*n*x

I would have never guessed that one day I’d use Netbeans and like it. Netbeans is really a great IDE for java programming and make a lot of things really easy: db connections (mysql!), GUI graphical editor (aka Matisse) for Swing applications, Webstart (deploy your *desktop* apps from a website), jar creation including jar dependencies, webservices apis (Flickr!, Google, …), subversion support, etc, etc. Really a nice product that has improved a lot.

If only Netbeans would support perl and shell scripts (very important for sysadmins), it would become – at least for me – the IDE to rule them all. For now, I use Eclipse with the epic plugin for perl development (syntax checking, factoring, context assitance, debugging …), and the shelled plugin for shell scripts. Who knows what the future will bring, but working with two IDEs is kind of suboptimal…

EDIT: by now (november 2008) Netbeans 6.5 is out with improved SQL editing, a new PHP editor and beta Python support. A nice and huge step in the right direction, but still no Perl. The support of these similar dynamic languages make it obvious that a good base for dynamic languages entered the Netbeans archticture. Hopefully an implementation Perl will next in line…