Re: Can Emacs beat NetBeans or Eclipse?

[Malte Spiess]

"John Wells" <lists@sourceillustrated.com> writes:

> What I'd like to understand is where emacs hits the "text editor" wall
> when it comes to Java development. I've already looked at it's Ruby
> support (my other current language) and it looks very strong, but in
> terms of Java development I'm betting that there is a point you reach
> with emacs where you can go no further. For example, debugging Java,
> refactoring Java, and deep insight into Java data structures for
> navigation, refactoring, etc.

Well, since you can use lisp-functions in Emacs, there are basically no
limits.

Especially for JDEE there are lots of really nice features that you can
use or adjust to your needs. A good idea would be to join the JDEE
mailinglists to share your ideas with other developers.

> NetBeans, Eclipse, and other Java-based Java IDEs have an easier time
> with understanding the semantics of Java, I'd wager, simply because
> they *are* Java.
>
> I guess what I'm looking for is to understand: what can you do, as a
> java developer, in NetBeans or Eclipse that you can't do (reasonably)
> in emacs?

Since I don't use these tools I can't really tell, but many things that
work with a standard Eclipse installation will not with JDEE. You can
add most things by hand though with a little lisp/Emacs knowledge.

For me the biggest fortune of Emacs is rather that you can use one tool
for everything and don't have to learn new script languages all the
time. It's not so much that it's the best Java IDE around...

> Thanks guys! I appreciate the guidance!
>
> John

Greetings
Malte