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IDE suggestion

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  IDE suggestion "Schizoid Man" <schiz_man@21stcentury.com> - 2013-02-24 11:08 +0000
    Re: IDE suggestion "John B. Matthews" <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2013-02-24 15:00 -0500
      Re: IDE suggestion Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2013-02-24 12:23 -0800
        Re: IDE suggestion "Schizoid Man" <schiz_man@21stcentury.com> - 2013-02-24 20:40 +0000
          Re: IDE suggestion Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2013-02-24 14:51 -0800
          Re: IDE suggestion Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2013-02-25 11:27 -0800
        Re: IDE suggestion Steven Simpson <ss@domain.invalid> - 2013-02-24 21:31 +0000
          Re: IDE suggestion Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2013-03-01 00:18 -0800
            Re: IDE suggestion Steven Simpson <ss@domain.invalid> - 2013-03-01 12:30 +0000
              Re: IDE suggestion Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2013-03-09 17:35 -0800
                Re: IDE suggestion Steven Simpson <ss@domain.invalid> - 2013-03-10 09:09 +0000

#2539 — IDE suggestion

Hello,

I've just inherited a beat-up old Mac that I'm keen to use to learn Java. It 
runs Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11 and I'm keen to use a lightweight IDE, so 
nothing like Eclipse or NetBeans. Can anyone a suggest a decent free one?

Thank you. 

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#2541

In article <kgcs9j$epe$1@dont-email.me>,
 "Schizoid Man" <schiz_man@21stcentury.com> wrote:

> I've just inherited a beat-up old Mac that I'm keen to use to learn 
> Java. It runs Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11 and I'm keen to use a 
> lightweight IDE, so nothing like Eclipse or NetBeans. Can anyone a 
> suggest a decent free one?

I don't know about lightweight, but I have a vague memory of NetBeans 
6.5.1 running on Tiger: <http://www.netbeans.info/downloads/dev.php>

See also <http://mactracker.ca/>.

-- 
John B. Matthews
trashgod at gmail dot com
<http://sites.google.com/site/drjohnbmatthews>

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#2542

John B. Matthews wrote:
> "Schizoid Man" < ... 21stcentury> wrote:

Great Suzi Quattro reference.

>> I've just inherited a beat-up old Mac that I'm keen to use to learn 
>> Java. It runs Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11 and I'm keen to use a 
>> lightweight IDE, so nothing like Eclipse or NetBeans. Can anyone a 
>> suggest a decent free one?

Both Eclipse and NetBeans should run fine on that machine. What do you 
mean by "lightweight"? 

Lightest weight is a text editor plus Ant plus command line, which works 
just fine. I use emacs if in that mode, but vi{,m} or whatever plain text
tool you use is just fine.

> I don't know about lightweight, but I have a vague memory of NetBeans 
> 6.5.1 running on Tiger: <http://www.netbeans.info/downloads/dev.php>
> 
> See also <http://mactracker.ca/>.

The aforementioned IDEs are just Java programs. They do give a lot of bang 
for the megabyte.

Everyone should know how to do Java command-line/scripted anyway.

-- 
Lew

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#2543

"Lew" <lewbloch@gmail.com> wrote

> Both Eclipse and NetBeans should run fine on that machine. What do you
> mean by "lightweight"?

Something that has a few basic IDE features such as intellisense, and some 
basic debugging. Since I'm learning Java and don't require the enterprise 
features yet, I think NetBeans and Eclipse might be a bit over-engineered. 

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#2545

Schizoid Man wrote:
> "Lew" wrote
>> Both Eclipse and NetBeans should run fine on that machine. What do you
>> mean by "lightweight"?
> 
> Something that has a few basic IDE features such as intellisense, and some 
> basic debugging. Since I'm learning Java and don't require the enterprise 
> features yet, I think NetBeans and Eclipse might be a bit over-engineered.

Both those IDEs are modular and ship in versions without the Enterprise features.

You might want to actually take a look at their respective web sites and feed some 
hard data into that decision engine.

-- 
Lew

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#2559

On Sun, 24 Feb 2013 20:40:14 -0000, "Schizoid Man"
<schiz_man@21stcentury.com> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone
who said :

>Something that has a few basic IDE features such as intellisense, and some 
>basic debugging. Since I'm learning Java and don't require the enterprise 
>features yet, I think NetBeans and Eclipse might be a bit over-engineered.

 see http://mindprod.com/jgloss/ide.html to get a list of options.
-- 
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products http://mindprod.com
One thing I love about having a website, is that when I complain about
something, I only have to do it once. It saves me endless hours of 
grumbling.

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#2544

On 24/02/13 20:23, Lew wrote:
> Lightest weight is a text editor plus Ant plus command line, which works
> just fine.

I came to the conclusion that Ant is insufficient without an 
error-detecting editor (as in an IDE).  If class Foo uses class Bar, 
class Bar could be changed in a way that causes an error in Foo, yet Ant 
will not detect that Foo needs to be recompiled in order to see the 
error, which goes unnoticed until runtime, or until Foo is re-compiled.

Is my conclusion incorrect?  Am I using Ant correctly?:

% cat build.xml
<project default="compile">
   <target name="compile">
     <mkdir dir="classes" />
     <javac srcdir="src" destdir="classes"
            listfiles="yes" includeDestClasses="true"
            includeAntRuntime="false" />
   </target>

   <target name="clean">
     <delete dir="classes" />
   </target>
</project>
% cat src/Foo.java
public class Foo {
     public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
         new Bar();
     }
}

% cat src/Bar.java
public class Bar { }

% ant clean
Buildfile: /scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/build.xml

clean:
    [delete] Deleting directory /scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/classes

BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 0 seconds
% ant
Buildfile: /scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/build.xml

compile:
     [mkdir] Created dir: /scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/classes
     [javac] Compiling 2 source files to /scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/classes
     [javac] /scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/src/Bar.java
     [javac] /scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/src/Foo.java

BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 0 seconds
% java -cp classes Foo
% sed -e 's/class/abstract class/' -i src/Bar.java
% cat src/Bar.java
public abstract class Bar { }

% ant
Buildfile: /scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/build.xml

compile:
     [javac] Compiling 1 source file to /scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/classes
     [javac] /scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/src/Bar.java

BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 0 seconds
% java -cp classes Foo
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.InstantiationError: Bar
         at Foo.main(Unknown Source)
% touch src/Foo.java
% ant
Buildfile: /scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/build.xml

compile:
     [javac] Compiling 1 source file to /scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/classes
     [javac] /scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/src/Foo.java
     [javac] /scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/src/Foo.java:3: error: Bar is abstract; cannot be instantiated
     [javac]     new Bar();
     [javac]     ^
     [javac] 1 error

BUILD FAILED
/scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/build.xml:6: Compile failed; see the compiler error output for details.

Total time: 0 seconds



-- 
ss at comp dot lancs dot ac dot uk

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#2560

On Sun, 24 Feb 2013 21:31:14 +0000, Steven Simpson <ss@domain.invalid>
wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :

>I came to the conclusion that Ant is insufficient without an 
>error-detecting editor (as in an IDE).  If class Foo uses class Bar, 
>class Bar could be changed in a way that causes an error in Foo, yet Ant 
>will not detect that Foo needs to be recompiled in order to see the 
>error, which goes unnoticed until runtime, or until Foo is re-compiled.

I don't think ant has anything to do with it.  It just hands all the
source files to javac.exe, and javac.exe makes the decision on what
needs to be recompiled.  I do an ant clean if I have been doing any
fiddling with cross class static finals, since the literal values get
burned into the code, and will not be refreshed until recompilation.

Other than that, normally everything comes out in the wash.

Usually what happens is you change source, that triggers a recompile,
then everyone sees the new version.  If there is an error, and you
ignore it, presumably others may get an old class file, but I don't do
that. I do so many recompilations ahead of time in IntelliJ that even
if a change were missed, it would get picked up on the next ANT clean
recompile.

A clean compile is called for:
1. before final test
2. before distribution
3. when you detect behaviour that makes no sense

Javac/ANT is so fast compared with what we used to do, loading javac
for each source module and fiddling with MAKE.


-- 
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products http://mindprod.com
One thing I love about having a website, is that when I complain about
something, I only have to do it once. It saves me endless hours of 
grumbling.

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#2561

On 01/03/13 08:18, Roedy Green wrote:
> On Sun, 24 Feb 2013 21:31:14 +0000, Steven Simpson <ss@domain.invalid>
> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :
>> I came to the conclusion that Ant is insufficient without an
>> error-detecting editor (as in an IDE).  If class Foo uses class Bar,
>> class Bar could be changed in a way that causes an error in Foo, yet Ant
>> will not detect that Foo needs to be recompiled in order to see the
>> error, which goes unnoticed until runtime, or until Foo is re-compiled.
> I don't think ant has anything to do with it.  It just hands all the
> source files to javac.exe, and javac.exe makes the decision on what
> needs to be recompiled.

That only happens if the output directory is included in the classpath.  
Is Ant invoking javac this way?  'ant -v' shows this:

     [javac] Compilation arguments:
     [javac] '-d'
     [javac] '/scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/classes'
     [javac] '-classpath'
     [javac] '/scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/classes'
     [javac] '-sourcepath'
     [javac] '/scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/src'
     [javac] '-g:none'

(Note that source files are not listed here, so it's not the complete 
set of arguments.  We can't directly tell which source files are passed 
from this statement.)

The includeDestClasses attribute of <javac> controls this, and defaults 
to "true", though I was also setting it explicitly to its default.  I 
set it to false, and got:

     [javac] Compilation arguments:
     [javac] '-d'
     [javac] '/scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/classes'
     [javac] '-classpath'
     [javac] ''
     [javac] '-sourcepath'
     [javac] '/scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/src'
     [javac] '-g:none'

So that attribute does what it says on the tin.  I repeated my test run 
(see end of message) to see if it made any difference.  However, again 
only Bar is recompiled, so Ant is still showing the behaviour I 
mentioned - javac is only being offered the source files that have changed.


> Javac/ANT is so fast compared with what we used to do, loading javac
> for each source module and fiddling with MAKE.

Certainly, there's no point trying to use Make to pass one file at a 
time to javac.  If you have a dependency sequence A->B->C, and you make 
a change to B and decide to recompile, C is going to get compiled as an 
implicit class anyway (unless you add the destination directory to the 
classpath, which we've already seen misses things), and you might need A 
compiled anyway.  You may as well just compile A if any of the source 
files for A, B or C have changed.  IOW, if it's so fast, just do a clean 
build every time.



Here's the corrected test run...

% cat build.xml
<project default="compile">
   <target name="compile">
     <mkdir dir="classes" />
     <javac srcdir="src" destdir="classes"
            listfiles="yes" includeDestClasses="false"
            includeAntRuntime="false" />
   </target>

   <target name="clean">
     <delete dir="classes" />
   </target>
</project>
% cat src/Foo.java
public class Foo {
     public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
         new Bar();
     }
}

% cat src/Bar.java
public class Bar { }

% ant clean
Buildfile: /scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/build.xml

clean:
    [delete] Deleting directory /scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/classes

BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 0 seconds
% ant
Buildfile: /scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/build.xml

compile:
     [mkdir] Created dir: /scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/classes
     [javac] Compiling 2 source files to /scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/classes
     [javac] /scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/src/Bar.java
     [javac] /scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/src/Foo.java

BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 0 seconds
% java -cp classes Foo
% sed -e 's/class/abstract class/' -i src/Bar.java
% cat src/Bar.java
public abstract class Bar { }

% ant
Buildfile: /scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/build.xml

compile:
     [javac] Compiling 1 source file to /scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/classes
     [javac] /scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/src/Bar.java

BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 0 seconds
% java -cp classes Foo
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.InstantiationError: Bar
         at Foo.main(Unknown Source)
% touch src/Foo.java
% ant
Buildfile: /scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/build.xml

compile:
     [javac] Compiling 1 source file to /scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/classes
     [javac] /scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/src/Foo.java
     [javac] /scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/src/Foo.java:3: error: Bar is abstract; cannot be instantiated
     [javac]     new Bar();
     [javac]     ^
     [javac] 1 error

BUILD FAILED
/scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/build.xml:6: Compile failed; see the compiler error output for details.

Total time: 0 seconds



-- 
ss at comp dot lancs dot ac dot uk

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#2571

On Fri, 01 Mar 2013 12:30:45 +0000, Steven Simpson <ss@domain.invalid>
wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :

>That only happens if the output directory is included in the classpath.  

I have not done it any other way with ANT.  

Even if you put them somewhere else, JavaC has to know that place. I
would be surprised it if got suddenly stupid about recompile. However,
I have not done any experiments and it sounds like you have.
-- 
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products http://mindprod.com
Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster. 
 ~ Niklaus Wirth (born: 1934-02-15 age: 79) Wirth's Law

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#2572

On 10/03/13 01:35, Roedy Green wrote:
> On Fri, 01 Mar 2013 12:30:45 +0000, Steven Simpson <ss@domain.invalid>
> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :
>
>> That only happens if the output directory is included in the classpath.
> I have not done it any other way with ANT.
>
> Even if you put them somewhere else, JavaC has to know that place.

It does in both Ant configurations.  Here's the default:

     [javac] Compilation arguments:
     [javac] '-d'
     [javac] '/scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/classes'
     [javac] '-classpath'
     [javac] '/scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/classes'
     [javac] '-sourcepath'
     [javac] '/scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/src'
     [javac] '-g:none'

Here's includeDestClasses="false":

     [javac] Compilation arguments:
     [javac] '-d'
     [javac] '/scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/classes'
     [javac] '-classpath'
     [javac] ''
     [javac] '-sourcepath'
     [javac] '/scratch/simpsons/Scratch/Coding/antfail2/src'
     [javac] '-g:none'

The output directory (as set by -d) is the same in both cases.  Only the 
classpath has changed.

> I
> would be surprised it if got suddenly stupid about recompile.

I don't know what you mean by stupid, but the behaviour is indeed different:

 1. With "-d X -cp X:Y:Z", the compiler checks the timestamp of
    X/Foo.class against Foo.java, and only recompiles Foo if Foo.java is
    newer (in which case, let's say that Foo passes the test).
 2. With "-d X -cp Y:Z", the compiler compiles Foo.java regardless.

For the reasons stated in my first post, I don't trust behaviour #1.


> However,
> I have not done any experiments and it sounds like you have.

In my last post, I determined that Ant <javac> has #1-like behaviour.  
When Ant invokes javac, Ant performs the test described in #1, and only 
submits source files to javac for classes which pass the test.  Under 
the default Ant configuration, javac then performs the same test, which 
always passes, because Ant has filtered the input to include only those 
classes which will pass.  The tests performed by javac are redundant 
when invoked by Ant.

Under the alternative configuration, javac is instructed not to perform 
the tests, but the result is the same because Ant is still performing them.

So #1-like behaviour seems to be unavoidable with the Ant <javac> task.


-- 
ss at comp dot lancs dot ac dot uk

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