What’s Your IDE of Choice?

By Jake • November 11th, 2009 • View Comments

Form Builder? Can you see where this post is going?So, now that we’re really a product team and all, rolling into WebCenter development and working full-time on enhancements to the internal rollout of WebCenter 11g, I thought it would be a nice change of pace to add real content from time to time.

I’m hoping that as we learn more about WebCenter and use it that we’ll be able to share useful tips that can benefit anyone working with WebCenter, which incidentally is available for download from OTN should you choose to follow along at home.

Anyway, I know Rich installed JDeveloper for the first (second) time yesterday, and I’m sure his experiences will be interesting, since his development tool of choice for Ruby is TextMate (oops, it’s VIM). Bit of a difference jumping from TextMate to a full-blown IDE like JDev.

Thinking about JDev got me all nostalgic about development environments.

I first used JDev back in its 9.x versions to build mockups for EBS using the UIX framework. Being in a mostly functional (vs. technical) PM group that was accustomed to using Visio templates for mockups meant I did mockups for other people too.

I started out using my old pal Wordpad (yes, I ran Windows back then), and even though I was only using a fraction of its capabilities, I stuck with JDev because it provided both access to UIX templates I needed as well as glad-to-have features like tag checking and auto-complete, indentation, and color-coding.

Although I’ve not used JDev in many years, I do still use its cousin, SQL Developer, another free OTN download, from time to time when I need to hack out queries. SQL Developer runs quite nicely on the Mac and on Ubuntu, and as with JDev, I’ve been using it for many years, actually since its birth.

I can still recall the sendmail we got when it debuted, reminding us to discontinue use of TOAD and SQL Navigator.

Back in my consulting days (i.e. ten plus years ago), I used TOAD for database app development, along with a collection of tools, including SQL*Plus (natch), the Forms and Reports Builders in Developer/2000 and Wordpad.

If you’re wondering, that was Forms 6 and Reports 2.5 so no fancy color-coding on repeating frames or any of those crutches. I’ve been around Oracle so long, I even used the old Query Builder in Designer/2000 at one point.

But, if you read here, you know I’m old school Oracle, what with my yen to resurrect Oracle Power Browser.

And back then, I had to start up my NT 4.0 box with a hand-crank. Kids these days, no respect.

Feeling that get-off-my-lawn, nostalgia yet?

Anyway, today’s IDEs are way more awesome and do a lot more to support developers. Aside from JDev, I’ve had a brief look at Eclipse, due to a short dabbling with writing Flex, and it’s insane how much IDEs have advanced.

Projects like Bespin, Mozilla Labs’ code-in-the-cloud project totally amaze me. It’s a great time to be a developer, what with the plethora of languages to learn, the support of gigantic open communities for collaboration and assistance, and the readily accessible deployment platform that is the interwebs.

So, what is your IDE of choice and why? Is your preference based on workplace environment, i.e. everyone uses the same IDE? Is it based on language choice?

Find the comments and regale us with your IDE thoughts and any get-off-my-lawn nostalgia, which is always fun too.


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  • JDeveloper for me. Since the 9.x days too.

    I think the most I got out of it was the BC4J (where'd that go?) playing around. I also liked the built-in OC4J server to run my J2EE stuff...but I wasn't a "real" Java programmer, plus it was my first real exposure to an IDE. I've tried Eclipse and IntelliJ, but just don't do that much Java anymore.

    JDev has the SQL Dev capabilities (i.e. schema browser) and ties in nicely with Team Foundation and Subversion (both plugins I believe). It has more to do with not wanting/needing to change at this point.
  • Agreed, inertia is a powerful force. If I remember correctly, the SQL Developer pieces came out of JDev, when they spun it off as a new product.

    I remember seeing JDev for the first time and being so glad they had a complete IDE so I didn't have to run Forms *and* Reports Builder simultaneously.
  • Eclipse used to be my favorite IDE. Because of all the open source support and the plug ins available for various cool stuff/APIs. Before that I used Sun's Java studio enterprise IDE. I used jdev for last 2 years. It is cool and everything, but not stable and very buggy. It has no open source support and lacks a big dev community etc. I wish I could have gone back to eclipse.
  • I wonder about the development community using JDev. It seems pretty common among Oracle customers (natch), so it seems logical that there would be a bigger community around it. Odd.
  • Correction... I use VIM not TextMate and this isn't the first time I've installed JDeveloper. I used JDev back after the acquisition happened. Anyway... I'll post my JDev experience when I have more time.
  • In Hyperion I used Eclipse/MyEclipse but this year I started using JDeveloper. Its a resource hog if you enable all the roles but in general any IDE I used in the past has been a resource hog. I like it overall.

    A side note: The disqus login to comment on the iPhone was unusable. It does not render correctly, however I am not sure its specific to your blog though.
  • Interesting, you're the first Eclipse user to comment. Any reason you moved from Eclipse? Justin tells me there is an Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse, so why not leverage your Eclipse knowledge?

    Re. your Disqus comment, I checked it out, and you were right it was borked. I upgraded the iPhone rendering plugin we use (WPtouch iPhone Theme), and now it works, but not very well :) In the Disqus login lightbox, enter your username, then use the soft keyboard Next button to tab into the invisible password field. Finally, use the Go button on the soft keyboard, since the full lightbox isn't displayed.

    A bit janky, but it worked.
  • Majority of my team still is with Eclipse but I like to try things around. Unknown territories are exciting! Moreover I am looking forward to all the internal integrations like plugins for ADE and bugdb (ex: check-in a change for a bug and automatically mark the bug fixed).
  • Makes sense, and I have to agree about unknown territories/shiny objects being exciting. Didn't know JDev had a Bug plugin, pretty cool.
  • uvox
    Forms 4.5. Oracle Power Browser? Jeez.... you'll be telling me you remember the rumors of Oracle buying Apple next...:)
  • Not specifically, but I do recall the days of the infamous Informix billboard. Drove by it many times.
  • I'm currently in a love-hate relationship with JDeveloper, working on stuff with the full ADF stack (have had a look at WebCenter, too). It's not perfect -- things regularly get borked and require a restart, bug notification alerts == daily fun, rendering oddities galore etc. -- but even so, it gives a huge productivity boost.

    Can't really compare it to anything else personally as my previous environments have been pretty much emacs+compiler.
  • It is powerful, confusing and frustrating, sometimes all at once, but I'd hazard a guess that most modern IDEs have that combination.
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