I currently use Textmate for most of my editing, but am taking a Java course and am wondering if there's a better editor out there, especially one that might have some form of intellisense or active debugging.
+7
A:
Most, if not all of the usual suspects when it comes to Java IDEs work on OS X. I've personally used Eclipse and NetBeans on OS X - in fact I still have NetBeans installed as it's also a good environment for writing Ruby code.
Of course if you're just looking for an editor and not an IDE, you might want to try out Aquamacs...
Timo Geusch
2010-05-27 00:30:42
+2
A:
Eclipse works okay. It has awesome features, but is somewhat buggy / crashy. It has very good "look and feel" for a Java app on OSX. Feature parity (as best as I can tell) with Windows/Linux.
Steven Schlansker
2010-05-27 00:30:50
Eclipse 3.5 is very solid for me under OS X. What bugs/crashes have you seen?
Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen
2010-05-27 01:14:02
The maven plugin seems to have some issues, but I don't know if that is OS X specific.
FarmBoy
2010-05-27 01:24:56
I can definitely +1 on the maven plugin, but that's probably not OSX specific.More just sometimes the internal Eclipse state seems to get confused. Usually restarting or rebuilding the workspace fixes...
Steven Schlansker
2010-05-27 05:19:10
Sounds like it is time to do some bug reporting on the maven plugin, then. We don't do maven, so that is probably the reason for the difference.
Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen
2010-05-28 17:58:52
+1
A:
I use Eclipse quite heavily on OS X. Lots of plugins, artifact downloading/caching, building, etc. Just make sure you've got the latest Java installed on OS X, and maybe verify that your system will launch Eclipse using Java 6, 64-bit, and make sure you're running Eclipse 3.5, and you should be good to go.
I leave mine running for days at a time, but your mileage may vary depending upon plugins.
jasonmp85
2010-05-27 00:36:39
@jasonmp85: another developer here is indeed running Eclipse quite heavily on OS X and can reach a few days without relaunching it. Of course on my Linux workstation I've got constantly not one but *two* IntelliJ IDEA instance running (because I like it that way) and they can stay up for months ;)
Webinator
2010-05-27 01:26:40
+3
A:
If you want code completion, you are not looking for an editor but an IDE.
Eclipse, Netbeans, IntelliJ IDEA all work well on OS X. JDeveloper I have not tried but the generic version runs under OS X.
Choose the one your instructor recommends (because then he can help you getting started).
Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen
2010-05-27 01:18:01
Unfortunately the instructor does all his work in a Windows environment, so he's not much help.
Jack
2010-05-28 14:40:06
Ask him anyway. There is a good chance that the environment he uses is available for OS X. This is Java, you know.
Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen
2010-05-28 17:57:20
A:
I like NetBeans and Eclipse, but Xcode comes with Mac OS X and TextWrangler is a great stand-alone programming editor.
trashgod
2010-05-27 02:57:53