The main reason that Eclipse has a bigger following is because it has a wider scope. Eclipse is a universal IDE written in Java, while NetBeans is a Java IDE that Sun has chosen to extend in ways related to Java. If the letter indicates that the (admittedly core) Java plugins for Eclipse have given Sun a run for its money, then it only confirms that the universal IDE approach can produce a development tool for a specific language that is as good, if not better than the language-specific IDEs. There is no need of or merit in merging NetBeans with Eclipse. The competition of the language-specific NetBeans will only spur the Java plugin developers to improve their product. Similarly, competition from the Java plugin for Eclipse should encourage Sun to improve NetBeans, perhaps by scrapping Swing and going with SWT.
The same applies for Visual Studio.Net versus the C++ and C# plugins for Eclipse. I would question, though, whether Microsoft really has the upper hand "from a usability and development perspective". They only have an upper hand in their C# and J# areas but that comes at a substantial cost. Their MFC customers which they have marooned and have then half-heartedly tried to un-maroon really only have an interest in their reasonably priced "Standard" product. However said product does not have their source code control interface (SCCI) whereby developers could use CVS or even VSS. Long and short of it is: you can not have version control in VS.Net unless you pay big bucks.
Eclipse, on the other hand, comes standard with a CVS integration which is, in many ways, superior to SCCI in VS. This is one reason why we are taking our GUI out of VS and into Eclipse.
The other reasons have to do with our backend and my first point: PERL, UNIX C/C++ and Java.
Eclipse is not, in my opinion, about advancing Java, but in providing an IDE that allows developers to choose the most appropriate language for their application, be it C or Java or ML or Prolog. The latter two are only a plugin away. |
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