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#1 2006-12-29 06:30:20

Basu
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From: Cornell University
Registered: 2006-12-15
Posts: 296
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Should I learn Eclipse

I'm going off to college next year where I want to do a CS major. Thing is, my college of choice (Colgate University) teaches Java as the core language (as do most other colleges I think). But I personally love Python. And I intend to get a working knowledge of C/C++ by the time i get my degree. So I was wondering, would it be a good idea to actually sit down and learn Eclipse. Reasons being, from what I've read it's one of the foremost IDEs out there, it  has a PyDev plugin that looks pretty decent and a C/C++ plugin is in the works.
Ideas and opinions anyone?


The Bytebaker -- Computer science is not a science and it's not about computers
Check out my open source software at Github

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#2 2006-12-29 07:43:07

noriko
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From: In My Mind
Registered: 2006-06-09
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Re: Should I learn Eclipse

i'm about to start my cs degree in a few months.. and as i know it, at London Metropolitan University...
Java is taught as a core language but not for the entirety of the degree, it's soon followed by c* ... and as i understand it, NetBeans is the industry standard for java ..
so imho i don't think there is much point in eclipse unless you really wanna or have the time in which case i'd say go for it..


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#3 2006-12-29 07:45:30

phrakture
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From: behind you
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Re: Should I learn Eclipse

Well, this is just my opinion, so don't take it as truth:
Learning to program and learning the tools you use to program are two totally different things.  I would recommend knowing how do do the entire process manually.  Learn the ins and outs of it, THEN get to know how eclipse does it.  You will know exactly what things it simplifies, what it does not, and what parts it gets wrong.

Being tool dependent is always restrictive.

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#4 2006-12-29 09:56:28

ndlarsen
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From: Denmark
Registered: 2005-11-02
Posts: 157

Re: Should I learn Eclipse

phrakture wrote:

Well, this is just my opinion, so don't take it as truth:
Learning to program and learning the tools you use to program are two totally different things.  I would recommend knowing how do do the entire process manually.  Learn the ins and outs of it, THEN get to know how eclipse does it.  You will know exactly what things it simplifies, what it does not, and what parts it gets wrong.

Being tool dependent is always restrictive.

Amen.


I made it long
as I lacked the time to make it short...

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#5 2006-12-29 12:09:28

arooaroo
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From: London, UK
Registered: 2005-01-13
Posts: 1,268
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Re: Should I learn Eclipse

I would say that Eclipse is more widely used than Netbeans. I think both are pretty good. I like to use Netbeans for GUI projects as its new Matisse GUI builder is excellent, and so if the profiler. However, Eclipse has a better editor, better refactoring tools, a million and one plugins. Overall a lot more polished.

You absolutely need to know how to program without the aid of an IDE (text editor + CLI compilers and so on) but when you wish to embark on the IDE route, I'd recommend Eclipse first, and Netbeans later (that said, NB 6 should be very nice).

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#6 2006-12-31 07:15:56

OssiR
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From: Finland
Registered: 2006-12-28
Posts: 39
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Re: Should I learn Eclipse

arooaroo wrote:

I would say that Eclipse is more widely used than Netbeans.

I have same feeling about that.

At our university we are used Eclipse to learn basics of Java and object-oriented programming.

But as phrakture said, it is good to learn to do it manually also, if you are gonna learn more about programming.

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#7 2007-01-02 13:24:39

El Bastardo
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Registered: 2006-06-21
Posts: 19

Re: Should I learn Eclipse

noriko wrote:

i'm about to start my cs degree in a few months.. and as i know it, at London Metropolitan University...
Java is taught as a core language but not for the entirety of the degree, it's soon followed by c* ... and as i understand it, NetBeans is the industry standard for java ..
so imho i don't think there is much point in eclipse unless you really wanna or have the time in which case i'd say go for it..

I've been doing professional java development for over 7 years now and I never ran into a developer that was actually working with netbeans.
The two major IDE's I see people use are eclipse and intelliJ. I prefer eclipse.
And btw, I agree with the other posters; if you want to learn how to program java, first learn the basics of Object Orientation. There are too many java developers still delivering procedural code.

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#8 2007-01-03 08:35:45

Basu
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From: Cornell University
Registered: 2006-12-15
Posts: 296
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Re: Should I learn Eclipse

El Bastardo wrote:

And btw, I agree with the other posters; if you want to learn how to program java, first learn the basics of Object Orientation. There are too many java developers still delivering procedural code.

Could you give me a few pointers on how I could go about doing that?


The Bytebaker -- Computer science is not a science and it's not about computers
Check out my open source software at Github

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#9 2007-01-03 10:54:07

arooaroo
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From: London, UK
Registered: 2005-01-13
Posts: 1,268
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Re: Should I learn Eclipse

Well that will come with time and experience. Writing code, reading other code, reading books etc will get you on the path to OO guru-ness.

However, regardless of whether your using standard text-editor/command-line or a full-blown IDE won't make any difference to the code you write. So don't go thinking that just because you use Eclipse you are automatically a better Java programmer.

What IDEs do for you is provide a certain amount of automation and streamlining of common tasks. They also make other tools easily accessible (debugger/profiler springs to mind). It's really nice, for example, when you are writing a standard Java object and all you do is write the instance variables and then ask Eclipse to generate all the getters/setters in a single go.

Project-wide renaming of classes/methods is also handy (which happens to me quite a bit because my projects tend to evolve from something small and build up, and so classes themselves tend to evolve and therefore a certain amount of refactoring has to take place at given intervals).

So, IDEs can help make your developing life a little easier, but it doesn't make you better programmer.

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#10 2007-01-03 12:09:12

El Bastardo
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Registered: 2006-06-21
Posts: 19

Re: Should I learn Eclipse

Basu wrote:

Could you give me a few pointers on how I could go about doing that?

well a good guideline to start with would be the
'Effective Java Programming Language Guide' from Joshua Bloch
and 'Head first design patterns'.

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#11 2007-01-03 13:36:46

arooaroo
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From: London, UK
Registered: 2005-01-13
Posts: 1,268
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Re: Should I learn Eclipse

Effective Java is an excellent book, but is aimed at people who already know about Java and OO (or at least *think* they know) and this book provides valuable pointers towards writing more effective code (hence the name).

Head First is also good, especially for learning about OO design patterns.

However, at the end (of beginning, I guess) of the day you need something to get you started. You need a introduction to Java type book that gets you familiar with the syntax and many of the common API packages. To be honest, even the rubbish ones will get you to the decent proficiency providing you have a good head on your shoulders. For example, despite Deitel & Deitel's book having some shoddy examples of OO design (the infamous Cylinder extends Circle extends Point, for example) it's still a massive book with loads of examples and explanations that will give you a good start. Polish off with the aforementioned books and you'll be good to go.

Eckel's Java book is still freely available online, IIRC.

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#12 2007-02-09 15:59:36

aquila_deus
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From: Taipei
Registered: 2005-07-02
Posts: 348
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Re: Should I learn Eclipse

Yes if you don't mind its slowness. I have used it for months for PHP work: it's full-functional, but most actions in eclipse such as opening preferences or version control status are very very slow, even compared to other heavy-weight java IDEs.

Anyway, if you want an universal IDE, eclipse is the only choice.

Basu wrote:

I'm going off to college next year where I want to do a CS major. Thing is, my college of choice (Colgate University) teaches Java as the core language (as do most other colleges I think). But I personally love Python. And I intend to get a working knowledge of C/C++ by the time i get my degree. So I was wondering, would it be a good idea to actually sit down and learn Eclipse. Reasons being, from what I've read it's one of the foremost IDEs out there, it  has a PyDev plugin that looks pretty decent and a C/C++ plugin is in the works.
Ideas and opinions anyone?

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#13 2007-02-21 02:46:45

Bison
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From: Jacksonville, FL
Registered: 2006-04-12
Posts: 158
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Re: Should I learn Eclipse

El Bastardo wrote:

'Effective Java Programming Language Guide' from Joshua Bloch.

Excellent book.  Not a good first java book though, learn the language first.

As for IDE's.  I am actually much more productive without IDE's.  Screen + Vim + javac/jikes/ecj is the quickest

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#14 2007-02-23 16:33:05

lpcustom
Member
Registered: 2005-12-24
Posts: 10

Re: Should I learn Eclipse

Learning the Eclipse IDE will have little to do with learning Java. You may not want to learn Java at the moment(I still hate it and prefer python), but the concepts they will teach you with Java are important. Java is used to teach OOP mostly. Since you want to learn C/C++, Java will also be good because it shares a lot of syntax with C++. I learned Java using Vi and the command line SDK. Of course, when writing a GUI app, you'll want a good IDE. The thing is, the IDE's are all alike. Programming isn't about the IDE. It's about your understanding of programming concepts. Get a general logic and design book and a book on object oriented programming.

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