Re: WebObject Support on the development tools

> I dunno if I'm a _proponent_ of Eclipse, I was just countering the  
> implied FUD because I'm not sure the fact that WO has been divorced  
> from XCode means anything one way or another. I think rather that  
> WOLips+Eclipse surpassed Apple's tools awhile ago. That's mostly due  
> to neglect on Apple's part.
>
> I actually hated Eclipse when I first started with it. I would still  
> never use it for Cocoa programming. Even now, I'm not sure I *like*  
> Eclipse. Pretty much all of our developers have ended up having to  
> have two monitors because of Eclipse's insistence on taking over the  
> screen.
>
>  But Eclipse is really, really tuned for Java development. There's a  
> whole bunch of stuff in Java that sounds easy (like setting up a  
> classpath/package/etc.) but that turns out to be really tedious as  
> your project gets large. Eclipse deals with all that tediousness,  
> and it really, really, groks java. The fact that I can select a  
> method call in the middle of the code and command click it and it  
> will correctly figure out what class that variable is and take me to  
> the definition is very, very cool. Xcode can do some of that stuff  
> for Objective-C, but for Java, not so much.
>
> For the same reason, if you're using Ruby on Rails, you have to use  
> TextMate.
Maybe the best characterization of Eclipse so far ... It's essentially  
how I feel, also.  Would Eclipse be a lot slicker if it was NOT  
written in Java?  Absolutely -- like every Java desktop application  
compared to a proper native replacement, in my opinion.  But the  
effort to replace it at this point, given the sheer mass of libraries  
and power it brings with it would be extraordinary.  At every stage, I  
consider writing "the next feature" in Cocoa, and every time I end up  
back in Eclipse.  There just is no Cocoa analog to the libraries that  
are available in Eclipse for navigating/managing/editing/refactoring  
Java code.  So it's either write a crazy RPC server on top of Eclipse  
that exposes its Java manipulation features to a Cocoa app (which I  
have seriously considered and which just sounds incredibly painful on  
both sides of that service), or sacrifice the slickness of a Cocoa app  
to get some real work done now by building it in Eclipse.  Mind you,  
three years ago I talked to a couple Xcode people at WWDC and said  
"PLEASE ... Give me a plugin API.  I will make cool things if you just  
open it."  But Apple doesn't see that as a priority, so you get what  
Apple decides to give you.  At this point, Apple decides to give you a  
subpar Java IDE (relative to the world of Java IDE's -- I'm not just  
talking Eclipse here -- pick any of them, IDEA, NetBeans, Eclipse,  
whatever -- they hands down beat Xcode in terms of Java productivity  
tools). This is one of the large impediments to making a nice WOB  
replacement ... I don't think you can make a nice enough end-user  
experience in pure SWT, but I don't think you can make a capable  
enough tool in pure Cocoa.

ms