Why Aptana when they are based on Eclipse? - eclipse

I'm not sure if I'm missing something. If Aptana is entirely based on Eclipse, why would anyone choose it, when they can get the original Eclipse (especially that the Eclipse development is not lagging in anyway)? I understand why/benefits Aptana started their project, but why would I use theirs instead of Eclipse? I don't know much about this IDE and I'm still trying to choose, so maybe I'm missing something that's obvious to the rest.

NetBeans isn't based on Eclipse -- it's from Sun, who traditionally haven't been a supporter of Eclipse (look at the names).
Aptana is a helpful packaging of a variety of useful web and scripting development tools. The nice thing about Aptana is that you just download it and it works. Aptana also provides a commercial version with a variety of additional features.
You may also want to look at Genuitec's MyEclipse, which packages up a variety of other components and provides some support for minimal cost.

I think they come with proprietary plugins that you can't necessarily get with a stock install of Eclipse. Same with the Zend IDE. You can get most of the same functionality with Eclipse but you have to install it yourself and you get no support that way.

Netbeans is not based on Eclipse.

As has already been stated, Aptana simply provides a nice set of plugins that work together to ease development. That's one reason to use it. Not only do you get the advantage of the Aptana plugins, but you get the Eclipse platform itself, which is still extensible, even beyond what Aptana does.
I have another reason as well: I run a dual boot system, XP/Ubuntu, and for development I like to use the same software in both OS's. I ran into problems using PHPEclipse on Ubuntu, so I switched to Aptana.

Related

Netbeans 7.3 annoyances

I recently switched from Eclipse to Netbeans 7.3 and experiencing a lot of quirks and i'm wondering if anyone else experienced them and/or got a solution. Because of these 'problems' i'm considering switching back to Eclipse again but i'm in doubt because NB has a lot of good things too !
These are the quirks:
when creating a new Java class, and make some typo's e.g. somewhere in a method, NB does not recognize / display the errors directly, but after a very long wait or a restart of NB.
This also happens to existing classes.
background scanning tasks is sometimes stuck at 100%
code completion does take forever. Don't even think about refactoring or renaming a class because it takes >3 minutes to scan the classpath (why, it's a new class for crying out load)
hot-deployment: changes are not always synchronized correctly with the (Glassfish) server.
Sometimes a complete undeploy and deploy is needed to reflect the changes made in the source.
NB manipules my pom.xml and glassfish-web.xml: it adds a deploy hint to the pom.xml and also changes or removes the context-root in the glassfish-web.xml. Please stop doing this!
Why o why can't i do a 'Fix imports' on my entire project. You can do a 'organize import' on the entire project, but this won't add the missing imports. See http://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=167031#c2
Running NB 7.3 on Windows XP, 3GB RAM, 2+GHz cpu
The project is a Java 7 maven project containing 12 modules / sub projects
I strongly recommend that you DO NOT attempt to install the ScanOnDemand plugin. It completely trashed my Netbeans, forcing me to use the Task Manager to kill the process. No existing projects were found; they were all listed as "unrecognized project; missing plug-in?". I had to re-install Netbeans.
One thing to look for is max heap allowed. Try adding "-J-Xmx2000M" to the Netbeans startup.
ref: Setting Heap Size
I suggest stick to your favourite IDE. Eclipse is still popular and Juno packages are doing good and Kepler is already available. You can try around latest packages.
IntelliJ IDEA looks better than other Java IDEs (light weight, faster, nice integration with SCM(source configuration) tools, possibility of easy cloud deployment, except that if you have freedom to choose your IDE whether you are part of a big/small teams, Otherwise there is no need to shift from one to other.
IntelliJ is the first IDE to give nice in-built support to Play framework
Google Android ADT is completely moving towards AndroidStudio based on community version of IntelliJ IDEA for faster and better GUI and app development.
As a Java developer it is not bad to try the other IDE to do some experiments or for any reason it strikes your mind.
Eg: Netbeans comes with sample apps in Java EE,Java7/Java2EE which looks better, nice examples for websockets, Servlet3.0, NIO examples etc,...but just try it or just ignore if it does not work. It is very easy to generate Entities from Database Tables, creating REST Endpoints in NetBeansIt may come with lot of in-built plugin-support for various java frameworks like RESTful webservice frameworks, JSF2.x, Primefaces3.x, SpringMVC, Struts but you may not sure to use the same version of framework. Some plugins may not work sufficient according to your business needs. Even if you okay with existing version it is not very friendly to develop Rich real-time UI development because Netbeans with Primefaces, instead you need to manually create XHTML templates.
Netbeans comes with nice support for Glassfish and tomcat, (other servers I am not sure but support is in-built). You can remote deployment with ease. Netbeans learning tutorials on JavaEE nice for beginners in the subject.
Netbeans also available as zipped bundle, hence no need to install even on Windows machines.
Eclipse has got better support with Java RoboCode learning tool (initiated by developed by IBM long ago.).
Also Netbeans comes with nice support for HTML5, Groovy, PHP, C++ as well (according to posts by users community, because I did not use them).

Aptanas Build In PHP vs Eclipse PHP

I've been back and forth through various IDEs (Netbeans, PHPStorm, even VIM) and am now back at a stable and well configured Aptana Studio - mainly for the great FTP Support and the overall feel.
However, I've tasted the sweet blood of amazing code completion for PHP on Storm and even Netbeans and have the feel that Aptana lacks a bit of the advanced code completion features (e.g. when a custom class method returns an instance of another custom class, it's a first class citizen in php storm with full support for cc).
Now I wonder if the Eclipse PHP Tools are better than the ones with Aptana. Since I had some problems with mixing plugins in Aptana lately, I want to hear some opinions before I go that road:
Is the Eclipse PHP better than Aptanas PHPs?
What are the main differences?
Are there any cool PHP (or general webdev tools) that may close that gap for eclipse?
I've found only outdated links, so I'd be interested in some up-to-date insights.
I love Aptana and its CSS/JS features, but the php code completition is not compareable to the features of eclipse pdt or netbeans. Because of that: Yes, Eclipse PHP is better than aptana php. To name only one missing feature in aptana: phpdoc support and autocompletition for that.
I would mix up aptana + pdt, but that makes more problems for me, than in solves :(

Boostrapping new Eclipse machines with all the Plugins

Bootstrapping Eclipse on new machines is such a time consuming process, you wind up asking yourself whether you really need each plugin. But there all handy, and help develop consistent habits.
Eclipse bootstrapping problems include:
Explaining / documenting what needs to happen
The actual time pasting in the right URLs and downloading
Version compatibility and dependencies
Eclipse likes to restart after each one
The changeover to the Eclipse Marketplace means that some plugins and instructions you find on the web tend to be inconsistent, depending on when they were written.
The Licenses... over and over and over... yes, yes, yes... I understand that the person installing needs to be aware of it, and have a chance to review them, but there's got to be a better way.
It'd be nice to have "patch file" (either binary or meta) that spells out what I want to add on top of stock Eclipse installation. I'd really like to find (or create) a 1 or 2 step process that sets up Eclipse, plus a favorite batch of plugins:
subclipse
m2eclipse
jetty support like runjettyrun
android sdk and plugin (or at least just the plugin)
aspectj
Web Objects / WOLiops
python, other langs
JVM Monitor, maybe EclEmma
probably a git plugin pretty soon.
Does command line maven help with any of this? It seems like its repository management would fit at least part of the functionality.
On a machine with an Eclipse installation matching your needs use File -> Export -> Install -> Installed software items to file. Import the generated file using the same menu on all other machines.
As Scott says, a good approach is to simply package a fully prepared Eclipse installation once all the plugins you need are installed. The downside is that you have to update most plugins afterwards.
Another option is to use Yoxos. With it, you can create a profile and configure it with all the plugins you need (and apparently Yoxos can do more than that).
Finally, this page might interest you concerning the configuration side of things.
Solution 1 is too search for more advanced Eclipse distributions.
For example, STS (Spring Tool Suite) comes with
AspectJ
EGit
m2e
(and of course) Spring IDE
One small trick can be done with m2e-android - Android Configurator for M2E Maven Integration. If installing it on clean Eclipse, it will also automatically resolve to install :
m2e
Android Developer Tools (ADT)

Many Eclipse installations, or how to install many development tools on one Eclipse?

HI all,
I have Eclipse installed with PDT (PHP Development tools).
I want to program in Java and C++, do I have to download whole Eclipse JDT and Eclipse CDT again, and have separate installations, or can I install "plugins" to handle Java and C++ ?
Thanks
Yes you can install the plugins into the same Eclipse installation. For Helios you can use the Update manager Help->Install New Software then select the Helios site and select C/C++ in Programming Lagnuages and so on. If there's something else you need you need to get the update URL and add a new site.
You can have one eclipse with all the plugins (and perspective). But that's tedious:
you'll have to find the plugin jars for each of the 'suites' and place it in the plugins dir. Sometimes they might not have an update site url
some plugins cause problems, sometimes mixing certain plugins cause problems - in short, the more plugins, the more likely your environment will crash
The way I'd suggest is to have a separate eclipse installation for each task. I myself have 3, for different sort of java development (one java, one flex, one for specific project with specific plugins)
Eclipse itself is perfectly stable and capable of supporting quite a lot of plugins. However if you are unlucky to need "crappy" plugins, there the problems being.

can i use only the eclipse IDE without using the myeclipse?

In my new project i work on, we use the myeclipse on top of Eclipse IDE.
Our architecture includes jsp, jsf, ajax, spring framework with hibernate persistence and also has blaze for some business validations. We also expose Web services. For the build we have the maven and ant. The server used is weblogic.Also like to mention that we use the Rational ClearCase for code versioning.
I know that myeclipse is bundled with loads of plugins to support the jsf, spring, hiberate, ant etc.
I really like to know whether the dependability of myeclipse plugins can be removed all together and customize the eclipse IDE to support the above architecture?
Kindly let me know your answers/ thoughts/ advices. Any piece of information will be highly valuable for me proceed.
Thanks in advance.
The Latest MyEclipse 8.0 has a specific plugins manager from which you can selectively install/uninstall the features you need.
To uninstall or reinstall a Lite module, simply bring up the MyEclipse Dashboard using Help > Manage MyEclipse Plug-ins... (or MyEclipse > Manage MyEclipse Plug-ins)
(source: myeclipseide.com)
I don't know about removing plug-ins from Eclipse, because I use IntelliJ. But I'd say that all the things you want to support are possible without plug-ins. It's just a matter of how much work you want to do and how much assistance you feel you need. You can always do whatever you want by hand.
If I go to Eclipse.org, I see that I can still download enterprise Java EE without MyEclipse. Maybe that's a place to start.
What's the problem? Is Eclipse too much of a memory hog with all those plug-ins?
I'm not sure what you'll replace all those plug-ins with if you remove them. I'd also like to hear how you'll benefit if you do so.
I love IntelliJ, and I especially love giving Eclipse a hard time, but the fact is that all IDEs gobble up a lot of RAM these days.
I think your needs might be solved using Eclipse (at least most of them): the WTP (Web Tools Platform) contains plug-ins needed for jsp,... for spring see this link in DZone. Webservices, Maven and Ant are also supported.
I don't know exactly the situation about Weblogic and Clearcase, but I'd be surprised if they are not supported at least basically.