who like's Forte?

[inkedmn]

so i'm going to be helping out the developer here at work with a translation of a program written in VB/Access into Java/SQL (:D), and i'm just curious as to what you java coders think of this IDE?

[Danger Fan]

We use it where I work. I guess it's okay. I've never really sat down and coded in it. The organization is pretty cool. Everything is broken down into projects, which are broken down into classes, which are broken down into methods. It may seem a bit messy at first, but it really is well organized

[Bradmont]

I really don't like reliance on IDEs. I do all my coding in VIM (including things like GUI design) and you generally end up with much more managable code. Many IDEs make you totally reliant on them, which really is not a good thing. Another thing about forte is that it's massive, bulky and slow. It takes up about a hundred megs of ram as soon as you start it.

[Dru Lee Parsec]

I agree with Bradmont on the valueof IDE's in general. As you know I use Jext www.jext.org which is a bit more than just an editor and a bit less than an IDE. Also, I too build all my GUI's by hand in code rather than using an IDE to place objects and then write the code for me.

Now, I have never used Forte, but some developers at work say it's quite slow.

However, it really comes down to what do you feel comfortable with. I use to love Codewrite. But they didn't have a Linux version so I switched to Jext. There were things in Codewrite that are missing in Jext but I just got use to doing things a bit differently.

But for the sake of all that is good and holy, PLEASE don't write code in Notepad. That's just unnatural.

[inkedmn]

well, it's more of a situation where (as part of the agreement to let me participate in this project), i'm going to HAVE to do this in Forte, so i just wanted to get a general consensus if i could (even though i know most of the folks here aren't really into the IDEa :) (get it?)...

sorry, i'm a goofball.

[Isengard]

I use forte and love it! Think it's renamed to Sun One now. Forte to me is stable and easy to write in. Can do all the compilation and execution without going to the commandline which I find troublesome when just correction a small error and is short on time :D

[_underdog]

I use JCreator. I have found it to be quick, light and fast. I also use Ant to automate my build process. It is a really good tool to pick up. Saved me a lot of time and trouble.

[sicarius]

I think one of forte's redeeming features is that CVS is built directly into it. This can be a big plus if your hacking on a windows box. But other than that forte isn't all that special. A whole lot of "features" that act more like bugs, and it is very heavyweight.

[nanode]

Forte is just fine. I use it every day in Linux.
I've never really been an IDE guy, but Forte had a lot of little things I'd use seperately.

Good:
Nice editor. Lots of options for syntax(es) identation etc.
CVS client is very nice. I especially like the diffs. and logs in SWING.
Object browser is decent. I work on a lot of projects with very deep packages, so it's easy to get lost. This might sound silly but, this is a major reason I don't just use a nice text editor.

The lame.
The introspection of the object browser doesn't not show inheritence. If I have auto-complete enabled things are fine, but I think I'm referring to other code more than I should be.
The debugger is alright, but I hardly use it, since I primarily code servlets and depend on a tier in front and behind me. Distributed debugging is possible but requires a lot of processing power and patience to setup correctly.
Bloated - forte ships will all sorts of modules, which you can disable fortunately. My workstation is a PIII/500 with 1GB ram with debian linux - forte runs pretty well if I disable the unused mods.

I attempted to install the new Forte 4 (SUN one studio) on a win2k laptop (PIII/450, 128MB) and then read the min. system requirements: 800mhz and 512MB ram <- WTF? Maybe the average dude has juiced up hardware, but until we get a larger budget I'm glad I can use vim with syntax highlighting in windows :)

BTW: I still use the shell to exec. my ant builds, even though forte can do it. It's just faster.

[Dru Lee Parsec]

512 Meg of RAM for a text editor?

No, that's not bloated, not at all!

BTW, I thought you were a vi guy who wrote code on a happy hacker keyboard with no letters on the keys. ;)

[Isengard]

I have a laptop .. 700mhz/128 mb ram .. and it works just fine. It uses 40 mb of ram when running.

[nanode]

Dru,

I still use vi for quick one-offs or adjustments. I just have too much source code to manage. I still use that blank keyboard!

<digress>
To redeem my standing in the geek community I should tell you that I got jdk1.3.1 installed and running on a 10 yr. old sparcstation with debian. Ant targets take a few orders of magnitude longer, but they work!!!
</digress>

[Dru Lee Parsec]

Hey, I'm impressed that you got Java working in Debian! I've never done that!


Tell everyone the story about the blank keyboard. :)

[nanode]

Debian's been my primary dev. OS for a couple years now :)

OK - blank keyboard story.

Back in the day, I was a programming intern. Dru Lee Parsec was my boss/mentor. Those were the happy times. Just two of us shared a large office space, listened to music and even played guitars occassionally, but I digress. A friend of mine came across a shipment of Dell "quiet key" keyboards, all of which had no keys printed on them. Because they were considered defects I got one for free. So I bring this to work to write code on. In addition to having modest touch typing skills, and learning java, I decide to teach myself to use vi - all with a BLANK KEYBOARD!

You can probably use your imagination here as to what a frustrating mess this became. The good news is, 3 years later I'm still coding java, have the same exact keyboard in front of me (as I type this) and consider myself a competent vi user.

Poor Dru Lee... It must have been like teaching a blind child to juggle.

[phubuh]

http://www.intellij.com/eap/

Sign up there and get a free "beta" of Ariadna, the new version of IDEA. I just started using it today, and it's amazing.

It's rather slick on my P4 2GHz 512MB RAM. :)

[phubuh]

Hmm, since I'm such a nice guy and all, log in with phubuh@hotmail.com as username and coderforums as password if you don't feel like signing up. Trust me, it's worth it. :)