Sun just introduced the Netbeans 6.1 IDE. So many people believe the Eclipse IDE is better that Sun's Netbeans. I disagree. But that is not the gist, Sun's Netbeans IDE is virtually the best now in the IDE world, with plugins flying around and you being able to do almost any programming language on the IDE WITH CODE COMPLETION. Some of the popular languages supported by the Netbeans IDE are

* C/C++
* Ruby
* Rails
* PHP


You also have support for other web and language frameworks like CSS, Javascript/AJAX, XML, UML, HTML, XHTML, SOAP, BPEL,RESTful etc. I bet you dont need any other IDE for any of these. CSS here is better than in Dreamweaver. You av a sample panel where you see your changes as they are made. The only CSS IDE that ranks close to Netbeans IDE is Rapid CSS.

Javascript is something else here, Netbeans floors every other IDE including Notepad++ and Dreamweaver. In Ranking, Netbeans comes first, Notepad++ follows, Aptana IDE or RadRails come next and dreamweaver is lagging far far behind.

When it comes to AJAX support, Netbeans has support for jMAki,prototype, YahooWidgets, Google Codes (gMap etc), and other popular javascript libraries are also supported thru plugings like Dojo and Phobos

When it comes to XML and UML, The only IDE that comes close is Eclipse and even at that Netbeans is like 80 on a scale of 100 and Eclipse like 10.

Database support also soars high, we have support for

* MySQL
* Postgre
* Apache Derby
* Oracle


And thru JDBC-ODBC brigde, there is support for other popular DB's like Microsofts MSSQL Server, Oracle, IBM's DB2, Cache etc
There is no other IDE where database support is as seemless as Netbeans.

You can also create Images using the SVG Editor.

All these are apart from the pool of support and plugins available for almost anything you want to do. You can also use Netbeans to develop your own custom plugins for Netbeans!

Code completion has also taken a new bold step, now you just dont have code completions alone, you have it with a little documentation below it. This is where Netbeans beat other PHP IDE's to it.

For ruby and rails developers, its even a sweeter times. There are functionalities here that makes RadRails look like child's play.

The only IDE that beats all when it comes to web development using pure html is Dreamweaver(with its drag n Drop capabilities), although I dont know many developers who do pure html these days. Netbeans also provide same functionality, but only if you are a JSF programmer. Netbeans even go one step ahead, it gives you templates that are much more easier to modify than Dreamweavers templates.

All these features, the IDE must cost a million dollars right? NOPE Netbeans is FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. That is the best thing about this IDE, FOC, you can download it for free, you can even request request for a free CD or DVD shipped for free to you even if you live in calcuta-gongozoole-brundishmancrujanle-island.

Well thats as much as my hands can type. Get the Netbeans IDE yourself and see these cool tools for yourself and the many more I cant mention. WHERE? www.netbeans.org/downloads


I am out for now

I enjoy NetBeans IDE, I'm using version 5.5. Anyone using Sun Studio Creator?

is Rails really a language or a framework?

its more of a framework like hibernate