Re: Netbeans at Swinburne University

This could be a good start with  the collection of any documentations, 
how-to's that exist.  I have added John to this thread who works with 
NetBeans documentations among others.  If anybody has any existing 
material can we send it out to [email protected] and start building a 
library?  John, are there any specific docs in the works that would be 
of interest to the EDU users?

-Rob

Richard Forster wrote:

>Hello fellow Netbeans education users (enthusiasts?).
>
>      We'd just like to add to the comments posted by Robert Demmer
>that originated from an email we sent him.  
>      
>For us, at Swinburne University down in Oz, Netbeans is attractive for
>the following reasons.
>
>* There is good support for new students - syntax and error
>highlighting, code reformatting, bracket matching, sensible templates,
>GUI painting, debugging etc.
>
>* There is good support for more advanced students: database, CVS,
>JUnit, JSP, servlets etc.
>
>*  Its open source and free.  That means we don't have to get into
>endless negotiations with management every time we want to extend its
>use or upgrade to a new version.  It also means that we can reasonably
>expect our students to install it at home in order to do their
>homework.
>
>* It works well with other open source products (Linux, Ant, JUnit,
>mySQL etc)
>
>* It works seamlessly across our Windows and Linux workstations.
>
>* There is good help, online documentation, and tutorial material
>
>Our main problems with Netbeans are:
>* complexity of the interface (not a showstopper)
>* performance (on our P3 800's with 256 meg of memory)
>* installation can be tricky for students at home
>* despite the good documentation we find ourselves writing lots of
>'howtos' to talk students through particular situations.  
>
>It seems to us that the ways in which we academics could be most
>usefully be involved in the total netbeans effort are to:
>
>* contribute, evaluate and review learning material
>* contribute ideas towards standards and organisation for a central
>'education' site 
>* contribute ideas towards making Netbeans more attractive to education
>users
>* act as a testbed for the implementation of new ideas
>
>
>
>The other aspect of Netbeans we are really interested in is student
>involvement.  Our students learn best when the tasks they are presented
>with are 'real' and creative.  As an example, the website they maintain
>for their own projects (http://cit3.cdn.swin.edu.au) has had far more
>effort and ingenuity expended on it than any comparable compulsory
>exercise.  We would like to see students contributing both documents and
>software to Netbeans.
>
>
>
>Richard Forster and Laurie Johns
>Swinburne University
>Australia
>
>  
>