Netbeans 6.0 weighs in at a paltry 12MB

Netbeans 6.0 has gone gold. The open source IDE supports C, C++, Ruby, Java, and other languages. New features include a completely revamped code editor, an integrated profiler, and visual designers for web and mobile applications.

Installation couldn’t be easier. After opening up the Netbeans home page, it took two clicks to start downloading. I decided to try out the C/C++ bundle, which is only 12MB (12,306K; the Java bundle is 21MB and the Ruby one is 19MB). One minute later, the download was complete, and a minute after that the install was finished. Then I double-clicked on the desktop icon to start the IDE, and 26 seconds later it was ready to go. Total time from when I decided to try it to when I was actually running it: under 3 minutes.

The only hitch was when I clicked on the link to create a C/C++ sample program and Netbeans reminded me that I didn’t actually have a C compiler installed on this machine (doh!). So I downloaded MinGW from SourceForge. Still no go. Turns out I also needed to get the MSYS package from that same project, because the sample make files are set up for Unix-like commands. Do yourself a favor and read this article before trying C++ development at home. Of course, if you already have a compiler installed then setup should go much easier.

Netbeans 6 is a polished, mature product that holds up well when compared to its main rivals, Visual Studio and Eclipse-based IDEs such as MyEclipse and RAD. It’s dual-licensed under CDDL and GPLv2, and it runs under all major operating systems. See netbeans.org for more information, or the Netbeans category of this blog for other Netbeans-related articles.