NetBeans vs. Eclipse, this time with attitude

After months of regular milestones and community feedback, Sun has released a Beta version of NetBeans 6.0. NetBeans is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) written for programmers who use Java, Ruby, C/C++, and other languages. It competes for developer mindshare with Eclipse, Microsoft Visual Studio, JetBrains IDEA, and many other free and commercial IDEs.

Long time readers of this blog know that I’m something of an Eclipse fanboy, having written a couple of books on Eclipse and winning the first Eclipse Top Ambassador award. But I believe you should always be on the lookout for the best tools to get your job done. Before Eclipse I was a happy Visual Studio user for several years, and before that I was heavily into emacs (which isn’t really an IDE but it’s close enough). If I hadn’t been open to new tools and ideas I’d probably still be using some homegrown text editor and a command line.