NetBeans IDE better at Java Platform mgmt than competion?

Hi all,

NetBeans IDE should be the #1 when it comes to Java development. Users of
IDE's should feel that NetBeans is closer to the Oracle JDK than any other
IDE.


Here's a suggestion.

As a Java developer I keep my development environment fairly up-to-date
with the latest JDK packages from Oracle's site. I also quite often dive
into the JDK source and I occasionally test new JDKs and I'm active in
various JDK related settings (SO, JDK mailing lists, etc). The NetBeans IDE
doesn't do anything extra to cater for the likes of me compared to the
competion, at least not when it comes to Java Platform management.


Imagine a NetBeans IDE plugin that would:


* Lets you get and install latest JDK package from Oracle (of course only
after having accepted license first)

* Checking for latest JDK and potentially giving warning to IDE user that a
newer JDK is available.

* When installing, then optionally installing the docs package too. (this
is a hassle to do manually)

* When installing, then optionally installing the full source too. Now,
this is REALLY a hassle to do currently as the only way to obtain the JDK
source is via Mercurial (OpenJDK). The source that is included with the
Oracle JDK is for kids, it only includes the JSR classes, not the
interesting stuff, i.e. the actual implementation. I appreciate the
difference between OpenJDK and Oracle JDK but I do not understand why this
has to be so difficult.

* Being able to change - from within the plugin - the IDE's own JDK. This
will require that the plugin has write access to the IDE's conf file, so
this one may not be easy to solve.


All of this should be possible from within the IDE.  I understand that this
cannot be done without some cooperation from the rest of Oracle, e.g. the
Oracle Java team would have to expose an URL for checking for latest
version, and so on.

NB: the word "install" in the above should often be read as "unpack".
Perhaps the default may even be to install new Java Platforms into a
private location only used by NetBeans?. Java devs are rarely interested in
something messing with their Windows Registry and what not.

I think this could be a killer feature of the NB IDE. At least it will
signal that the NB IDE has more of an affinity with Oracle JDK than any
other IDE.

(end of random thoughts)

/Peter