IDE support

[François Rey]

Great news. I always knew there was life after death ;)
I'm not sure if I'll be able to contribute but I sure wanted to drop
my line on a subject which is probably in the corner or other people's
mind: IDE support, which would be key in making sure Visage gets a
broader audience.
Ideally IDE support should come out at the same time as the language
itself, and follow each other closely. I would even go as far as
saying it's part of the language, at least from a user's point of
view.
Netbeans would be an easy target since it's already integrated. My
personal preference would be Eclipse, Exadel's JavaFX plugin should
also live.
Whichever way, I say Cheers to a long live Visage!

[Stephen Chin]

On IDE support, I have already contacted the Exadel folks to pick up the
Eclipse plug-in from them. I don't think we have the project resources
right now to do a good job on all the IDEs, so I would rather pick the
most popular one (currently Eclipse) and do a really good job.

--
--Steve
blog: http://steveonjava.com/

[Nick Apperley]

Not true if you look at what JavaFX Script developers preferred to
use. Although I have a link pointing to a poll on the preferred JavaFX
IDE (http://learningjavafx.com/tools/netbeans6-javafx), however the
website no longer exists. Also in the link Jo Conner covers the
reasons why the majority of JavaFX developers choose NetBeans as the
preferred IDE.

I think it would be pretty ignorant to ignore what IDE JavaFX Script
developers preferred to use, and go with Java developers preferred
which is unrealistic. This is considering that one of the top
priorities of the Visage project is to help transition JavaFX Script
developers to the language.

[Praeus]

I think that the main reason that JavaFX script developers choose to
develop with NetBeans is because the tools have been better than the
equivalent tools for eclipse. The same is true for Swing. However if
Oracle isn't open sourcing their plugin and Exadel is, then that's a
good reason to start with Eclipse. Also I've found that eclipse is
much better for server side code - it would be nice to have one IDE
with good support for both client and server sides.

[Stephen Chin]

Google trends says Eclipse wins:
http://www.google.de/trends?q=netbeans+ide%2C+eclipse+ide&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0
<http://www.google.de/trends?q=netbeans+ide%2C+eclipse+ide&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0>

Folks get pretty attached to their IDEs, so I don't want to start a
flame war... This is simply about focusing our limited resources on the
most popular Java IDE today.

Also, this is for end users, not developers. We will make it possible
so you can edit the Visage codebase in any IDE of your choice.

Cheers,
--Steve

--
--Steve
blog: http://steveonjava.com/

[Matt warman]

Flame war or not, most people have already selected their IDE of
choice. As a NetBeans guy, I won't be switching to Eclipse to Visage
projects, especially if JavaFX will still have all of the NetBeans
tools and support. NetBeans seems to be the IDE of choice for UI
development, so it is important to support the major IDEs out of the
box. I am sure same would be true if it was NetBeans only support.

On Oct 4, 11:35 pm, Stephen Chin <st...@widgetfx.org> wrote:
> Google trends says Eclipse wins:http://www.google.de/trends?q=netbeans+ide%2C+eclipse+ide&ctab=0&geo=...
> <http://www.google.de/trends?q=netbeans+ide%2C+eclipse+ide&ctab=0&geo=...>

>  smime.p7s
> 8KViewDownload

[Fabrizio Giudici]

On 10/5/10 05:35 , Stephen Chin wrote:
> Google trends says Eclipse wins:
> http://www.google.de/trends?q=netbeans+ide%2C+eclipse+ide&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0
> <http://www.google.de/trends?q=netbeans+ide%2C+eclipse+ide&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0>
>

A number of different polls in the latest year showed somewhat
consistent numbers, with Eclipse being adopted by 50% of developers and
NetBeans by 35%. So Stephen is correct in saying that Eclipse is the
most widespread.

>
> Folks get pretty attached to their IDEs, so I don't want to start a
> flame war... This is simply about focusing our limited resources on
> the most popular Java IDE today.
>
> Also, this is for end users, not developers. We will make it possible
> so you can edit the Visage codebase in any IDE of your choice.

As you know I've a NetBeans bias :-) in any case I think that it's up to
the project leaders of visage to choose which is their preference IDE. I
strongly support people asking for NetBeans support, but rather than
asking others to do what they don't feel good to do, as in every FLOSS
project the correct solution is to add more motivated people so they can
add support for NetBeans. BTW, I've just asked to the right people at
Oracle if they feel to release the existing JavaFX support for NetBeans
in the open.

--
Fabrizio Giudici - Java Architect, Project Manager
Tidalwave s.a.s. - "We make Java work. Everywhere."
java.net/blog/fabriziogiudici - www.tidalwave.it/people
Fabrizio...@tidalwave.it

[Stephen Chin]

It sounds like you and Matt (and possibly others) care enough about this
to take it forward. Thanks for reaching out to get access to the
NetBeans codebase for the plug-in.

We can setup a separate Mercurial repo per IDE plug-in once we get them
all assembled. The first change will be to get them all to work with
the new visage compiler (new compiler name, packages, etc.). Then folks
can work on improving them as they see fit.

Cheers,
--Steve

On 10/5/2010 10:43 AM, Fabrizio Giudici wrote:
> On 10/5/10 05:35 , Stephen Chin wrote:
>> Google trends says Eclipse wins:
>> http://www.google.de/trends?q=netbeans+ide%2C+eclipse+ide&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0
>> <http://www.google.de/trends?q=netbeans+ide%2C+eclipse+ide&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0>
>>
>
> A number of different polls in the latest year showed somewhat
> consistent numbers, with Eclipse being adopted by 50% of developers
> and NetBeans by 35%. So Stephen is correct in saying that Eclipse is
> the most widespread.
>>
>> Folks get pretty attached to their IDEs, so I don't want to start a
>> flame war... This is simply about focusing our limited resources on
>> the most popular Java IDE today.
>>
>> Also, this is for end users, not developers. We will make it
>> possible so you can edit the Visage codebase in any IDE of your choice.
> As you know I've a NetBeans bias :-) in any case I think that it's up
> to the project leaders of visage to choose which is their preference
> IDE. I strongly support people asking for NetBeans support, but rather
> than asking others to do what they don't feel good to do, as in every
> FLOSS project the correct solution is to add more motivated people so
> they can add support for NetBeans. BTW, I've just asked to the right
> people at Oracle if they feel to release the existing JavaFX support
> for NetBeans in the open.
>

--
--Steve
blog: http://steveonjava.com/

[Osvaldo Pinali Doederlein]

I like both IDEs, but I wonder how long NetBeans will be the premier
choice for GUIs now that Google is giving away all the stuff from
Instantiations. Yeah it's not open source, but I don't care, and
millions don't care either... well, except for the fact that if it was
open source, maybe somebody could reuse some piece of that to add
support for JavaFX 2.0 (WindowBuilder seems to be sufficiently flexible
to accommodate very different toolkits like SWT, Swing and GWT).

On the other hand I'm sure (and hope) that Oracle will produce some
exceptional support for JavaFX 2.0 in NetBeans.1x, and maybe the Visage
project could plug easily into that, especially if the current FXKit /
FX Composer is opensource. Hard choice...

A+
Osvaldo

[Fabrizio Giudici]

On 10/6/10 01:37 , Stephen Chin wrote:
> It sounds like you and Matt (and possibly others) care enough about
> this to take it forward. Thanks for reaching out to get access to the
> NetBeans codebase for the plug-in.
>
> We can setup a separate Mercurial repo per IDE plug-in once we get
> them all assembled. The first change will be to get them all to work
> with the new visage compiler (new compiler name, packages, etc.).
> Then folks can work on improving them as they see fit.

I pinged the NetBeans engineering and a developer told me that as far as
he knows all the JavaFX Script support in NetBeans is available with the
usual NetBeans license, which is GPL+CPE. Thus we can use it as a
starting point for supporting Visage.

[Fernando Martines]

Interesting point!
I use Netbeans for years and I remember a kind of 'frisson' among Swing GUI designers when Matisse project was integrated to it.
I hope to see some effort (even little for while) being considered in order to keep Netbeans aligned to Visage.
IMHO, developers, and future Visage adopters, should not have only one way to go.

~Fernando

2010/10/6 Fabrizio Giudici <fabrizio...@tidalwave.it>

[William Billingsley]

NetBeans support was always a bit of an odd-ball -- Something NetBeans
prides itself on is its support for Maven projects, but there were a
few curly things we always had to do to get NetBeans to play nicely
with a Maven JavaFX project. (And until 6.9, we always had to put up
with the NetBeans GUI marking spurious bugs that weren't really there
if you compiled.)

I'd be great if Visage provided a NetBeans plug-in that does syntax
support for Visage, but for my project at least, I'd find it more
useful it it targeted the Maven build/project system rather than the
native NetBeans one.

[Stephen Chin]

+1 for putting together a Maven Visage plug-in. There were a couple
JavaFX Maven plug-ins (one from Alex Ruiz, another from Artifactory)
that may be a good starting place.

--
--Steve
blog: http://steveonjava.com/

[esmithbss]

Interesting discussion, but IMO, which IDE to use misses the point
entirely.

Disclaimer 1: I've been involved heavily in the testing of the
NetBeans 6.x JavaFX support since it was released.
Disclaimer 2: I use NetBeans, Eclipse, RAD, IntelliJ Idea, VIM and
about a half-dozen other editors for different tasks each week.
Disclaimer 3: I prefer NetBeans and Idea over Eclipse and RAD.


The key in plugin development isn't the IDE. The key lies in making
sure, regardless of IDE, that the plugin provides the capabilities
required by your target audience.

If we are building a plugin for developers, then the plugin must
provide:

a) accurate syntax highlighting
b) code completion/hints across all libraries
c) language validations
d) compiler / build tool integration
e) compiler error traceback to the code
f) editable designer generated code (if designer tools are included)
and
g) Usable Debugger Support including
1) variable evaluation
2) incremental execution (step, go, step into, step out)

Sadly, the debugger support in the NetBeans JavaFX plugin is almost
useless due to severe failure in g.1. and the non-editable generated
code blocks from the designer don't help much at all.


If we are developing for Web Designers, then the plugin needs to
provide:

a) Flexible, WYSIWYG designer
b) Consistent and valid code generation
c) Property settings via GUI
d) all of the developer capabilities (most of which are hidden or
masked behind higher level interfaces)
and a few additional items to help with things like Timeline and
effect development.


Whichever IDE is chosen for the plugin (NetBeans, eclipse, IntelliJ
Idea, TextMate, VIM, emacs, CodeBlocks, etc...) doesn't matter. What
matters is that the feature set provided in the plugin is well defined
and that the plugin itself is stable and usable by the proper
audience.

So which audience is the real target?

Oracle would have you believe it's the first and only the first. Sun
walked the line between the two with different tool sets for each.

But if Visage is really for RIA development (or just rich application
development), then IMHO I believe the second group needs to be catered
to in order to "bring them into the fold."


Eric M. Smith