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Why Team Foundation Server is useless for Java
In the company I’m currently working for we are using the Team Foundation Server as a version control system. No for developers of C# or any other Microsoft related programming language this is probably fine. However being a Java developer TFS is less then perfect. In fact it is a near nightmare.
We are using various IDE’s for editing our Java projects, meanly because different developers like different IDE’s. Personally I’m using Netbeans, which has perfect Subversion, Git, CVS and Perforce support. Some other developers use IntelliJ from Netbrains. Which is sorta expensive and the version we are using has no support for TFS at all.
So when I want to edit a simple file I first locate it in my IDE, which takes me about 5 seconds. Then I need to look up its location on disk, followed by opening the completely useless Team Exporer. Then I again need to look up the file in TE, followed by a check-out. The whole process to the point that the file is checked out and ready to go takes probably about 1 minute, each and every time.
On an average day I probably waste up to an hour checking out files, and commiting them back into the version control system.
To ease the burden a bit I’ve tried the SvnBridge tool to link my IDE’s Subversion system with TFS, but this tool has many flaws. Just a few of which are:
- No longer appears to be developed
- A merge in TE causes all updates to fail, you need to do a clean checkout again
- Random update failures due to commits of other developers
So for now I’m stuck. Really, really, really stuck.
Netbeans 6.5 Final Release
A short while back I wrote a quick review on the beta of Netbeans 6.5 and that it had some issues. Since the final version was released some time ago I thought it was time for a new review. This time of the final version.
The reason for me not to write one straight away was simple, I first wanna play around a little to find all the pleasant features and those less pleasant ones.
Bigger, better, best
The first thing you expect is this new version to be bigger, better and the best one yet. Well it is bigger in size, with 190MiB for just Java development. So this means a lot more time downloading, but hey that’s a one time thing.
So lets move onto something more relevant. Is it better then Netbeans 6.1. Lets summorize some of the issues I had with the previous version and see if the problem is solved:
- It crashed when working on larger projects. This issue has been fixed, netbeans won’t crash or hang. Though on occasion the parser may crash. Disabling autocomplete and syntax checking.
- For some reason previous versions had difficulty displaying the names of parameters when using Java libraries. For as far as I’ve been able to determine this has been solved.
- The autocomplete completely fails in some more complicated web projects. Well I’m sorry to say this is still true. For some projects not only does autocomplete fail, but so does the syntax checker, both for the JSP files as well as the Java Source files.
So are there any other changes that would make you consider moving from Netbeans 5.5 to 6.5?
New stuff you will like in Netbeans 6.5
Well have there been any changes that would make you wanna switch to the new version.
- The new version actually has some basic debugging integrated of JavaScript. Though I haven’t got it working yet.
- PHP development is now support. Which is a big plus, but it still kinda feels like a cheap addon that doesn’t work perfectly yet. (Maybe in the next release)
- Thread debugging has been improved and made easier
Unfortunattely not all is good in the world of Netbeans. There are also some new bugs, some of which are really annoying.
- For some unexplainable reason adding of libraries by right clicking the ‘Libraries’ in the project view doesn’t work all the time.
- Like I stated earlier the code completion fails in some of the older Java project I’m working on. Not only does code completion fail, but the syntax checker tells me every single line is wrong. Even though the project compiles beautifully
As a final note: is it worth upgrading to this version. Then I’d have to say hell yeah, it’s a lot better then previous versions. If you are a PHP developer however I suggest not using it, for the moment. Especially when you are already using Zend-Studio, which is still a lot better.
Netbeans 6.5 short follow up
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 6)
Loading ...Ok a very short follow up on my previous Netbeans 6.5 impression. Previously I stated that I had some serious problems with the debugging. It failed to indicate which line I was on.
After some research and some more debugging this only appears to happen when debugging jsp files or jspf files. For a beta that is something I can live with. Beyond that the debugger works like a charm.
I did however found some other issues:
- Randomly crashes when right clicking in the project view, seems to have something to do with the parsing of the tree that renders the window.
- You cannot use code completion inside a switch clause. The autocomplete crashes.
- Random crashes when debugging and selecting static variables for modifying their values in code.
To be fair I have to say I never got Netbeans itself to crash. But you do get an exception window that asks you to file a bug report.
Netbeans 6.5 Beta
Since I have to use Netbeans at my work, I always try and find the best version for me. In my case this means a version that runs quickly and is sorta stable. Since the new Netbeans 6.5 beta was released I decided to give it a shot.
First things I was seriously hoping was that they fixed the bug with Netbeans not recognizing the names of function parameters of libraries. This is a problem which got me so pissed that I switched back from Netbeans 6 to 5.5, which did not have the problem. Both Netbeans 6.0 and Netbeans 6.1 had the same problem with function parameters.
Let’s just say that on this they did not disapoint. The new Beta version has got no issues recognizing the names of function parameters. So that’s a serious improvement of the previous releases. I also like the new style for debugging and code editing.
The only real issues so far are the fact that with large web applications Netbeans 6.5 constantly hangs and stops responding. Another issue is that the debugger does not highlight the line that it’s on. The latter is probably a simple fix, but it does make debugging slightly difficult.
So lets wait and see if some of these issues get resolved in the final release.
