1.2 or 1.3 and Swing, so you can't build it with VJ++. I am starting to spend most of my development time inside object-modeling tools (I like Together, of which I prefer an obsolete version from before they made the switch to Java, and Genitor for working with C++) and you may also find that you evolve away from the IDE as your main way of looking at code. Good luck. Hope these opinions are mildly useful to you.
Not to be too pedantic, but VJ++ is about 3 years old. As such, it can't be up to date, nore could they have known, 3 years ago, what the langauge would look like in order to put the changes in their manuals. On top of that, MS hasn't 'decided' not to support the latest Java, they are legally enjoined from doing so.
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Not to be too pedantic, but VJ++ is about 3 years old. As such, it can't be up to date, nore could they have known, 3 years ago, what the langauge would look like in order to put the changes in their manuals. On top of that, MS hasn't 'decided' not to support the latest Java, they are legally enjoined from doing so.
Agreed with all you say. I didn't write to bash MS., but if they are legally enjoined from selling me a tool that will compile the code I need to compile, I will buy the tool from someone who can legally sell me what I need. Also, while it's neither here nor there, they are not enjoined from supporting the latest Java spec. What they are enjoined from is selectively supporting part, but not all, of the spec, and still calling it Java. The parts that are specifically at issue are RMI (remote method invocation) and JNI (Java native interface), I believe. The important thing is that for my purposes, VJ++ is inadequate and I wanted to warn the original poster that he might share my experiences. YMMV, as always, and others who love VJ++ should definitely post about their positive experiences. For me, I loved Visual Cafe and hated VJ++. It's strictly an opinion thing. As far as their manuals go, my complaint is that the VJ++ implementation of many classes in the core Java 1.0 library, such as java.net.HttpUrlConnection, does not work as documented in the MSDN documentation (try to use java.net.HttpUrlConnection.setRequestMethod() as described in the docs. Try to find a KB article about why it doesn't work as documented. The problem is not that MS did not keep up with further development. The problem is that it was broken the first time and they never cared to fix either the documentation or the code.
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Agreed with all you say. I didn't write to bash MS., but if they are legally enjoined from selling me a tool that will compile the code I need to compile, I will buy the tool from someone who can legally sell me what I need. Also, while it's neither here nor there, they are not enjoined from supporting the latest Java spec. What they are enjoined from is selectively supporting part, but not all, of the spec, and still calling it Java. The parts that are specifically at issue are RMI (remote method invocation) and JNI (Java native interface), I believe. The important thing is that for my purposes, VJ++ is inadequate and I wanted to warn the original poster that he might share my experiences. YMMV, as always, and others who love VJ++ should definitely post about their positive experiences. For me, I loved Visual Cafe and hated VJ++. It's strictly an opinion thing. As far as their manuals go, my complaint is that the VJ++ implementation of many classes in the core Java 1.0 library, such as java.net.HttpUrlConnection, does not work as documented in the MSDN documentation (try to use java.net.HttpUrlConnection.setRequestMethod() as described in the docs. Try to find a KB article about why it doesn't work as documented. The problem is not that MS did not keep up with further development. The problem is that it was broken the first time and they never cared to fix either the documentation or the code.
Actually, yes. They are enjoined from supporting the latest Java version. While the court case is still pending, MS cannot enhance their JVM in any way other than bug fixes.
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Thanks to everyone for the replies.. I forgot to mention that I have installed Forte CE with jdk1.2.2 at home on a PIII machine and it's slower than a week in jail - and that's just to load up. Is this a common problem? I'd like to be able to try Forte as I know some Jave developers who swear by it. I just don't understand why it takes so long to get going... Doug
Hi Doug, I've run Forte on a P550 and a PIII 866. It's slow on one and fast on another. On the 866, it's lightning fast. My guess is that it would be cheaper to upgrade your computer than to purchase one of the other IDEs. ;-) Seriously, Despite the long load time, it's quite snappy once you get it loaded. Just remember that it loads classes on demand in the background and does garbage collection, so I guess that there can be some periodic pauses, but overall it's a good IDE, it's got professional features (Code completion, tool tip info), and it's FREE! ;-) -Mike Stevenson Owner, Liquid Mirror Software CoderX@liquidmirror.com
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Thanks to everyone for the replies.. I forgot to mention that I have installed Forte CE with jdk1.2.2 at home on a PIII machine and it's slower than a week in jail - and that's just to load up. Is this a common problem? I'd like to be able to try Forte as I know some Jave developers who swear by it. I just don't understand why it takes so long to get going... Doug
Also, MS is most likely ditching J++. They refuse to comment on it (citing pending lawsuits with Sun) and it hasn't shown up in any of the new betas of Visual Studio. -Mike Stevenson Owner, Liquid Mirror Software CoderX@liquidmirror.com
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Actually, yes. They are enjoined from supporting the latest Java version. While the court case is still pending, MS cannot enhance their JVM in any way other than bug fixes.
Thanks for the correction.