NetBeans Weekly News - Issue #49

NetBeans Weekly News, a newsletter for the NetBeans community
Issue #49 - January 21, 2002
URL: <http://www.netbeans.org/newsletter/2002-01-21.html>
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** Release Status **

- NetBeans 3.3.1 is on track for release on Jan/25. Release Candidate 1 was
made available on Jan/15:
     <http://www.netbeans.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=236225&listName=nbdev>,
RC2 was delayed to today's morning (GMT+1):
     <http://www.netbeans.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=239863&listName=nbdev>
     <http://www.netbeans.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=239925&listName=nbdev>
You can also check if a fix for your favourite bug was already approved or the
   bug was waived:
     <http://www.netbeans.org/release33/high_resistance_331.html>

** Events of interest **

SourceCast, the engine running NetBeans' website, was upgraded to version
on Jan/16. Some bugs in the web interface were fixed, some usefull features
added: Most-recent-first ordering in mailing list archives, "Jump to issue"
button in IssueZilla reports and more. Read the Collab.Net's announcement:
     <http://www.netbeans.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=236678&listName=nbannounce>
There are also issues with the new version:
     <http://www.netbeans.org/news.html#159>
Site's performance has been improved the day after thanks to fix from   Collab.net:
     <http://www.netbeans.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=238032&listName=nbannounce>

Jack Catchpoole unveils web team's work and plans for the NetBeans site
redesign. The team published requirements based on feedback and interviews
with community members and proposal for the new design. Feedback is more
than welcome. For more, see
     <http://www.netbeans.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=238157&listName=nbdiscuss>

The XML Project (http://xml.netbeans.org) is on the path to the first stable
release. More bugs are fixed in the Release Candidate 2 announced by Libor
Kramolis on Jan/18. Final release is scheduled to the end of this week.
     <http://www.netbeans.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=239664&listName=nbannounce>

** NetBeans 3.4 Planning and another proposals **

Our performance departement, Petr Nejedly, has initiated a discussion on a
Performance Plan for NetBeans 3.4. He proposes some architecture improvements,
cleanup of legacy code, and the overall strategy "pay as you play" for the
   IDE.
Read his proposal and the following discussion at
     <http://www.netbeans.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=235290&listName=nbdev>

The planning goes on. Do you miss some feature ? Let us know and file a
request in the IssueZilla. Ben Hutchinson has given us an usability checklist:
     <http://www.netbeans.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=235916&listName=nbdev>

A new notion for presenting NetBeans modules, "kits" or "module clusters" was
introduced by Bob Brewin, crypted under Planning mail thread. The proposal
deals with complexity of some modules, which consist of 6 libraries or so. 
Furhter information is at:
     <http://www.netbeans.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=238664&listName=nbdev>

Dirk Ruiz has burried another interesting topic under general subject of
3.4 Planning: proposal for a module, which would solicit feedback about usage
of IDE's features from volunteers, giving us more clues what to focus on:
     <http://www.netbeans.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=238979&listName=nbdev>

Terry Heatlie wants to incorporate the Bug Submitter module (SIM) into
NetBeans 3.4. The module helps to report bugs or search for them in NetBeans'
IssueZilla:
     <http://www.netbeans.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=237707&listName=nbdev>

** nbusers@ weekly news **

Hint: avoid using huge packages. Besides that your IDE may slow to crawl as
happened to Jim King, it's probably a good hint to refactor your code.
NetBeans parser is the culprit also in the case of large files:
     <http://www.netbeans.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=237358&listName=nbusers>
     <http://www.netbeans.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=236665&listName=nbusers>

Another thread calling for comparison between NetBeans with Sun's Forte
for Java was spawned on Jan/16. Remember that NetBeans has at least twice as
fast lifecycle as Forte, with all its pros and cons:
     <http://www.netbeans.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=237727&listName=nbusers>

Don't be surprised if your IDE won't help you much editing files, which are
locally removed from the VCS. Milos explains that feature in
     <http://www.netbeans.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=238167&listName=nbusers>

Do you want to use JDK 1.4 and see the added classes and methods in the code
completion ? You can do it yourself of use an autoupdate for the Editor's 
parser database from our server as suggested in thread
     <http://www.netbeans.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=239735&listName=nbusers>

Now when Eclipse project is open to all, we could as well borrow some of their
features, as the patch creation action suggested by dion:
     <http://www.netbeans.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=240192&listName=nbusers>

** Developer's week on nbdev@ and openide-dev@ **

Should we switch the building process to Ant-1.4 ? There's one misbehaviour on 
Windows boxes which complicates things:
     <http://www.netbeans.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=235458&listName=nbdev>

Evan Adams has reposted (originally private) e-mail discussion about how to
work with JAR objects in the IDE, which Petr Jiricka evolved into a long-term
vision:
     <http://www.netbeans.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=236564&listName=nbdev>
     <http://www.netbeans.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=237656&listName=nbdev>

Startup system info printed to the console will be gone! It is said to
confuse new users, making them think that something is wrong. The message will
be printed only with a special startup flag:
      <http://www.netbeans.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=238039&listName=nbdev>

Meta-modelling efforts continue with a proposal to create a meta-model of Java
language using the MOF and JMI and use it to gather project information with
support from MDR project:
     <http://www.netbeans.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=239020&listName=nbdev>

Yarda pointed out that we could enhance current check for API changes to cover
also "official" APIs of modules, not only the OpenAPIs from the openide
library. See Jesse's comments:
     <http://openide.netbeans.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=237532&listName=dev>

Declaring an API method final does not close the project from extending or
from the developer's community as noted by David Strupl in his response as
well as the reasons for doing so.
     <http://openide.netbeans.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=237985&listName=dev>

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