Java Review

	TOOLS java workshop \| visual age \| symantec cafe \| code warrior \| supercede \| java studio Last updated: April 1998 This section reviews some of the more popular tools used to create Java applications. All the tools here are IDEs (Integrated Development Environments) with the exception of Java Studio 1.0 which is a useful point-and-click application for linking components. These tools have been tested here with Windows 95 but most also have versions for other platforms such as Solaris. As there are many screenshots included in this section you may wish to maximize your browser and wait a few seconds for the images to download.
The Java Workshop Manager is a little window which lets you edit projects and arrange them hierarchically (the package model).	java workshop URL: http://www.sun.com/workshop/ Version evaluated: 2.0 This is Sun's Java environment (compatible with JDK 1.1.3), a respectable IDE which provides much more functionality than the bare JDK tools, but with no pretensions to being a market leader. It includes a basic GUI builder (see below). As well as a standard debugger there is a Profiler tool for measuring how much time is spent on each method of your applet/application at runtime. There are some flaws with the version I used (2.0 for Windows 95). The IDE is rather slow (even on a 200 MHz machine with 64M RAM) and seems to leak memory so that after 1 or 2 hours of development I generally needed to restart Windows. The help system, based on the browser model, was particularly buggy. Also Workshop only allowed one file to open at any one time in the main window.

	visual age URL: http://www.software.ibm.com/ad/vajava/ Version evaluated: Visual Age for Java 1.0 (Entry) IBM's offering is the most visually pleasing of the IDEs reviewed here. Unlike most IDEs there is no build command - this is done automatically on running a program. Another peculiarity is that the edit window shows only one method at a time - you use a separate window to select whether (in the case an applet) you want to edit the init(), start(), run(), paint(), etc. methods People will have different views about this feature; I found it slightly annoying. Furthermore when running an applet you cannot tell the IDE to point to a HTML file; instead you need to paste the HTML into one of the IDE's dialog boxes.

	symantec cafe URL: http://cafe.symantec.com/cafe/ Version evaluated: Symantec Cafe 1.0 Symantec was the first on the scene with a major Java IDE, and many would say it remains the leader in the field. The version I have used is quite old (only works with JDK 1.0) but I have always found it to be a smooth environment with a reasonable debugger and help system with very few crashes. The latest and greatest versions are Visual Cafe for Java 2.5 Professional Edition and Database Development Edition. The database version includes JDBC wizards and the dbANYWHERE server.

	code warrior URL: http://www.codewarrior.com Version evaluated: CodeWarrior Lite 1.0 CodeWarrior is a strong IDE from Metrowerks with a great advantage: it works for C and C++ just as well as Java. This is attractive because Java and C++ can often be used together to create fast, platform-independent applications. Furthermore unlike most IDEs CodeWarrior is used on the Mac as well as Windows and Solaris. Unfortunately the test drive does allow the creation of new projects, so a proper evaluation was impossible.
	supercede

	URL: http://www.supercede.com Version evaluated: Standard Edition 2.0 Supercede is a strong IDE from Asymmetrix which builds skeletons of code for you depending on what type of Java program you decide to write. It comes with an excellent selection of beans (see right) and a full-service GUI builder. If you use this IDE there is some pressure to work within the model it provides. For instance, I found that I could not name a file within a project with the extension .idl (all files have to be .java). Moreover, Supercede does not react well if you make changes outside the IDE or try to rename classes. For the 2.0 release there is a list of acknowledged bugs maintained at the Supercede site.
	java studio URL: http://www.sun.com/studio/ Version evaluated: 1.0 JavaStudio is Sun's advance on the BDK (Bean Development Kit as a way of assembling beans. There is a strong help system integrated with the package to guide the user in dragging components onto an applet space and specifying the relations (connectors) between them in a separate Design Window. Each bean's properties can be changed using a Customizer window.