1-2-04 Java Toolset
I'm interested in coming up with the "best of breed" Java development toolset.
Here is the current list. Many entries come from other people's suggestions and
I haven't tested them, so please
IDE: Eclipse (www.Eclipse.org)
This is exceptionally well-built, and it's free. Free is not always
essential, but for an IDE, it's important to me because it lowers the barrier to
entry, both for classes and for people who might be working with code from
books, etc.
In addition, the fact that Eclipse is designed to be built upon, both with
extensions and as a redistributable standalone application platform, is very
appealing. It promises extra leverage that makes it that much more enticing to
invest time in.
Code Reformatter: Jalopy
Eclipse has a builtin that does pretty well here, but it doesn't do
everything. In particular, and I need to be able to make sure
everything fits within a strict column limitation so I need comment reformatting.
Jalopy seems to be the
front runner, and the latest version even does comment reformatting. Although
it is a commercial product, it is a very reasonable $40. They have a plugin for
Eclipse as well as an Ant version and a command-line version.
Unit testing: JUnit
I found the initial version unpleasant so I wrote my own. Then they magically
fixed JUnit so that it did the same things mine did, so it's a pretty easy sell
at this point. Also, most people seem to use it so it's pretty much the defacto
standard.
Coverage testing for Unit testing: Clover
Don't know much about this one since I haven't used it, but the idea seems good.
Pricey, though: $250.
Build manager: Ant
See here for "why we use Ant."
Maven seems like it could become a replacement for Ant, but needs further
investigation.
Style Checker/Bug Detector
Open-source, and seems to have quite a following.
$295, and I think there's a demo. There's a review in the December 2003 issue
of JDJ, but other than that I don't know anything about it. Please add comments
if you've had experience with it.
Performance tuning: JProbe
Haven't used it, and couldn't figure out from thier web site how much it cost.
ByteCode Obfuscator: YGuard
If you want to make certain no one can reverse-engineer your code. Again, I
haven't used it. Apparently this is a modification of the Retroguard Obfuscator
distributed under the LGPL, so there's apparently a free option.
