NetBeans IDE Testimonials

People are saying great things about NetBeans - here's some of what we've heard about recent NetBeans releases. Thanks for your support and feedback! Got something to say about NetBeans ? Let us know!

• Adil Aliyev - Software Developer, IDRAK Technology Transfer LTD, Azerbaijan Re

  In our research team we planned to make some visual components like windows-based applications for web platform.

We wrote a project plan, and our student-programmers began writing for the
components. We planned to make components which would take two months to write.

Accidentally one of our developers saw NetBeans 6 JSF Visual Web Components. It had all components which we needed. We destroyed the team working on building components. :) NetBeans and JSF technology saved us more time. Thanks NetBeans and Sun Microsystems.

• Mike Jennings

  I have been working on a new project recently for a client, where they wanted me to use NetBeans 6.1 beta as the IDE to do all of my development in. I was excited to have a reason to use the new NetBeans IDE because I have been hearing so many good things about it. To my surprise, since I hated the old versions of NetBeans, the IDE blew me away. I am now so impressed with it that even some of the minor bugs that I encountered are not enough to stop me from using it.

The new NetBeans is by fare one of the fastest Java IDEs that I have used in a long time. The code completion and insight tool is so quick that the popups would get in my way sometimes. I love the way that the IDE uses Ant to compile and distribute your source code for you. That is refreshing, and seems to make the code more portable. The software seems to live up to all of its hype.

• Abhrajit Mukherjee

  NetBeans to the rescue:

After wasting more than an hour putting the layout (of a platform independent hard disk search software in place), I decided to download NetBeans. My computer is quite an old machine (PIII 750Mhz, 256MB RAM), so didn't install NetBeans before. After installing NetBeans the speed was good considering my machine configuration. I started the NetBeans GUI Builder(formerly Matisse) and my layout was up and running in 8mins sharp. Wow! Kudos to NetBeans for saving my day. I won't say it was a breeze working with NetBeans, rather it was tornado.

• Alvaro E Martinez

  I have been trying NetBeans 6.1 Beta for a while, actually on a development of a new client application, and I have to say that it's been great most of all concerning the increase of speed for loading and memory management.

• Salman Ahmed

  Congratulations to all the developers and other people associated with NetBeans that put out the NB 6 release for winning the 2008 Jolt Award in the "Development Environments" category!

I've only been using NetBeans for about two months now, and this being my first experience ever with a Java development IDE has been tremendously positive - and productive! I've been using various versions of MS Visual Studio on Windows over the past 10 years and I've been used to the command line (and gcc and make on UNIX), and I can say that NetBeans 6 is an awesome IDE product. There are a few rough edges here and there, but overall this is an awesome IDE.

Congratulations to all the NetBeans developers and the NetBeans team for this release, and for winning the Jolt award. As a software developer, I know full well the hard work, effort, and dedication it must have taken to get to this point. Really well done everyone!

• Wayne Miller

  Recently, I took two Java classes at the University of Pheonix. Primarily, I used TextPad
to write all the script to create GUIs as part of class projects. Creating these GUIs with TextPad was difficult to say the least. Once class was over, I downloaded NetBeans 6.0 and found the Docs & Support link. Very soon, I found that NetBeans makes child's play of creating GUIs. I love the drag and drop functionality.

• Sushant

  I started Java some 3 years ago. At that time, I was only familiar with C programming and little with VB. Unfortunately no one around me could guide me for it. A friend suggested that I needed to download JDK 1.4 to compile and run Java programs. When I was searching for JDK 1.4 I got links of NetBeans. After reading about it and the installation instruction, I downloaded it and installed it on my PC with little effort.

At that time, there was no book in our library about Java. So I simply used to Drag & drop and some blind exploration on NetBeans only. I downloaded some tutorials from various sites and tried them. Method listing and its javadoc was very helpful and slowly I got to work with many components well. I used to work mostly on GUI components. At that time I was so comfortable with these GUIs that I dared to grab a project in Java from a low Profile company from Delhi. Later came many books in our library and it greatly enhanced my skills. Especially the books from Sun Microsystem were really good.

I owe my Java skills to NetBeans. It would have taken much longer if I have used any other IDE I believe.

• Paul Richards

  NetBeans 6.0 is amazing. The standard "JavaSE" flavor has almost everything I need and
works perfectly on all the platforms I use (Mac OS X, Linux, Windows).

• Simon Grantham

  I have been programming for 30+ years and so have, of course, used many, many development environments for many operating systems. I just wanted to pass on my thanks and kudos for a fabulous product. Blows the doors off of eclipse. Keep up the good work!

• Tres Finocchiaro - Solutions Developer

  Having started with VB6 and VB.NET, it was a long road to learn Java, better yet a new interface. After reading some of the tutorials, editorials, and release notes, I have to say, this is far superior to anything I've ever developed in before! A colleague of mine is considering using NetBeans for his C/C++ MUD server that he's been writing in "vi" for nearly a decade. My favorite feature is the advanced code completion, specifically the "Getters and Setters". I made a cheat-sheet for my desk at work! I look forward to converting my jEdit-written projects to this IDE, and I'd like to thank the NetBeans community as a whole for making this excellent product available to the public! For the record, I have this application running in both Windows XP and Ubuntu 7.10 at work, with minimal effort! :) Thanks again.

• Varun Nischal

  I am an engineering student in Computer Science, currently in my 3rd year. I was supposed to make a project in DBMS (Database Management Systems) when I was in 2nd year, IVth semester.... I was keen to use Visual J# for making the project using Java-JDBC interactions, but support for Java was not so good and time was running out...!!! Also, I couldn't find a DLL (Dynamic Linked Library) for a thin driver to interact with Oracle through JDBC in Visual Studio .NET 2005, then I went for Eclipse and it asked for so precise details to just kickstart a project, but at that time I was not so good in Java. I was looking for an IDE which would enable me to use features as in .NET, mainly the drag-n-drop functionality, but with complete support for Java. Finally, I got NetBeans from my batch mates, who were already working on it and were pleased. It took just few days to create mine as well as their mini project!!! Hats Off to NetBeans...!!! Thanking You.

• Herron Philip

  Just writing in to let you know how much I love NetBeans; I really can't wait for 6.0. I used to use jcreator, then I moved to NetBeans one day to try it and I have never went back! Roll out NetBeans 6.0!

• Bradley Longstreth

  I was tasked to create a simple application to test the architecture of a distributed network based application for a work related project. I chose to develop this as an SDI application using NetBeans platform. The NetBeans architecture and tools really made this project come together quickly. I probably could have done this using simple Swing. However, I would not have developed something nearly as powerful, nor would it have represented anything real or like the final (non-test) application. I have sold my management and most of my team members on the power of NetBeans. I would like to take the time to thank everyone who has helped me get up-to-speed with NetBeans over the last several weeks. Also, I would like to thank the founding fathers and current developers of NetBeans for their great work and would like them to know they are responsible for me becoming a NetBeans addict!

• Doug Williams

  I just have to say Great Job!!! on the IDE 5.5.1. I last used the NetBeans IDE (I forget the version) about 3 or 4 years ago, which was nice, but this version really blows me away with how much nicer and easier it is to use. I'm impressed!!! Thanks!!!!

• Wilman Arambillete - IT Manager, SPTPublicom, Montevideo, Uruguay

  I had the chance to work with different IDEs in the past when Java was just starting and none of them convinced me at all, especially in regards to code generation for Swing or AWT components. After trying many of them, I ended up coding with my old editor to obtain the kind of code I really wanted. It was really frustrating and simple programs took forever. After working with VStudio .NET using C#, which is a great language by the way, and a great
environment, I had to work again with Java. This time I tried NetBeans and I am pleased about it. NetBeans rocks! It has most of the useful features of other commercial IDEs and the Java generated code is neat and clear. Good for the guys behind this. Go ahead!

• BrainMaster

  This tool is so awesome. It helps me understand how to build applications in Java. It's been three years since I started, and now I understand advanced Java because of this tool. (Why don't you use NetBeans too?)

• Dwight Fellman - Senior Software Developer

  I'm a senior software developer at Datacard in Minnetonka; I've just started attending classes at St. Thomas University (Minnesota) in their Graduate Program in Software, working on a MS in Software Engineering degree. By day, I use Microsoft tools exclusively.

I was looking forward to learning Java as part of my first course at St. Thomas. I was not willing to go back to command-line edit and compile. I asked around work, and most of the other Java developers at Datacard were using Eclipse, or other commercial IDE's.

I stumbled across NetBeans, and I've got to tell you: This is a fantastic product (v5.5). I've got EVERYTHING I'm used to in VS.NET 2005, and more. For example, the beta version of the UML diagramming tool is fantastic; much better than Microsoft's limited class-diagrammer. I've got built-in refactoring, and JUnit to boot.

Between work and classes at St. Thomas, I've got little time for anything else. If I wasn't so busy, I'd like to present a "Java and Netbeans for VS.NET Developers" session at an upcoming Code Camp. Or something like that.

Bottom line: St. Thomas should be PUSHING NetBeans to all their software students. It's a no-brainer. They're already using Java for everything, as far as I can tell. They do have Eclipse installed on workstations as a standard item. However, I have not heard it mentioned. And, from my personal experience, the learning curve was way too high with Eclipse. I'm returning the CD for Rational Rose to the department tonight, uninstalled, because of the onerous licensing from Rational. I've got the UML working inside NetBeans well enough, and the price is right.

I'd just like to thank whoever is responsible for developing NetBeans and getting it to its current state of development.

• Ashok Gautham J. - College Student, B.Tech Information Technology, India

  I have used Emacs all along, but when it came to Java, i found it sickening to do it the Emacs way. Emacs is better for interpretable languages where you have an repl running side by side. I tried Dr.Java, Eclipse and Jedit. Jedit kept throwing errors at me; it wasn't like Emacs. Dr.Java is similar, only that its compilation worked wrong all the time. Time for Eclipse... OMG!!! BLOAT! It took about 30 seconds to start. And if I had a longer code to execute, it seemed to take forever, even on a P4 running Linux. So I tried Java Studio
Creator. It did not work on Java 1.6.0 because it said something like "No source code compatible JVM found". I read somewhere that NetBeans was the main source for JStudio and so I downloaded it. It runs like a gem. Quite fast for an IDE.. And when I went to options (always the first thing I do is look for customizations) I added the option of
adding a new line before { (my style) and to my glee I found Emacs' Keymap. This works great. I was previously unable to find dynamic word expansion. But with the Emacs Keymap, I was at home "Alt+ /" I had a project running in no time. Netbeans has a new fan. :D

• Sean Anderson - Datavirtue.com

  I had been studying Java for some time when I decided it was time to start my company's business management package. In the early stages I began to dread the user interface development as it would take a large amount of my development time.

Something made me check out NetBeans again; I had evaluated previous versions 3.51 - 4.0 and deleted them both. This time was different, version 5 grabbed a hold of me and hasn't let go since.

Whereas at this time I would be muddling through the early stages of my development it is less than a year later and the basic application is complete! It seems that a successful software package REALLY starts to shine at version 5 and NetBeans is no exception.

• Daniel Duarte Mendes

  Let's show the other people, especially the Eclipse people, what NetBeans is all about, a great innovative community, Community being the keyword.

• Peter B. West

  I've been using NetBeans since 4.0. I moved over from Eclipse because of the Java 5.0 support. I saw (and understood) the distress of long-time users who had to adopt the new paradigm. I think it was a courageous and correct decision to align the product with Ant. On top of that, the implementation of that decision through 4.0, 4.1 and now 5.0 has been a technical tour-de-force, IMO. Sun should coin a discreet but stylish badge - NetBeans Team - that you can all wear with pride.

• Dr. Y. Daniel Liang - Professor

  I am teaching a course titled "Rapid Java Application Development". I have 18 students in the class, who already had three semesters of Java programming. Now I teach them how to use NetBeans 5.0 for rapidly developing GUIs and other things. Matisse is free like VB, and better than VB because it is platform-independent and the layout is resizable. It is obviously fast to develop GUIs using Matisse. The NetBeans GUI free-style designer is built using Matisse, but students don't need to know Matisse at all. In fact, students can use NetBeans to create GUIs without knowing any layout mangers.

• Greg Ritchie - TopMind Systems

  While I think Eclipse is a good IDE platform, NetBeans kills it by being a complete package, ready to use, for enterprise development. I like Ant too so that helps. Plus I hate SWT... Swing is pretty good actually. I hope you continue to grow and capture mindshare out there.
I think there's room out there for two leading Java toolsets. NetBeans is making a case for it anyway. Although Eclipse is starting to add J2EE support, I think they are 1-2
years away from a stable platform.