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I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #24207] Sun, 15 September 2002 15:38 Go to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: deepblue_70.hotmail.com

I really don't understand the reason for wich IBM doesn't want support
and develope anymore Visual Age for Java. Eclipse is a hybrid between
Visual Age and JBuilder and so I find Eclipse is a worst tool than VAJ. A
lot
of good features like the versioning system, copying the classes, the
layout,
the kind of debugging, the way you run a class etc. have been lost with
Eclipse. We are working "officially" with JBuilder but some of us continue
to use Visual Age, because it is more powerful and "easier" to use then
JBuilder.

Now our tech support intend soon to "officialize" Eclipse, but I and other
people still think that we have really lost a very powerful tool like
Visual Age for Java.

I really hope IBM change its idea, or at least that Eclipse retrieve all
the
good things of Visual Age.

John
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #24249 is a reply to message #24207] Sun, 15 September 2002 17:49 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Martin Möbius is currently offline Martin MöbiusFriend
Messages: 90
Registered: July 2009
Member
AmSun, 15 Sep 2002 15:38:09 +0000 (UTC), deepblue_70@hotmail.com
(John) wrote:

>I really don't understand the reason for wich IBM doesn't want support
>and develope anymore Visual Age for Java. Eclipse is a hybrid between
>Visual Age and JBuilder and so I find Eclipse is a worst tool than VAJ. A
>lot
>of good features like the versioning system, copying the classes, the
>layout,
>the kind of debugging, the way you run a class etc. have been lost with
>Eclipse.

We got one big plus. You can change your jdk when ever you want. Its
no possible for a IDE to survive I developers have to wait >6 month to
use the newest JDK. The code assist got better and its quite cheap.
The only thing I miss from time to time is moving methods.

>We are working "officially" with JBuilder but some of us continue
>to use Visual Age, because it is more powerful and "easier" to use then
>JBuilder.

The ease of use is always in the eye of the beholder. Emacs user will
be faster with their familiar environment. But I would be slow like a
snail with it.

>Now our tech support intend soon to "officialize" Eclipse, but I and other
>people still think that we have really lost a very powerful tool like
>Visual Age for Java.
>
>I really hope IBM change its idea, or at least that Eclipse retrieve all
>the good things of Visual Age.

VAJ is dead, no way back. Try to stay here, to get all the best from
VAJ into eclipse jdt.

martin
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #24580 is a reply to message #24207] Mon, 16 September 2002 22:26 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: randall.rga.com

Sorry, this'll get a "little" flamey...I've used nearly every modern,
popular IDE out there. If it is your opinion that Visual Age for Java (VAJ)
is actually a good editor, you've lost all credibility you ever had. VAJ is
hardly what I would consider a good IDE. It doesn't even do code completion.
Sure, it'll write get/set for you, but how worthless is that? If you can't
type out a pair of get/set yourself in under 30 seconds, someone should've
taken your keyboard away a long, long time ago.

You're dead wrong about Eclipse taking away versioning, class-copying (wtf
is that worth anyway???), layout/usability, debugging, etc. Eclipse actually
offers you all of these things. I believe that the problem is that you just
haven't yet read the Ant manual...nor the Eclipse manual.

Visual Studio .NET is hands-down, no debating, the BEST IDE ever created by
man or God. I've used JBuilder and like it. Also used Forte for a long
time. It was the closest thing that the Java world had to Visual Studio.
See...Java is still chasing after Visual Basic for rapid development.

I'm still evaluating Eclipse, so cannot fairly compare it to Visual
Studio...but I think that it might come close to knocking Microsoft off of
the hill, so far as visual presentation, feature-list, and (the whole point)
improved developer productivity.

Can't believe that I even had to write this. VAJ a good IDE. Get real. Read
a manual. Learn something new. Ugh





"John" <deepblue_70@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:am29h1$fhe$1@rogue.oti.com...
> I really don't understand the reason for wich IBM doesn't want support
> and develope anymore Visual Age for Java. Eclipse is a hybrid between
> Visual Age and JBuilder and so I find Eclipse is a worst tool than VAJ. A
> lot
> of good features like the versioning system, copying the classes, the
> layout,
> the kind of debugging, the way you run a class etc. have been lost with
> Eclipse. We are working "officially" with JBuilder but some of us continue
> to use Visual Age, because it is more powerful and "easier" to use then
> JBuilder.
>
> Now our tech support intend soon to "officialize" Eclipse, but I and other
> people still think that we have really lost a very powerful tool like
> Visual Age for Java.
>
> I really hope IBM change its idea, or at least that Eclipse retrieve all
> the
> good things of Visual Age.
>
> John
>
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #24660 is a reply to message #24580] Tue, 17 September 2002 03:59 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: jed.wesley-smith.remove.remove.combined.com.au

what a great troll opportunity this thread is.

can you guys please post this stuff to the eclipse.tools newsgroup? not only
is it far more relevant there, you'll get plenty more takers... ;-)

btw. when in doubt about a newsgroup use eclipse.tools

"Randall Loffelmacher" <randall@rga.com> wrote in message
news:am5ks8$2qm$1@rogue.oti.com...
> Sorry, this'll get a "little" flamey...I've used nearly every modern,
> popular IDE out there. If it is your opinion that Visual Age for Java
(VAJ)
> is actually a good editor, you've lost all credibility you ever had. VAJ
is
> hardly what I would consider a good IDE. It doesn't even do code
completion.
> Sure, it'll write get/set for you, but how worthless is that? If you can't
> type out a pair of get/set yourself in under 30 seconds, someone should've
> taken your keyboard away a long, long time ago.
>
> You're dead wrong about Eclipse taking away versioning, class-copying (wtf
> is that worth anyway???), layout/usability, debugging, etc. Eclipse
actually
> offers you all of these things. I believe that the problem is that you
just
> haven't yet read the Ant manual...nor the Eclipse manual.
>
> Visual Studio .NET is hands-down, no debating, the BEST IDE ever created
by
> man or God. I've used JBuilder and like it. Also used Forte for a long
> time. It was the closest thing that the Java world had to Visual Studio.
> See...Java is still chasing after Visual Basic for rapid development.
>
> I'm still evaluating Eclipse, so cannot fairly compare it to Visual
> Studio...but I think that it might come close to knocking Microsoft off of
> the hill, so far as visual presentation, feature-list, and (the whole
point)
> improved developer productivity.
>
> Can't believe that I even had to write this. VAJ a good IDE. Get real.
Read
> a manual. Learn something new. Ugh
>
>
>
>
>
> "John" <deepblue_70@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:am29h1$fhe$1@rogue.oti.com...
> > I really don't understand the reason for wich IBM doesn't want support
> > and develope anymore Visual Age for Java. Eclipse is a hybrid between
> > Visual Age and JBuilder and so I find Eclipse is a worst tool than VAJ.
A
> > lot
> > of good features like the versioning system, copying the classes, the
> > layout,
> > the kind of debugging, the way you run a class etc. have been lost with
> > Eclipse. We are working "officially" with JBuilder but some of us
continue
> > to use Visual Age, because it is more powerful and "easier" to use then
> > JBuilder.
> >
> > Now our tech support intend soon to "officialize" Eclipse, but I and
other
> > people still think that we have really lost a very powerful tool like
> > Visual Age for Java.
> >
> > I really hope IBM change its idea, or at least that Eclipse retrieve all
> > the
> > good things of Visual Age.
> >
> > John
> >
>
>
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #24701 is a reply to message #24580] Tue, 17 September 2002 06:41 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Mattias Abrahamsson is currently offline Mattias AbrahamssonFriend
Messages: 2
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Randall,

Talk about being a flame bait... You are just showing your ignorance by
stating that VAJ "doesn't even do code completion" and later on "Get real.
Read a manual.". Did you ever read the VAJ manual?!

Regards,
Mattias

"Randall Loffelmacher" <randall@rga.com> wrote in message
news:am5ks8$2qm$1@rogue.oti.com...
> Sorry, this'll get a "little" flamey...I've used nearly every modern,
> popular IDE out there. If it is your opinion that Visual Age for Java
(VAJ)
> is actually a good editor, you've lost all credibility you ever had. VAJ
is
> hardly what I would consider a good IDE. It doesn't even do code
completion.
> Sure, it'll write get/set for you, but how worthless is that? If you can't
> type out a pair of get/set yourself in under 30 seconds, someone should've
> taken your keyboard away a long, long time ago.
>
> You're dead wrong about Eclipse taking away versioning, class-copying (wtf
> is that worth anyway???), layout/usability, debugging, etc. Eclipse
actually
> offers you all of these things. I believe that the problem is that you
just
> haven't yet read the Ant manual...nor the Eclipse manual.
>
> Visual Studio .NET is hands-down, no debating, the BEST IDE ever created
by
> man or God. I've used JBuilder and like it. Also used Forte for a long
> time. It was the closest thing that the Java world had to Visual Studio.
> See...Java is still chasing after Visual Basic for rapid development.
>
> I'm still evaluating Eclipse, so cannot fairly compare it to Visual
> Studio...but I think that it might come close to knocking Microsoft off of
> the hill, so far as visual presentation, feature-list, and (the whole
point)
> improved developer productivity.
>
> Can't believe that I even had to write this. VAJ a good IDE. Get real.
Read
> a manual. Learn something new. Ugh
>
>
>
>
>
> "John" <deepblue_70@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:am29h1$fhe$1@rogue.oti.com...
> > I really don't understand the reason for wich IBM doesn't want support
> > and develope anymore Visual Age for Java. Eclipse is a hybrid between
> > Visual Age and JBuilder and so I find Eclipse is a worst tool than VAJ.
A
> > lot
> > of good features like the versioning system, copying the classes, the
> > layout,
> > the kind of debugging, the way you run a class etc. have been lost with
> > Eclipse. We are working "officially" with JBuilder but some of us
continue
> > to use Visual Age, because it is more powerful and "easier" to use then
> > JBuilder.
> >
> > Now our tech support intend soon to "officialize" Eclipse, but I and
other
> > people still think that we have really lost a very powerful tool like
> > Visual Age for Java.
> >
> > I really hope IBM change its idea, or at least that Eclipse retrieve all
> > the
> > good things of Visual Age.
> >
> > John
> >
>
>
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #24779 is a reply to message #24207] Tue, 17 September 2002 08:34 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: whistlingdogg<NOSPAM

instantiations have developed some plugins to make the transition from vaj
to eclipse easier.

I agree, VAJ is/was a great IDE. saying that VAJ is really a poor cousin to
VAST. I'm sure eclipse will keep evolving and if you have the time maybe you
should start writing some plugins to incorprate the VAJ features that you
miss the most

Paul.

"John" <deepblue_70@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:am29h1$fhe$1@rogue.oti.com...
> I really don't understand the reason for wich IBM doesn't want support
> and develope anymore Visual Age for Java. Eclipse is a hybrid between
> Visual Age and JBuilder and so I find Eclipse is a worst tool than VAJ. A
> lot
> of good features like the versioning system, copying the classes, the
> layout,
> the kind of debugging, the way you run a class etc. have been lost with
> Eclipse. We are working "officially" with JBuilder but some of us continue
> to use Visual Age, because it is more powerful and "easier" to use then
> JBuilder.
>
> Now our tech support intend soon to "officialize" Eclipse, but I and other
> people still think that we have really lost a very powerful tool like
> Visual Age for Java.
>
> I really hope IBM change its idea, or at least that Eclipse retrieve all
> the
> good things of Visual Age.
>
> John
>
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #24813 is a reply to message #24779] Tue, 17 September 2002 18:14 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: jwh.riskmetrics.com

On Tue, 17 Sep 2002 09:34:22 +0100, "Paul" <whistlingdogg<NOSPAM>@hotmail.com> wrote:

>instantiations have developed some plugins to make the transition from vaj
>to eclipse easier.
>
>I agree, VAJ is/was a great IDE. saying that VAJ is really a poor cousin to
>VAST. I'm sure eclipse will keep evolving and if you have the time maybe you
>should start writing some plugins to incorprate the VAJ features that you
>miss the most

I've been playing with Eclipse for a little while after having used VAJ for quite some time. I too, am disappointed with Eclipse.
There are many features which I really miss, but one of the things which really bugs me is the way all my windows are confined to a
single window frame. Is it possible for a plugin to be written which lets you open multiple windows and place them where you want?
For example, I would like to have a separate JUnit window, a separate console window and one or more class hierarchy viewer windows.
I find the way Eclipse works to be very constraining.
James Howe mailto:jwh@riskmetrics.com
RiskMetrics Group, Inc.
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #24884 is a reply to message #24813] Tue, 17 September 2002 20:42 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: john_arthorne.o_ti.com

Try Window->New Window.

See also the preference Workbench > Perspectives > Open new perspective
in new window.

>There are many features which I really miss, but one of the things which really bugs me is the way all my windows are confined to a
>single window frame. Is it possible for a plugin to be written which lets you open multiple windows and place them where you want?
>
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #24907 is a reply to message #24884] Tue, 17 September 2002 21:32 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: jwh.riskmetrics.com

On Tue, 17 Sep 2002 16:42:34 -0400, John Arthorne <john_arthorne@o_ti.com> wrote:
>>
>>There are many features which I really miss, but one of the things which really bugs me is the way all my windows are confined to a
>>single window frame. Is it possible for a plugin to be written which lets you open multiple windows and place them where you want?
>>
>
>Try Window->New Window.
>
>See also the preference Workbench > Perspectives > Open new perspective
>in new window.
>

But that opens a 'perspective' in a new window. Typically a perspective consists of many components (a project list, an editor,
console, search, etc.) I don't want new perspectives in a new window, I want an individual component in a new window. I want a
window with just a console, or just JUnit. As far as I can tell I can't do that.
James Howe mailto:jwh@riskmetrics.com
RiskMetrics Group, Inc.
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #25004 is a reply to message #24907] Tue, 17 September 2002 21:46 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Andrew McCullough is currently offline Andrew McCulloughFriend
Messages: 26
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Of course you can. Just close the windows you don't want and/or save these
"reduced" perspectives as a custom perspective (Window-->Save Perspective
As).

While I don't have the time or energy to properly participate in this
thread, there is nothing VAJ does that Eclipse does not do better, with the
possible exception of debugging (and even that is pretty close). I am also,
of course, disregarding ENVY, since a source control system should be
independent from the IDE.

-Andrew


"James Howe" <jwh@riskmetrics.com> wrote in message
news:oi7fouccu6c5icee7rsh3jpfu96bdtkjkj@4ax.com...
> On Tue, 17 Sep 2002 16:42:34 -0400, John Arthorne <john_arthorne@o_ti.com>
wrote:
> >>
> >>There are many features which I really miss, but one of the things which
really bugs me is the way all my windows are confined to a
> >>single window frame. Is it possible for a plugin to be written which
lets you open multiple windows and place them where you want?
> >>
> >
> >Try Window->New Window.
> >
> >See also the preference Workbench > Perspectives > Open new perspective
> >in new window.
> >
>
> But that opens a 'perspective' in a new window. Typically a perspective
consists of many components (a project list, an editor,
> console, search, etc.) I don't want new perspectives in a new window, I
want an individual component in a new window. I want a
> window with just a console, or just JUnit. As far as I can tell I can't
do that.
> James Howe mailto:jwh@riskmetrics.com
> RiskMetrics Group, Inc.
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #25042 is a reply to message #24907] Tue, 17 September 2002 23:40 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: srutledg.REMOVE.telusplanet.net

On Tue, 17 Sep 2002 17:32:30 -0400, James Howe <jwh@riskmetrics.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Sep 2002 16:42:34 -0400, John Arthorne <john_arthorne@o_ti.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>There are many features which I really miss, but one of the things which really bugs me is the way all my windows are confined to a
> >>single window frame. Is it possible for a plugin to be written which lets you open multiple windows and place them where you want?
> >>
> >
> >Try Window->New Window.
> >
> >See also the preference Workbench > Perspectives > Open new perspective
> >in new window.
> >
>
> But that opens a 'perspective' in a new window. Typically a perspective consists of many components (a project list, an editor,
> console, search, etc.) I don't want new perspectives in a new window, I want an individual component in a new window. I want a
> window with just a console, or just JUnit. As far as I can tell I can't do that.

You can make a view float on top of all the others by right-clicking on the title-bar, right-clicking, and selecting Quick-View. You can then resize the view to cover as much of the window as
you want. When you minimize a QuickView, it's icon is placed on the left-hand icon bar underneath the perspective shortcuts. This should give you the desired effect.

Scott
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #25083 is a reply to message #24907] Wed, 18 September 2002 05:08 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: linuxman.sd163.net

just make your custom perspective.

James Howe wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Sep 2002 16:42:34 -0400, John Arthorne <john_arthorne@o_ti.com> wrote:
>
>>>There are many features which I really miss, but one of the things which really bugs me is the way all my windows are confined to a
>>>single window frame. Is it possible for a plugin to be written which lets you open multiple windows and place them where you want?
>>>
>>
>>Try Window->New Window.
>>
>>See also the preference Workbench > Perspectives > Open new perspective
>>in new window.
>>
>
>
> But that opens a 'perspective' in a new window. Typically a perspective consists of many components (a project list, an editor,
> console, search, etc.) I don't want new perspectives in a new window, I want an individual component in a new window. I want a
> window with just a console, or just JUnit. As far as I can tell I can't do that.
> James Howe mailto:jwh@riskmetrics.com
> RiskMetrics Group, Inc.
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #25123 is a reply to message #25004] Wed, 18 September 2002 06:45 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Francesc Rosés is currently offline Francesc RosésFriend
Messages: 213
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
I agree except for the Visual Composition Editor (VCE). It seems no plans
to include the VCE into Eclipse but in WSAD 5.0. [Any WSAD 5.0 beta
disponible? IBM announced WDAD 5.0 will be available this September].

FRA

Andrew McCullough wrote:
> While I don't have the time or energy to properly participate in this
> thread, there is nothing VAJ does that Eclipse does not do better, with the
> possible exception of debugging (and even that is pretty close).

> -Andrew
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #25164 is a reply to message #25123] Wed, 18 September 2002 12:32 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Andrew McCullough is currently offline Andrew McCulloughFriend
Messages: 26
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Ah, yes, well, I concede that point. Lucky for me I don't do GUI
develpoment much :)

-Andrew

"Francesc Ros
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #25204 is a reply to message #25004] Wed, 18 September 2002 17:15 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Jim Sculley is currently offline Jim SculleyFriend
Messages: 17
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Andrew McCullough wrote:
> Of course you can. Just close the windows you don't want and/or save these
> "reduced" perspectives as a custom perspective (Window-->Save Perspective
> As).
>
> While I don't have the time or energy to properly participate in this
> thread, there is nothing VAJ does that Eclipse does not do better, with the
> possible exception of debugging (and even that is pretty close).

There are many things that VAJ did better. Method level editions for
one (the local history isn't as good in my opinion). Visual application
building. JavaBeans. The 'Problems' tab. Multiple Windows. The
combined stdin/stdout console. The ability to transport your entire
source code base effortlessly using a single file (the repository).

Having said that, Eclipse does many thing better as well. Switchable
JDK being the most important. If VAJ had that capability, I think that
many Eclipse users who came from a VAJ background would still be using VAJ.

> I am also,
> of course, disregarding ENVY, since a source control system should be
> independent from the IDE.

Nonsense. ENVY is what made VAJ better than the rest. Being freed from
the confines of the file system was wonderful. I look forward to using
Stellation which once again eliminates the file system from the
development equation.

Jim S.
I really, really don't miss Visual Age for Java.... (WAS: I miss Visual Age for Java...) [message #25244 is a reply to message #25204] Wed, 18 September 2002 18:31 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Andrew McCullough is currently offline Andrew McCulloughFriend
Messages: 26
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
First let me say that I _liked_ Visual Age once upon a time. After using
Eclipse for the past year you could not _pay_ me to go back. On my current
project they tried to use Visual Age. After enough
complaint/effort/pointing out of advanatges, the entire team of VAJ users
has switched, and not one has looked back. I estimate I am about 20% - 30%
more productive in Eclipse than I ever was in VAJ. A lot of that comes from
the refactoring, but some of it is just the overall design, usability, and
flexibility of the product is better.

<SNIP>

> There are many things that VAJ did better. Method level editions for
> one (the local history isn't as good in my opinion).

While I consider this a source control issue, the bottom line is that even
in VAJ method "editions" were a bit of a hack. You couldn't label them, for
example. I didn't end up using it much.

> Visual application building.

True, I concede this one point.

> JavaBeans.

What good was this, really? Then again, like I said I don't do much visual
programming (which seemed like the only place this was helpful).

> The 'Problems' tab.

Eclipse handles this much better, IMO. The task list + filters, in-editor
markers, double-click-to-problem, etc, all combine for much better "problem"
handling.

> Multiple Windows.

As discussed, you can do this in Eclipse.

> The combined stdin/stdout console.

Well, I never have much use for stdin, so maybe your right - I don't know.
But the stdout console in Eclipse seems to work just fine.

> The ability to transport your entire
> source code base effortlessly using a single file (the repository).

> Nonsense. ENVY is what made VAJ better than the rest. Being freed from
> the confines of the file system was wonderful. I look forward to using
> Stellation which once again eliminates the file system from the
> development equation.

Every source control system ever invented (except ENVY) abstracts the
storage mechanism from the end user. The user gets files: s/he doesn't
worry about how the server stores them. This is true in CVS, ClearCase,
VSS, PVCS, and any other source control system I've ever seen/used/heard of.
Stellation will be no different. The lack of end-user file support is what
doomed ENVY to complete and utter failure. That being said, ENVY was a
pretty pathetic source control system for a variety of other reasons, bust
most of them based around two themes: No files, and no support for anything
by Java (or Smalltalk, or generally "code"). It has some nifty features,
but at the end of the day it just didn't cut it. A few of the reasons:

1) it made using file based tools (ANT, formatters, code generators, you
name it) a nightmare

2) it made anyone who wanted to use VAJ with another source control system
an _absolute_ nightmare. I was on one project where you could only synch
with VSS when you went to lunch, or else you'd never get any work done.

3) author based development was/is a bad idea (I spent half my life changing
"users" and reassigning "ownership").

4) it could not store/version non-Java resources. <*** THIS is enough by
itself to make it near worthless

5) you could not have the same package in different projects/locations
(think: JUnit)

6) you could not use/reference third party libraries without a huge hassle.


> Having said that, Eclipse does many thing better as well. Switchable
> JDK being the most important. If VAJ had that capability, I think that
> many Eclipse users who came from a VAJ background would still be using
VAJ.

Eclipse does an awful lot of things better than VAJ, heres a few what I
consider the more important ones (* = completely missing in VAJ):

Refactoring Support *
Moving/Renaming things actually works *
Much smarter Templates
Files are actually readable outside the tool (VAJ "java" files are
horrendous) *
Much more flexible project/code organization
Much easier to extend (notice the myriad plugins)
Quick Fix is much better
Support for external JARs *
A "Source" view that actually works
On-the-fly problem indicators (w/o save) *
Better code assist (why did everyone get fully qualified names in VAJ?)
Better compare/merge support
Better implementation of standards (JPDA) *


Plus hundreds of little things, like:

Organize imports
Surround with Try/Catch
Much more pervasive hot-key/accelerator support
Better search

I few other things are harder o quantify. Like, why did VAJ hold all the
memory and system resources? Ever kill a DB program in Visual Age and/or
forget to close a DB connection/file/other resource? You had to shut down
VAJ to get it back. Got an stupid memory leak or infinite loop you right
after starting your program? Shut down VAJ.

Ah well. You're either convinced or not, but I really don't understand the
VAJ nostalgia. I think the issue is ENVY. People confuse the quirky,
interesting but immature source control system with VAJ the IDE. ENVY was
more limiting than enabling. Unfortunately, ENVY was never any project's
first choice for source control, so if the company uses VSS, ClearCase, even
CVS you were mostly screwed. But people only remember the "good times" with
ENVY when they had permission/power to use it exclusively and had no JSPs,
XML, .properties, or other resource files.

-Andrew
Re: I really, really don't miss Visual Age for Java.... (WAS: I miss Visual Age for Java...) [message #25285 is a reply to message #25244] Wed, 18 September 2002 18:41 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Andrew McCullough is currently offline Andrew McCulloughFriend
Messages: 26
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Hmm.. pardon my somewhat spotty English in that post, I was in a hurry :) I
think I am supposed to be working :)

<SNIP>
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #25325 is a reply to message #25164] Thu, 19 September 2002 00:30 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: jed.wesley-smith.remove.remove.combined.com.au

*,

This is such a wrong forum for this thread, but as its going anyway...

I liked VAJ, but AFAIC, the best thing you could say about the VCE in VAJ
was that it existed. It generated code from a meta-model that you could not
access, and the generated code was horrible stuff that you couldn't
edit/refactor or add to because it would get clobbered the next time you
used the VCE, and all in all was more of a PITA in the long term than it was
worth. The one in JBuilder is much better (although still not perfect).

As far as ENVY is concerned, I never saw the good side of that either. The
way it was used around here, you had to do all your merges manually, and it
didn't version normal files in the same way it versioned .java. And god help
you if you lost your connection to the repository, you could lose all your
unreleased work. Have that happen once and you need some special features to
ever develop fondness again. CVS at least will merge stuff well (although
the CVS support in WSAD4/Eclipse1 doesn't). We might not have been using it
all that well though, so I'm not sure if there are some good features I
missed.

Otherwise, there was certainly much to like about VAJ.

bewdy,
- jed.

"Andrew McCullough" <mccull1@us.ibm.com> wrote in message
news:am9qjo$6bg$1@rogue.oti.com...
> Ah, yes, well, I concede that point. Lucky for me I don't do GUI
> develpoment much :)
>
> -Andrew
>
> "Francesc Ros
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #25365 is a reply to message #25325] Wed, 18 September 2002 21:49 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Mark C. Chu-Carroll is currently offline Mark C. Chu-CarrollFriend
Messages: 32
Registered: July 2009
Member
On Thu, 19 Sep 2002 00:30:52 +0000, jed wrote:

> *,
>
> This is such a wrong forum for this thread, but as its going anyway...
>
> I liked VAJ, but AFAIC, the best thing you could say about the VCE in
> VAJ was that it existed. It generated code from a meta-model that you
> could not access, and the generated code was horrible stuff that you
> couldn't edit/refactor or add to because it would get clobbered the next
> time you used the VCE, and all in all was more of a PITA in the long
> term than it was worth. The one in JBuilder is much better (although
> still not perfect).
>
> As far as ENVY is concerned, I never saw the good side of that either.
> The way it was used around here, you had to do all your merges manually,
> and it didn't version normal files in the same way it versioned .java.
> And god help you if you lost your connection to the repository, you
> could lose all your unreleased work. Have that happen once and you need
> some special features to ever develop fondness again. CVS at least will
> merge stuff well (although the CVS support in WSAD4/Eclipse1 doesn't).
> We might not have been using it all that well though, so I'm not sure if
> there are some good features I missed.

I've used ENVY (it's one of the major inspirations behind Stellation). I
think it's a wonderful system in theory, but the practice was somewhat
lacking. If you used it correctly, *and* you had a solid reliable network
connection, *and* your work style exactly conformed to the way that
ENVY expected you to, *and* you were willing and able to work entirely
100% within the ENVY environment, then it was a really fantastic system.

The catch, of course, was that the basic model of ENVY was rather
complicated, and a lot of people didn't entirely understand it; and
a lot of people didn't have 100% reliable network connections; and
a lot of people's workstyles didn't conform to the ENVY process;
and a lot of people needed to interact with external tools. And for
anyone in any of those situations, the system was extremely painful,
and extremely frustrating.

In Stellation, we're doing our best to learn from both ENVY's
strengths, and its weaknesses. To see how we copy the strengths,
just look at our documents - ENVY like facilities are all over the
place. For what we're doing to address the weaknesses:

- We use a workspace based model. That means you don't need
a constant connection to the server. You do periodic updates
with the server, exactly the way you do with CVS, or with
a ClearCase snapshot view.

- We will provide both locking and optimistic concurrency. For
the optimistic mode, we have an extremely powerful merge operator,
which works considerably better than the merge in CVS.

- While versioning is on a fine grain, as in ENVY, we also have
aggregate objects that represent larger constructs. Importing and
exporting code through source files will be fast, easy, and flexible,
and we won't mangle your code when we do it. Aggregates make it
easy to seamlessly work with non-Stellation tools.

- Lots of the behavior of Stellation is customizable. We don't
force you to work with our programming workstyle. You can adapt
Stellation to your own preferred workstyle, and make it work
with you.

-Mark


--
Mark Craig Chu-Carroll, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
*** The Stellation project: Advanced SCM for Collaboration
*** http://www.eclipse.org/stellation
*** Work Email: mcc@watson.ibm.com ------- Personal Email: markcc@bestweb.net
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #25405 is a reply to message #25325] Thu, 19 September 2002 06:33 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Francesc Rosés is currently offline Francesc RosésFriend
Messages: 213
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
Jed,

Sorry by I don't agree. I think you don't know well the
VisualAge VCE if you compare it with JBuilder. And yes,
there is a part of "code regenerable", but you can write
before and after this code.

FRA

jed wrote:

> I liked VAJ, but AFAIC, the best thing you could say about the VCE in VAJ
> was that it existed. It generated code from a meta-model that you could not
> access, and the generated code was horrible stuff that you couldn't
> edit/refactor or add to because it would get clobbered the next time you
> used the VCE, and all in all was more of a PITA in the long term than it was
> worth. The one in JBuilder is much better (although still not perfect).


> bewdy,
> - jed.
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #25443 is a reply to message #25405] Thu, 19 September 2002 07:26 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: jed.wesley-smith.remove.remove.combined.com.au

Francesc,

Fair enough, everybody has their own style of doing things, and the VCE
didn't suit mine. If it suits yours then it is the hammer for the job, for
me it was more of a wet sponge ;-)

It was a while ago now that I used it, so the exact criticisms do not come
to mind, but I recall it generated a lot of methods for event processing
where I prefer to tie things together using Actions and structure the
classes around an MVC design. It was simply as much work to develop by hand
as to use the VCE and then refactor the classes, and it would not work with
anything not generated from scratch inside the VCE, so you are right, I
never really used it in anger.

JBuilder at least bases its model on the code, so you have the option of
making changes there OR using the visual designer, and even though it sticks
its stupid jbInit() methods in there, you can remove them and put them in
more descriptive methods and it will generally still work. Anyway, I use
Eclipse now and don't have much of a problem doing it all by hand. I would
still like to see a good Swing designer in Eclipse (as well as a SWT one of
course).

enjoy,
- jed.

"Francesc Ros
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #25483 is a reply to message #25365] Thu, 19 September 2002 07:28 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: jed.wesley-smith.remove.remove.combined.com.au

Mark,

Thanks for the detailed answer, most interesting. Looking forward to
Stellation when it ships.

bewdy,
- jed.
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #25523 is a reply to message #24660] Thu, 19 September 2002 08:34 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: bob.objfac.com

Oh, no, please leave the thread here. ;-}

Bob

"jed" <jed.wesley-smith.remove@remove.combined.com.au> wrote in message
news:am686f$9qd$1@rogue.oti.com...
> what a great troll opportunity this thread is.
>
> can you guys please post this stuff to the eclipse.tools newsgroup? not
only
> is it far more relevant there, you'll get plenty more takers... ;-)
>
> btw. when in doubt about a newsgroup use eclipse.tools
>
> "Randall Loffelmacher" <randall@rga.com> wrote in message
> news:am5ks8$2qm$1@rogue.oti.com...
> > Sorry, this'll get a "little" flamey...I've used nearly every modern,
> > popular IDE out there. If it is your opinion that Visual Age for Java
> (VAJ)
> > is actually a good editor, you've lost all credibility you ever had. VAJ
> is
> > hardly what I would consider a good IDE. It doesn't even do code
> completion.
> > Sure, it'll write get/set for you, but how worthless is that? If you
can't
> > type out a pair of get/set yourself in under 30 seconds, someone
should've
> > taken your keyboard away a long, long time ago.
> >
> > You're dead wrong about Eclipse taking away versioning, class-copying
(wtf
> > is that worth anyway???), layout/usability, debugging, etc. Eclipse
> actually
> > offers you all of these things. I believe that the problem is that you
> just
> > haven't yet read the Ant manual...nor the Eclipse manual.
> >
> > Visual Studio .NET is hands-down, no debating, the BEST IDE ever created
> by
> > man or God. I've used JBuilder and like it. Also used Forte for a long
> > time. It was the closest thing that the Java world had to Visual Studio.
> > See...Java is still chasing after Visual Basic for rapid development.
> >
> > I'm still evaluating Eclipse, so cannot fairly compare it to Visual
> > Studio...but I think that it might come close to knocking Microsoft off
of
> > the hill, so far as visual presentation, feature-list, and (the whole
> point)
> > improved developer productivity.
> >
> > Can't believe that I even had to write this. VAJ a good IDE. Get real.
> Read
> > a manual. Learn something new. Ugh
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > "John" <deepblue_70@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:am29h1$fhe$1@rogue.oti.com...
> > > I really don't understand the reason for wich IBM doesn't want support
> > > and develope anymore Visual Age for Java. Eclipse is a hybrid between
> > > Visual Age and JBuilder and so I find Eclipse is a worst tool than
VAJ.
> A
> > > lot
> > > of good features like the versioning system, copying the classes, the
> > > layout,
> > > the kind of debugging, the way you run a class etc. have been lost
with
> > > Eclipse. We are working "officially" with JBuilder but some of us
> continue
> > > to use Visual Age, because it is more powerful and "easier" to use
then
> > > JBuilder.
> > >
> > > Now our tech support intend soon to "officialize" Eclipse, but I and
> other
> > > people still think that we have really lost a very powerful tool like
> > > Visual Age for Java.
> > >
> > > I really hope IBM change its idea, or at least that Eclipse retrieve
all
> > > the
> > > good things of Visual Age.
> > >
> > > John
> > >
> >
> >
>
>
I miss Visual Age for SMALLTALK.... [message #25603 is a reply to message #24207] Thu, 19 September 2002 12:56 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: kevin.guest.no

John wrote:

> I really don't understand the reason for wich IBM doesn't want support
> and develope anymore Visual Age for Java. Eclipse is a hybrid between
> Visual Age and JBuilder and so I find Eclipse is a worst tool than VAJ. A
> lot
> of good features like the versioning system, copying the classes, the
> layout,
> the kind of debugging, the way you run a class etc. have been lost with
> Eclipse. We are working "officially" with JBuilder but some of us continue
> to use Visual Age, because it is more powerful and "easier" to use then
> JBuilder.

> Now our tech support intend soon to "officialize" Eclipse, but I and other
> people still think that we have really lost a very powerful tool like
> Visual Age for Java.

> I really hope IBM change its idea, or at least that Eclipse retrieve all
> the
> good things of Visual Age.

> John
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #25641 is a reply to message #25365] Thu, 19 September 2002 13:40 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Andrew McCullough is currently offline Andrew McCulloughFriend
Messages: 26
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
<SNIP>

> I've used ENVY (it's one of the major inspirations behind Stellation). I
> think it's a wonderful system in theory, but the practice was somewhat
> lacking. If you used it correctly, *and* you had a solid reliable network
> connection, *and* your work style exactly conformed to the way that
> ENVY expected you to, *and* you were willing and able to work entirely
> 100% within the ENVY environment, then it was a really fantastic system.

Very well summed up indeed. Can I use that? :)


> The catch, of course, was that the basic model of ENVY was rather
> complicated, and a lot of people didn't entirely understand it; and
> a lot of people didn't have 100% reliable network connections; and
> a lot of people's workstyles didn't conform to the ENVY process;
> and a lot of people needed to interact with external tools. And for
> anyone in any of those situations, the system was extremely painful,
> and extremely frustrating.
>
> In Stellation, we're doing our best to learn from both ENVY's
> strengths, and its weaknesses. To see how we copy the strengths,
> just look at our documents - ENVY like facilities are all over the
> place. For what we're doing to address the weaknesses:

<SNIPPED list of cool things about Stellation>

I can't wait. I like ENVY's ideas, but I completely agree with your
analysis of it's practicality. I look forward to seeing Stellation in
action. Just out of curiosity: I assume, since you can work off a
snapshot, that Stellation does not have a concept of author based
development as in ENVY? That was the one idea in ENVY I really didn't like
at all. The rest of my problems with ENVY were in it's
implementation/execution/integration with VAJ - but that one I just thought
was a bad idea.

-Andrew
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #25703 is a reply to message #25641] Thu, 19 September 2002 09:48 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Mark C. Chu-Carroll is currently offline Mark C. Chu-CarrollFriend
Messages: 32
Registered: July 2009
Member
On Thu, 19 Sep 2002 13:40:14 +0000, Andrew McCullough wrote:

> <SNIP>
>
>> I've used ENVY (it's one of the major inspirations behind Stellation).
>> I think it's a wonderful system in theory, but the practice was
>> somewhat lacking. If you used it correctly, *and* you had a solid
>> reliable network connection, *and* your work style exactly conformed to
>> the way that ENVY expected you to, *and* you were willing and able to
>> work entirely 100% within the ENVY environment, then it was a really
>> fantastic system.
>
> Very well summed up indeed. Can I use that? :)

It depends,,, Where do you want to use it? :-)

That paragraph sounds a bit more sarcastic than I actually
intended. I truly do think ENVY was an excellent system in a lot
of ways - that line at the end about it being fantastic is really
serious. You needed to buy into its whole approach, but it wasn't a
*bad* approach. If you could buy into it, then it was really
quite extraordinary. The problem is that a lot of people either
couldn't adopt its method, or disliked that method - and if you
didn't fully buy in to it, it became a very frustrating tool to use.


>> The catch, of course, was that the basic model of ENVY was rather
>> complicated, and a lot of people didn't entirely understand it; and a
>> lot of people didn't have 100% reliable network connections; and a lot
>> of people's workstyles didn't conform to the ENVY process; and a lot of
>> people needed to interact with external tools. And for anyone in any of
>> those situations, the system was extremely painful, and extremely
>> frustrating.
>>
>> In Stellation, we're doing our best to learn from both ENVY's
>> strengths, and its weaknesses. To see how we copy the strengths, just
>> look at our documents - ENVY like facilities are all over the place.
>> For what we're doing to address the weaknesses:
>
> <SNIPPED list of cool things about Stellation>
>
> I can't wait. I like ENVY's ideas, but I completely agree with your
> analysis of it's practicality. I look forward to seeing Stellation in
> action. Just out of curiosity: I assume, since you can work off a
> snapshot, that Stellation does not have a concept of author based
> development as in ENVY? That was the one idea in ENVY I really didn't
> like at all. The rest of my problems with ENVY were in it's
> implementation/execution/integration with VAJ - but that one I just
> thought was a bad idea.

I'm not entirely sure of what you mean by author based development. If
you mean the way that ENVY assigned components as being under development
by a particular person, then no, we aren't going to directly support
that. If you want it, you'll be able to do it, using a fairly simple
application of locks and triggers. But by default, that won't be the
way that Stellation behaves.

If I've misunderstood what you mean by author-based development, then
please explain what you mean, and I'll do my best to answer.

-Mark



--
Mark Craig Chu-Carroll, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
*** The Stellation project: Advanced SCM for Collaboration
*** http://www.eclipse.org/stellation
*** Work Email: mcc@watson.ibm.com ------- Personal Email: markcc@bestweb.net
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #25727 is a reply to message #25703] Thu, 19 September 2002 14:54 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Andrew McCullough is currently offline Andrew McCulloughFriend
Messages: 26
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
"Mark C. Chu-Carroll" <mcc@watson.ibm.com> wrote in message
news:amcjia$n4a$1@rogue.oti.com...
> On Thu, 19 Sep 2002 13:40:14 +0000, Andrew McCullough wrote:
>
> > <SNIP>
> >
> >> I've used ENVY (it's one of the major inspirations behind Stellation).
> >> I think it's a wonderful system in theory, but the practice was
> >> somewhat lacking. If you used it correctly, *and* you had a solid
> >> reliable network connection, *and* your work style exactly conformed to
> >> the way that ENVY expected you to, *and* you were willing and able to
> >> work entirely 100% within the ENVY environment, then it was a really
> >> fantastic system.
> >
> > Very well summed up indeed. Can I use that? :)
>
> It depends,,, Where do you want to use it? :-)

Well, it tends to come up in these "VAJ was the best thing ever"
discussions. For better or worse they tend to devolve into a discussion of
ENVY in some way or another.

> That paragraph sounds a bit more sarcastic than I actually
> intended. I truly do think ENVY was an excellent system in a lot
> of ways - that line at the end about it being fantastic is really
> serious. You needed to buy into its whole approach, but it wasn't a
> *bad* approach. If you could buy into it, then it was really
> quite extraordinary. The problem is that a lot of people either
> couldn't adopt its method, or disliked that method - and if you
> didn't fully buy in to it, it became a very frustrating tool to use.

I think the paragraph was very clear. You are exactly right: ENVY/VAJ
worked well (mostly) if you made it _THE_ tool and did everything the ENVY
way. The two exceptions (the "mostly") I make are: It never handled
non-code resources in an acceptable way, and the author based development
which I will discuss below.

The problem is that is not usually an option for someone like me (a
consultant). We have to use what the client wants to use, or what the
existing infrastructure provides. That usually means a source control
system other than ENVY, and it also means you don't get to pick how
everything is done. For those reasons, I think ENVY failed the
"practicality" test.


<SNIP>

> I'm not entirely sure of what you mean by author based development. If
> you mean the way that ENVY assigned components as being under development
> by a particular person, then no, we aren't going to directly support
> that. If you want it, you'll be able to do it, using a fairly simple
> application of locks and triggers. But by default, that won't be the
> way that Stellation behaves.

In VisualAge/ENVY (it is hard to discuss them as separate entities), there
was a project, package, and class owner. Only the class owner could release
a version, only the package owner could open/version a new edition of the
package, and only the project owner could open/version the project. In
modern development (especially with the rise of XP), many people take
responsibility for the same code, and this turned into a major headache.

The absolute worst was when people (foolishly) used passwords to
authenticate identity. That meant that you could be stuck, not being able to
do what you needed to do, if the person was out sick or just not available.
Without the passwords, you end up "changing workspace user" about 100 times
a day to get your work done and get the proper code released. What made it
even worse is that a non-owner could work on anything they wanted, but just
couldn't make it visible to the rest of the team. And since there was no
option for locking/checkout, and no real automatic merge support, people
clobbered each other's work all the time. So you got all the hassles of
"ownership" and none of the benefits.


-Andrew
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #25797 is a reply to message #25703] Thu, 19 September 2002 15:15 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: jeffo.odellsoft.com

To me, it always seemed that the Java's need to have a "file" as a primary
element of your code organization and delivery was a mismatch for Envy's
object database. Envy's object database approach was absolutely fantastic
for Smalltalk, which eschewed files completely. Envy was adapted to Java by
IBM to deliver a modern IDE quickly for Java, Eclipse was/is their longer
term strategy.

I've never had an experience close to using Envy with Smalltalk in any other
source code environment, except using Dolphin Smalltalk with a third party
system called STS that takes a similar object DB approach. In most others,
the unit of versioning is the file - which does not recognize the possible
units of versioning in an object world: classes, methods, etc.

The other big bummer of Envy was that it does not faciliate development in
multiple geographic locations.

I'm very interested in Stellation because it aims to provide Envy-like
functionality of recognizing the object model while dealing effectively with
the fact of life, like it or not (I don't, but I concede others do for valid
reasons), that delivery is somewhat file based. I applaud the effort and
hope to be able to work with the developers at some point.

As Kent Beck's tag line used to say "Source Code in files, how quaint"...
(FWIW - I'm *not* looking fo a flame war!). It appears files are here to
stay - I'm looking forward to Stellation to minimize the impact.

jlo

"Mark C. Chu-Carroll" <mcc@watson.ibm.com> wrote in message
news:amcjia$n4a$1@rogue.oti.com...
> On Thu, 19 Sep 2002 13:40:14 +0000, Andrew McCullough wrote:
>
> > <SNIP>
> >
> >> I've used ENVY (it's one of the major inspirations behind Stellation).
> >> I think it's a wonderful system in theory, but the practice was
> >> somewhat lacking. If you used it correctly, *and* you had a solid
> >> reliable network connection, *and* your work style exactly conformed to
> >> the way that ENVY expected you to, *and* you were willing and able to
> >> work entirely 100% within the ENVY environment, then it was a really
> >> fantastic system.
> >
> > Very well summed up indeed. Can I use that? :)
>
> It depends,,, Where do you want to use it? :-)
>
> That paragraph sounds a bit more sarcastic than I actually
> intended. I truly do think ENVY was an excellent system in a lot
> of ways - that line at the end about it being fantastic is really
> serious. You needed to buy into its whole approach, but it wasn't a
> *bad* approach. If you could buy into it, then it was really
> quite extraordinary. The problem is that a lot of people either
> couldn't adopt its method, or disliked that method - and if you
> didn't fully buy in to it, it became a very frustrating tool to use.
>
>
> >> The catch, of course, was that the basic model of ENVY was rather
> >> complicated, and a lot of people didn't entirely understand it; and a
> >> lot of people didn't have 100% reliable network connections; and a lot
> >> of people's workstyles didn't conform to the ENVY process; and a lot of
> >> people needed to interact with external tools. And for anyone in any of
> >> those situations, the system was extremely painful, and extremely
> >> frustrating.
> >>
> >> In Stellation, we're doing our best to learn from both ENVY's
> >> strengths, and its weaknesses. To see how we copy the strengths, just
> >> look at our documents - ENVY like facilities are all over the place.
> >> For what we're doing to address the weaknesses:
> >
> > <SNIPPED list of cool things about Stellation>
> >
> > I can't wait. I like ENVY's ideas, but I completely agree with your
> > analysis of it's practicality. I look forward to seeing Stellation in
> > action. Just out of curiosity: I assume, since you can work off a
> > snapshot, that Stellation does not have a concept of author based
> > development as in ENVY? That was the one idea in ENVY I really didn't
> > like at all. The rest of my problems with ENVY were in it's
> > implementation/execution/integration with VAJ - but that one I just
> > thought was a bad idea.
>
> I'm not entirely sure of what you mean by author based development. If
> you mean the way that ENVY assigned components as being under development
> by a particular person, then no, we aren't going to directly support
> that. If you want it, you'll be able to do it, using a fairly simple
> application of locks and triggers. But by default, that won't be the
> way that Stellation behaves.
>
> If I've misunderstood what you mean by author-based development, then
> please explain what you mean, and I'll do my best to answer.
>
> -Mark
>
>
>
> --
> Mark Craig Chu-Carroll, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
> *** The Stellation project: Advanced SCM for Collaboration
> *** http://www.eclipse.org/stellation
> *** Work Email: mcc@watson.ibm.com ------- Personal Email:
markcc@bestweb.net
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #25837 is a reply to message #25727] Thu, 19 September 2002 12:35 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Mark C. Chu-Carroll is currently offline Mark C. Chu-CarrollFriend
Messages: 32
Registered: July 2009
Member
On Thu, 19 Sep 2002 14:54:08 +0000, Andrew McCullough wrote:


> "Mark C. Chu-Carroll" <mcc@watson.ibm.com> wrote in message
> news:amcjia$n4a$1@rogue.oti.com...
>> On Thu, 19 Sep 2002 13:40:14 +0000, Andrew McCullough wrote:
>>
>> > <SNIP>
>> >
>> >> I've used ENVY (it's one of the major inspirations behind
>> >> Stellation). I think it's a wonderful system in theory, but the
>> >> practice was somewhat lacking. If you used it correctly, *and* you
>> >> had a solid reliable network connection, *and* your work style
>> >> exactly conformed to the way that ENVY expected you to, *and* you
>> >> were willing and able to work entirely 100% within the ENVY
>> >> environment, then it was a really fantastic system.
>> >
>> > Very well summed up indeed. Can I use that? :)
>>
>> It depends,,, Where do you want to use it? :-)
>
> Well, it tends to come up in these "VAJ was the best thing ever"
> discussions. For better or worse they tend to devolve into a discussion
> of ENVY in some way or another.

Then feel free to quote me, as long as you're being civil.


<SNIP>

>> I'm not entirely sure of what you mean by author based development. If
>> you mean the way that ENVY assigned components as being under
>> development by a particular person, then no, we aren't going to
>> directly support that. If you want it, you'll be able to do it, using a
>> fairly simple application of locks and triggers. But by default, that
>> won't be the way that Stellation behaves.
>
> In VisualAge/ENVY (it is hard to discuss them as separate entities),
> there was a project, package, and class owner. Only the class owner
> could release a version, only the package owner could open/version a new
> edition of the package, and only the project owner could open/version
> the project. In modern development (especially with the rise of XP),
> many people take responsibility for the same code, and this turned into
> a major headache.

That's what I thought you meant. So no, Stellation does not do that
by default. If you really want it, you can build it fairly easily
using triggers, locks, and access control lists. But I can't really
see why you'd want to - with Stellation style branching and
locking, you can get the same effect with less administrative
load, and less intrusion on the work cycle of the developers.

The default mode of Stellation is optimistic concurrency with
advisory locks. So you can edit anything you want, and checkin any
changes you want (provided you have checkin privileges on the
target branch). If you want, you can declare a set of fragments
that you're working on, and other being who are also working
on those fragments will be warned of the potential for conflict.

-Mark


--
Mark Craig Chu-Carroll, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
*** The Stellation project: Advanced SCM for Collaboration
*** http://www.eclipse.org/stellation
*** Work Email: mcc@watson.ibm.com ------- Personal Email: markcc@bestweb.net
Re: I really, really don't miss Visual Age for Java.... (WAS: I miss Visual Age for Java...) [message #25878 is a reply to message #25244] Thu, 19 September 2002 18:31 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Jim Sculley is currently offline Jim SculleyFriend
Messages: 17
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Andrew McCullough wrote:
> First let me say that I _liked_ Visual Age once upon a time. After using
> Eclipse for the past year you could not _pay_ me to go back. On my current
> project they tried to use Visual Age.

Gack. I wouldn't recommend VAJ today. I'm just pointing out that it
was one of the best in its time, and that if certain things such as JDK
switching had been implemented, it would not have seen the mass
defection to Eclipse.

> After enough
> complaint/effort/pointing out of advanatges, the entire team of VAJ users
> has switched, and not one has looked back. I estimate I am about 20% - 30%
> more productive in Eclipse than I ever was in VAJ. A lot of that comes from
> the refactoring, but some of it is just the overall design, usability, and
> flexibility of the product is better.

Erm, VAJ had refactoring via Instantiations' tools.

>
> <SNIP>
>
>>There are many things that VAJ did better. Method level editions for
>>one (the local history isn't as good in my opinion).
>
>
> While I consider this a source control issue, the bottom line is that even
> in VAJ method "editions" were a bit of a hack. You couldn't label them, for
> example. I didn't end up using it much.

I used them all the time myself.

<snip>
>
>
> What good was this, really? Then again, like I said I don't do much visual
> programming (which seemed like the only place this was helpful).

Indeed. The power was that even non-viusal things could be used as
beans in the VCE.

>
>
>>The 'Problems' tab.
>
>
> Eclipse handles this much better, IMO. The task list + filters, in-editor
> markers, double-click-to-problem, etc, all combine for much better "problem"
> handling.

Blech. I preferred VAJ's tree structure for this, and the combination
of the tree of problems with a soure pane in which to fix things. As it
is in Eclipse, I have too many editor tabs opening all the time. A
second row of tabs (ala jEdit woud be nice).

>
>
>>Multiple Windows.
>
>
> As discussed, you can do this in Eclipse.

It's not nearly the same, nor as flexible. I can't open a window
containing a single method for instance.

>
>
>>The combined stdin/stdout console.
>
>
> Well, I never have much use for stdin, so maybe your right - I don't know.
> But the stdout console in Eclipse seems to work just fine.

It seems a bit pokey to me at times, but on the whole it does the job.

>
>
>>The ability to transport your entire
>>source code base effortlessly using a single file (the repository).
>
>
>>Nonsense. ENVY is what made VAJ better than the rest. Being freed from
>>the confines of the file system was wonderful. I look forward to using
>>Stellation which once again eliminates the file system from the
>>development equation.
>
>
> Every source control system ever invented (except ENVY) abstracts the
> storage mechanism from the end user. The user gets files: s/he doesn't
> worry about how the server stores them.

When using ENVY, I never thought of them as files. They were
compilation units. Thinking of classes as files is incorrect thinking
in my opinion. The specification supports this.

> This is true in CVS, ClearCase,
> VSS, PVCS, and any other source control system I've ever seen/used/heard of.
> Stellation will be no different. The lack of end-user file support is what
> doomed ENVY to complete and utter failure.

It failed?

<snip>
>
> 1) it made using file based tools (ANT, formatters, code generators, you
> name it) a nightmare

VAJ did provide the Tools API fior such things.

>
> 2) it made anyone who wanted to use VAJ with another source control system
> an _absolute_ nightmare.

Plenty of folks used it with CVS.

> I was on one project where you could only synch
> with VSS when you went to lunch, or else you'd never get any work done.
>
> 3) author based development was/is a bad idea (I spent half my life changing
> "users" and reassigning "ownership").

This is a matter of philosophy I suspect. Personally, I've not had to
work in large teams so it wasn't an issue.

>
> 4) it could not store/version non-Java resources. <*** THIS is enough by
> itself to make it near worthless

VAJ added this ability at some point.

>
> 5) you could not have the same package in different projects/locations
> (think: JUnit)
>

Isn't one of the fundamental tenets of unit testing that you only test
the public interface, because any private/protected/default access code
that isn't called by public code has no reason to exist? If so, why
would you need to have tests in the same package as code? In any event,
you can also implement tests as inner classes, which lets you test any
method you want. The inner class class files are easily stripped out
prior to deployment.

> 6) you could not use/reference third party libraries without a huge hassle.

Often because those libraries were

a) broken (the VAJ compiler tended to be more compliant)

b) made incorrect assumptions

Some notable exceptions were Java3D and the JMF. VAJ didn't like third
party tools that used native code. A definite shortcoming.

>
>
>
>>Having said that, Eclipse does many thing better as well. Switchable
>>JDK being the most important. If VAJ had that capability, I think that
>>many Eclipse users who came from a VAJ background would still be using
>
> VAJ.
>
> Eclipse does an awful lot of things better than VAJ, heres a few what I
> consider the more important ones (* = completely missing in VAJ):
>
> Refactoring Support *

Code Assist from Instantiations did this.

> Moving/Renaming things actually works *

See above. Even better was the ability to change the name of a method
and have VAJ keep the old name *and* create a new method.

> Much smarter Templates

Agreed.

> Files are actually readable outside the tool (VAJ "java" files are
> horrendous) *

How so? If you are talking about the reordering problem, Instantiations
' tool solved this as well.

> Much more flexible project/code organization

Seems to be a wash to me.

> Much easier to extend (notice the myriad plugins)

Sure. Definitely more open.

> Quick Fix is much better

I preferred the VAJ version where it popped up a dialog listing all the
errors on saving. To each his own.

> Support for external JARs *

VAJ supported this for runtime, but not compile time.

> A "Source" view that actually works

Viewing the entire source file is pointless in my opinion. I never did
it in VAJ, I never do it in Eclipse.

> On-the-fly problem indicators (w/o save) *

I save so often that they don't do much for me.

> Better code assist (why did everyone get fully qualified names in VAJ?)

Hmmm. I think this was user-definable. Its been a while.

> Better compare/merge support

Depends on your development philosophy.

> Better implementation of standards (JPDA) *

Well, I'll take the VAJ debugger over any other debugger in existenceat
the time. It was HotSwapping long before anyone else, and the HotSwap
was more powerful.

>
>
> Plus hundreds of little things, like:
>
> Organize imports

I think this may be my favorite.

<remainder snipped>

The bottom line is that both had strengths and weaknesses, and each had
lovers and haters. Seems a waste of a thread to discuss something that
has been true since time began :)

Beats working I suppose....

Jim S.
Re: ENVY and the Type Hierachy (was: I miss Visual Age for Java....) [message #26003 is a reply to message #25641] Thu, 19 September 2002 22:45 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: alexhudspith.hotmail.com

(With apologies for replying in a thread that increasingly doesn't belong here...)

Wow! It's great to know that there's more than one person in the world who could see strengths _and_ weaknesses in ENVY. (Seems
most people are too religous about the matter.)

I adored it at first, whilst working with all Java code and a good understanding of (and alignment with) the ENVY philosophy. As
time went on, I found myself working more and more with non-Java resources and developers who either didn't like it or just didn't
get it.

Eclipse came just at the right time, providing very good CVS integration (I wouldn't dream of using CVS without it), but I look
forward something that can combine the strengths of both systems, so good luck to Stellation.

As far as other Eclipse stuff goes, I think it's mostly right (mostly great even). Lots of people in my team think it's a killer
IDE. But am I the only one that finds the Eclipse Type Hierachy view really annoying? In VisualAge the type hierachy always showed
exactly what I wanted it to. The Eclipse one always feels like a lazy, second class citizen. ('Link Type Hierachy to active
editor' just isn't the same.)

Alex.

"Andrew McCullough" <mccull1@us.ibm.com> wrote in message news:amciu2$mmb$1@rogue.oti.com...
> <SNIP>
>
> > I've used ENVY (it's one of the major inspirations behind Stellation). I
> > think it's a wonderful system in theory, but the practice was somewhat
> > lacking. If you used it correctly, *and* you had a solid reliable network
> > connection, *and* your work style exactly conformed to the way that
> > ENVY expected you to, *and* you were willing and able to work entirely
> > 100% within the ENVY environment, then it was a really fantastic system.
>
> Very well summed up indeed. Can I use that? :)
>
>
> > The catch, of course, was that the basic model of ENVY was rather
> > complicated, and a lot of people didn't entirely understand it; and
> > a lot of people didn't have 100% reliable network connections; and
> > a lot of people's workstyles didn't conform to the ENVY process;
> > and a lot of people needed to interact with external tools. And for
> > anyone in any of those situations, the system was extremely painful,
> > and extremely frustrating.
> >
> > In Stellation, we're doing our best to learn from both ENVY's
> > strengths, and its weaknesses. To see how we copy the strengths,
> > just look at our documents - ENVY like facilities are all over the
> > place. For what we're doing to address the weaknesses:
>
> <SNIPPED list of cool things about Stellation>
>
> I can't wait. I like ENVY's ideas, but I completely agree with your
> analysis of it's practicality. I look forward to seeing Stellation in
> action. Just out of curiosity: I assume, since you can work off a
> snapshot, that Stellation does not have a concept of author based
> development as in ENVY? That was the one idea in ENVY I really didn't like
> at all. The rest of my problems with ENVY were in it's
> implementation/execution/integration with VAJ - but that one I just thought
> was a bad idea.
>
> -Andrew
>
>
>
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #26290 is a reply to message #25727] Sat, 21 September 2002 18:02 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eric Clayberg is currently offline Eric ClaybergFriend
Messages: 979
Registered: July 2009
Location: Boston, MA
Senior Member
"Andrew McCullough" <mccull1@us.ibm.com> wrote in message
news:amcn8i$q58$1@rogue.oti.com...
>
> In VisualAge/ENVY (it is hard to discuss them as separate entities), there
> was a project, package, and class owner. Only the class owner could
release
> a version, only the package owner could open/version a new edition of the
> package, and only the project owner could open/version the project. In
> modern development (especially with the rise of XP), many people take
> responsibility for the same code, and this turned into a major headache.

Sounds like you should have been using VA Assist which added numerous
enhacements to VAJ to eliminate those headaches. IBM was using hundreds of
licenses of VA Assist, so it should have been easily available to you.

> The absolute worst was when people (foolishly) used passwords to
> authenticate identity. That meant that you could be stuck, not being able
to
> do what you needed to do, if the person was out sick or just not
available.

In that case, you definitely should have been using VA Assist as it
completely eliminated that problem in VAJ.

> Without the passwords, you end up "changing workspace user" about 100
times
> a day to get your work done and get the proper code released.

Wow! Sounds like you could have paid for VA Assist in a couple of days at
that rate.

> What made it even worse is that a non-owner could work on anything they
> wanted, but just couldn't make it visible to the rest of the team.

....unless you were using VA Assist, in which case this was easy to do.

> And since there was no
> option for locking/checkout, and no real automatic merge support, people
> clobbered each other's work all the time.

VA Assist's automatic open edition checking would have eliminated most of
these issues as well.

With VA Assist being readily available to almost everyone (including being
free for VAJ Entry and Pro users), it always surprises me to see someone
making these complaints about VAJ.

-Eric Clayberg
Sr. Vice President of Product Development
Instantiations, Inc.
mailto:cpsws-support@instantiations.com
http://www.instantiations.com
http://www.instantiations.com/codepro/ws/
http://www.instantiations.com/assist/
http://www.instantiations.com/jfactor/
Re: I really, really don't miss Visual Age for Java.... (WAS: I miss Visual Age for Java...) [message #26329 is a reply to message #25244] Sat, 21 September 2002 18:46 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eric Clayberg is currently offline Eric ClaybergFriend
Messages: 979
Registered: July 2009
Location: Boston, MA
Senior Member
"Andrew McCullough" <mccull1@us.ibm.com> wrote in message
news:amafk2$lf8$1@rogue.oti.com...
>
> Eclipse handles this much better, IMO.

I disagree. The Task view in Eclipse is overloaded with way too may
unrelated tasks. The Task views filter dialog is a nightmare.

> The lack of end-user file support is what
> doomed ENVY to complete and utter failure.

ENVY has been in continuous use for more than a decade by many of IBM's
largest customers, so I can't imagine how you could label it a "complete and
utter failure". Many of the world's largest IT projects were implemented
using ENVY as the source code control mechanism of choice.

> it made using file based tools (ANT, formatters, code generators, you
> name it) a nightmare

Several alternative code formatters were available for VAJ including
JIndent...

http://www.instantiations.com/assist/docs/browser_custom_for matter.htm

> author based development was/is a bad idea (I spent half my life changing
> "users" and reassigning "ownership").

VA Assist provided numerous features that directly solved this problem...

http://www.instantiations.com/assist/docs/
http://www.instantiations.com/assist/docs/envy_super_user.ht m
http://www.instantiations.com/assist/docs/envy_super_group.h tm

> it could not store/version non-Java resources. <*** THIS is enough by
> itself to make it near worthless

This was added in VAJ 3.5.

> you could not have the same package in different projects/locations
> (think: JUnit)

VAJ 3.5 introduced Solutions which solved this problem quite nicely.

> 6) you could not use/reference third party libraries without a huge
hassle.

That depends on what you wanted to do and whether the 3rd party had
integrated their tool with VAJ or not. The VAJ Tools API allowed many
companies to plug their tools into VAJ.

> Refactoring Support *

Extremely high quality refactoring support (better than what is in Eclipse
in many ways) has been available for VAJ for almost two years...

http://www.instantiations.com/jfactor/default.htm

> Much smarter Templates

Also available for VAJ via VA Assist.

http://www.instantiations.com/assist/docs/browser_macros_key word.htm

> A "Source" view that actually works

Also available for VAJ via VA Assist.

http://www.instantiations.com/assist/docs/browser_whole_clas s_edit.htm

> Much more pervasive hot-key/accelerator support

Also available for VAJ via VA Assist. This is much better in VAJ using VA
Assist than it is in Eclipse. With VA Assist, you could assign hot-keys to
any menu item and then easily share those key confugurations with other team
members.

http://www.instantiations.com/assist/docs/browser_menu_accel .htm

> Better search

Also available for VAJ via VA Assist (including RegEx support, case
sensitive replace, full repository searching, etc.).

http://www.instantiations.com/assist/docs/browser_search_dia log.htm
http://www.instantiations.com/assist/docs/browser_search_rep lace.htm

http://www.instantiations.com/assist/docs/envy_repository_st ring_query.htm

http://www.instantiations.com/assist/docs/browser_references _declarations.ht
m

Many of the "better search" options in Eclipse seem to have been cribbed
from VA Assist.

> I think the issue is ENVY. People confuse the quirky,
> interesting but immature source control system with VAJ the IDE.

"Immature"? That is just nonsense. I've used ENVY for more than ten years
myself and have never found anything better (and I have used many of the
alternatives).

> ENVY was more limiting than enabling.

Only for those who could not be bothered to learn how to use it properly.
ENVY itself is actually quite powerful (and much more powerful than what was
exposed in VAJ). You might want to read the book "Mastering ENVY/Developer"
before you dismiss it.

http://www.envymasters.com/
http://books.cambridge.org/0521666503.htm

> Unfortunately, ENVY was never any project's
> first choice for source control

Also nonsesne. I have worked on dozens of very large projects that
specifically *chose* ENVY as their desired source code manager.

-Eric Clayberg
Sr. Vice President of Product Development
Instantiations, Inc.
mailto:cpsws-support@instantiations.com
http://www.instantiations.com
http://www.instantiations.com/codepro/ws/
http://www.instantiations.com/assist/
http://www.instantiations.com/jfactor/
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #26971 is a reply to message #24907] Thu, 26 September 2002 08:57 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: user.domain.invalid

James Howe wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Sep 2002 16:42:34 -0400, John Arthorne <john_arthorne@o_ti.com> wrote:
>
>>>There are many features which I really miss, but one of the things which really bugs me is the way all my windows are confined to a
>>>single window frame. Is it possible for a plugin to be written which lets you open multiple windows and place them where you want?
>>>
>>
>>Try Window->New Window.
>>
>>See also the preference Workbench > Perspectives > Open new perspective
>>in new window.
>>
>
>
> But that opens a 'perspective' in a new window. Typically a perspective consists of many components (a project list, an editor,
> console, search, etc.) I don't want new perspectives in a new window, I want an individual component in a new window. I want a
> window with just a console, or just JUnit. As far as I can tell I can't do that.
> James Howe mailto:jwh@riskmetrics.com
> RiskMetrics Group, Inc.

Try dreagging a tab outside the eclipse window, then drop it. Instant
floating view in its own window. I have dual monitors and this is
invaluable. Elcipse even remembers their location between restarts.
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #27050 is a reply to message #26971] Thu, 26 September 2002 12:44 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: jwh.riskmetrics.com

On Thu, 26 Sep 2002 09:57:14 +0100, user@domain.invalid wrote:

>James Howe wrote:
>> On Tue, 17 Sep 2002 16:42:34 -0400, John Arthorne <john_arthorne@o_ti.com> wrote:
>>
>>>>There are many features which I really miss, but one of the things which really bugs me is the way all my windows are confined to a
>>>>single window frame. Is it possible for a plugin to be written which lets you open multiple windows and place them where you want?
>>>>
>>>
>>>Try Window->New Window.
>>>
>>>See also the preference Workbench > Perspectives > Open new perspective
>>>in new window.
>>>
>>
>>
>> But that opens a 'perspective' in a new window. Typically a perspective consists of many components (a project list, an editor,
>> console, search, etc.) I don't want new perspectives in a new window, I want an individual component in a new window. I want a
>> window with just a console, or just JUnit. As far as I can tell I can't do that.
>> James Howe mailto:jwh@riskmetrics.com
>> RiskMetrics Group, Inc.
>
>Try dreagging a tab outside the eclipse window, then drop it. Instant
>floating view in its own window. I have dual monitors and this is
>invaluable. Elcipse even remembers their location between restarts.


Either I'm doing something wrong, have some preference setting set somewhere, or something, but I can't seem to do what you
describe. If I drag a window I can drop in on the bar on the right side, where it creates a 'fast view'. Clicking on this view
brings the window up on top of the other windows in the main window, but I can't move or resize it. It is in a fixed position. If
I attempt to move it, it will end up becoming a tab on one of the other windows if I drop it. I'm running Eclipse 2.0.

James Howe mailto:jwh@riskmetrics.com
RiskMetrics Group, Inc.
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #27314 is a reply to message #27050] Fri, 27 September 2002 01:19 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: ian.kelman.com

I can't get this working either, and it would make a HUGE difference to
me. Could it be platform-dependent? I'm on a Solaris system, and all I
get is a no-entry symbol as soon as I've moved the window frame outside
the Eclipse window.

I have at least discovered that I can rearrange the editors within the
Eclipse window, but I would really really like to have free-floating
editors and other views.

Ian

James Howe wrote:

> On Thu, 26 Sep 2002 09:57:14 +0100, user@domain.invalid wrote:
>
>
>>James Howe wrote:
>>
>>>On Tue, 17 Sep 2002 16:42:34 -0400, John Arthorne <john_arthorne@o_ti.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>>There are many features which I really miss, but one of the things which really bugs me is the way all my windows are confined to a
>>>>>single window frame. Is it possible for a plugin to be written which lets you open multiple windows and place them where you want?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>Try Window->New Window.
>>>>
>>>>See also the preference Workbench > Perspectives > Open new perspective
>>>>in new window.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>But that opens a 'perspective' in a new window. Typically a perspective consists of many components (a project list, an editor,
>>>console, search, etc.) I don't want new perspectives in a new window, I want an individual component in a new window. I want a
>>>window with just a console, or just JUnit. As far as I can tell I can't do that.
>>>James Howe mailto:jwh@riskmetrics.com
>>>RiskMetrics Group, Inc.
>>>
>>Try dreagging a tab outside the eclipse window, then drop it. Instant
>>floating view in its own window. I have dual monitors and this is
>>invaluable. Elcipse even remembers their location between restarts.
>>
>
>
> Either I'm doing something wrong, have some preference setting set somewhere, or something, but I can't seem to do what you
> describe. If I drag a window I can drop in on the bar on the right side, where it creates a 'fast view'. Clicking on this view
> brings the window up on top of the other windows in the main window, but I can't move or resize it. It is in a fixed position. If
> I attempt to move it, it will end up becoming a tab on one of the other windows if I drop it. I'm running Eclipse 2.0.
>
> James Howe mailto:jwh@riskmetrics.com
> RiskMetrics Group, Inc.
>
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #28231 is a reply to message #27314] Sat, 28 September 2002 18:22 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Andrew McCullough is currently offline Andrew McCulloughFriend
Messages: 26
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
I believe this only worked in Eclipse 1.0/WSAD 4.X. I am not sure why the
feature was removed. It also didn't work with editors, by the way.

-Andrew

"Ian Graham" <ian@kelman.com> wrote in message
news:3D93B211.3080800@kelman.com...
> I can't get this working either, and it would make a HUGE difference to
> me. Could it be platform-dependent? I'm on a Solaris system, and all I
> get is a no-entry symbol as soon as I've moved the window frame outside
> the Eclipse window.
>
> I have at least discovered that I can rearrange the editors within the
> Eclipse window, but I would really really like to have free-floating
> editors and other views.
>
> Ian
>
> James Howe wrote:
>
> > On Thu, 26 Sep 2002 09:57:14 +0100, user@domain.invalid wrote:
> >
> >
> >>James Howe wrote:
> >>
> >>>On Tue, 17 Sep 2002 16:42:34 -0400, John Arthorne
<john_arthorne@o_ti.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>>There are many features which I really miss, but one of the things
which really bugs me is the way all my windows are confined to a
> >>>>>single window frame. Is it possible for a plugin to be written which
lets you open multiple windows and place them where you want?
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>Try Window->New Window.
> >>>>
> >>>>See also the preference Workbench > Perspectives > Open new
perspective
> >>>>in new window.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>But that opens a 'perspective' in a new window. Typically a
perspective consists of many components (a project list, an editor,
> >>>console, search, etc.) I don't want new perspectives in a new window,
I want an individual component in a new window. I want a
> >>>window with just a console, or just JUnit. As far as I can tell I
can't do that.
> >>>James Howe mailto:jwh@riskmetrics.com
> >>>RiskMetrics Group, Inc.
> >>>
> >>Try dreagging a tab outside the eclipse window, then drop it. Instant
> >>floating view in its own window. I have dual monitors and this is
> >>invaluable. Elcipse even remembers their location between restarts.
> >>
> >
> >
> > Either I'm doing something wrong, have some preference setting set
somewhere, or something, but I can't seem to do what you
> > describe. If I drag a window I can drop in on the bar on the right
side, where it creates a 'fast view'. Clicking on this view
> > brings the window up on top of the other windows in the main window, but
I can't move or resize it. It is in a fixed position. If
> > I attempt to move it, it will end up becoming a tab on one of the other
windows if I drop it. I'm running Eclipse 2.0.
> >
> > James Howe mailto:jwh@riskmetrics.com
> > RiskMetrics Group, Inc.
> >
>
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #29255 is a reply to message #28231] Thu, 03 October 2002 03:28 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Renaud Waldura is currently offline Renaud WalduraFriend
Messages: 4
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
You guys really need to add your comments to bug 22881!
http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=22881



"Andrew McCullough" <mccull1@us.ibm.com> wrote in message
news:an4qmn$oj0$1@rogue.oti.com...
>
> I believe this only worked in Eclipse 1.0/WSAD 4.X. I am not sure why the
> feature was removed. It also didn't work with editors, by the way.
>
> -Andrew
>
> "Ian Graham" <ian@kelman.com> wrote in message
> news:3D93B211.3080800@kelman.com...
> > I can't get this working either, and it would make a HUGE difference to
> > me. Could it be platform-dependent? I'm on a Solaris system, and all I
> > get is a no-entry symbol as soon as I've moved the window frame outside
> > the Eclipse window.
> >
> > I have at least discovered that I can rearrange the editors within the
> > Eclipse window, but I would really really like to have free-floating
> > editors and other views.
> >
> > Ian
> >
> > James Howe wrote:
> >
> > > On Thu, 26 Sep 2002 09:57:14 +0100, user@domain.invalid wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >>James Howe wrote:
> > >>
> > >>>On Tue, 17 Sep 2002 16:42:34 -0400, John Arthorne
> <john_arthorne@o_ti.com> wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>>>There are many features which I really miss, but one of the things
> which really bugs me is the way all my windows are confined to a
> > >>>>>single window frame. Is it possible for a plugin to be written
which
> lets you open multiple windows and place them where you want?
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>Try Window->New Window.
> > >>>>
> > >>>>See also the preference Workbench > Perspectives > Open new
> perspective
> > >>>>in new window.
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>
> > >>>But that opens a 'perspective' in a new window. Typically a
> perspective consists of many components (a project list, an editor,
> > >>>console, search, etc.) I don't want new perspectives in a new
window,
> I want an individual component in a new window. I want a
> > >>>window with just a console, or just JUnit. As far as I can tell I
> can't do that.
> > >>>James Howe mailto:jwh@riskmetrics.com
> > >>>RiskMetrics Group, Inc.
> > >>>
> > >>Try dreagging a tab outside the eclipse window, then drop it. Instant
> > >>floating view in its own window. I have dual monitors and this is
> > >>invaluable. Elcipse even remembers their location between restarts.
> > >>
> > >
> > >
> > > Either I'm doing something wrong, have some preference setting set
> somewhere, or something, but I can't seem to do what you
> > > describe. If I drag a window I can drop in on the bar on the right
> side, where it creates a 'fast view'. Clicking on this view
> > > brings the window up on top of the other windows in the main window,
but
> I can't move or resize it. It is in a fixed position. If
> > > I attempt to move it, it will end up becoming a tab on one of the
other
> windows if I drop it. I'm running Eclipse 2.0.
> > >
> > > James Howe mailto:jwh@riskmetrics.com
> > > RiskMetrics Group, Inc.
> > >
> >
>
>
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #37811 is a reply to message #24249] Tue, 10 December 2002 20:29 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Andy Czerwonka is currently offline Andy CzerwonkaFriend
Messages: 42
Registered: July 2009
Member
Martin Möbius wrote:
> AmSun, 15 Sep 2002 15:38:09 +0000 (UTC), deepblue_70@hotmail.com
> (John) wrote:
>
>
>>I really don't understand the reason for wich IBM doesn't want support
>>and develope anymore Visual Age for Java. Eclipse is a hybrid between
>>Visual Age and JBuilder and so I find Eclipse is a worst tool than VAJ. A
>>lot
>>of good features like the versioning system, copying the classes, the
>>layout,
>>the kind of debugging, the way you run a class etc. have been lost with
>>Eclipse.
>
>
> We got one big plus. You can change your jdk when ever you want. Its
> no possible for a IDE to survive I developers have to wait >6 month to
> use the newest JDK. The code assist got better and its quite cheap.
> The only thing I miss from time to time is moving methods.
Fefactoring capabilities allow you to do this in eclipse. There are
soooo many plug-ins out there. The beauty about Eclipse and IDE's like
NetBeans is it's architecture allowing extensions. It was almost
impossible using VAJ.

>
>
>>We are working "officially" with JBuilder but some of us continue
>>to use Visual Age, because it is more powerful and "easier" to use then
>>JBuilder.
>
>
> The ease of use is always in the eye of the beholder. Emacs user will
> be faster with their familiar environment. But I would be slow like a
> snail with it.
>
>
>>Now our tech support intend soon to "officialize" Eclipse, but I and other
>>people still think that we have really lost a very powerful tool like
>>Visual Age for Java.
>>
>>I really hope IBM change its idea, or at least that Eclipse retrieve all
>>the good things of Visual Age.
>
>
> VAJ is dead, no way back. Try to stay here, to get all the best from
> VAJ into eclipse jdt.
>
> martin
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #37842 is a reply to message #37811] Wed, 11 December 2002 01:43 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Scott Stanchfield is currently offline Scott StanchfieldFriend
Messages: 263
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
Actually, I find the debugging almost identical to (if not better than) VAJ.
Eclipse has all the same options (conditional breakpoints, break for
threads, break on exceptions, inspecting data, hot replace, etc).

Running is slightly different, but not that far off. I find it easier in
Eclipse, especially configuring the runtime options.

If you find something seems to be missing from Eclipse, please let us all
know. In many cases, it may just be slightly hidden; in other cases, it's
really missing, and we can always request features.

Take care,
-- Scott

============================================================ ==
Scott Stanchfield scott@javadude.com http://javadude.com

Lead author of "Effective VisualAge for Java, Version 3"
http://javadude.com/evaj

VisualAge for Java Tips and Tricks http://javadude.com/vaj
Visit for Java Enlightenment! http://www.jguru.com
============================================================ ==

"Andy Czerwonka" <czerwonka@arcticpenguin.ca> wrote in message
news:3DF64EBA.5040604@arcticpenguin.ca...
> Martin M
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #37909 is a reply to message #37842] Wed, 11 December 2002 13:56 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: Darin_Swanson.oti.com

And don't forget...you can pick the JRE / JDK to run / debug against.

Darins

"Scott Stanchfield" <scott@javadude.com> wrote in message
news:at64u1$a88$1@rogue.oti.com...
> Actually, I find the debugging almost identical to (if not better than)
VAJ.
> Eclipse has all the same options (conditional breakpoints, break for
> threads, break on exceptions, inspecting data, hot replace, etc).
>
> Running is slightly different, but not that far off. I find it easier in
> Eclipse, especially configuring the runtime options.
>
> If you find something seems to be missing from Eclipse, please let us all
> know. In many cases, it may just be slightly hidden; in other cases, it's
> really missing, and we can always request features.
>
> Take care,
> -- Scott
>
> ============================================================ ==
> Scott Stanchfield scott@javadude.com http://javadude.com
>
> Lead author of "Effective VisualAge for Java, Version 3"
> http://javadude.com/evaj
>
> VisualAge for Java Tips and Tricks http://javadude.com/vaj
> Visit for Java Enlightenment! http://www.jguru.com
> ============================================================ ==
>
> "Andy Czerwonka" <czerwonka@arcticpenguin.ca> wrote in message
> news:3DF64EBA.5040604@arcticpenguin.ca...
> > Martin M
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #39784 is a reply to message #37909] Sat, 28 December 2002 02:45 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Steven Green is currently offline Steven GreenFriend
Messages: 5
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Personally, I liked VAJ, but I prefer eclipse ... even without a GUI
builder, which I think Eclipse really needs (I like to do quick mockups and
to quickly test new components I am not used to; like to see the code that
they generate). I love the refactoring (wish I had this kind of change
ability years ago it really fits my style) Additionally, it really seems
lighter weight than VAJ which was quickly becoming a resource hog. I like
Netbeans for a variety of tasks and will use it if I need to do a quick GUI
or XML work, but beyond that things move much more quickly for me in
Eclipse than in the other environments.

Add a GUI builder and VI emulation and I will be much happier.

-- Steve

> And don't forget...you can pick the JRE / JDK to run / debug against.
>
> Darins
>
> "Scott Stanchfield" <scott@javadude.com> wrote in message
> news:at64u1$a88$1@rogue.oti.com...
>> Actually, I find the debugging almost identical to (if not better than)
> VAJ.
>> Eclipse has all the same options (conditional breakpoints, break for
>> threads, break on exceptions, inspecting data, hot replace, etc).
>>
>> Running is slightly different, but not that far off. I find it easier in
>> Eclipse, especially configuring the runtime options.
>>
>> If you find something seems to be missing from Eclipse, please let us all
>> know. In many cases, it may just be slightly hidden; in other cases, it's
>> really missing, and we can always request features.
>>
>> Take care,
>> -- Scott
>>
>> ============================================================ ==
>> Scott Stanchfield scott@javadude.com http://javadude.com
>>
>> Lead author of "Effective VisualAge for Java, Version 3"
>> http://javadude.com/evaj
>>
>> VisualAge for Java Tips and Tricks http://javadude.com/vaj
>> Visit for Java Enlightenment! http://www.jguru.com
>> ============================================================ ==
>>
>> "Andy Czerwonka" <czerwonka@arcticpenguin.ca> wrote in message
>> news:3DF64EBA.5040604@arcticpenguin.ca...
>> > Martin Möbius wrote:
>> > > AmSun, 15 Sep 2002 15:38:09 +0000 (UTC), deepblue_70@hotmail.com
>> > > (John) wrote:
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >>I really don't understand the reason for wich IBM doesn't want
>> > >>support and develope anymore Visual Age for Java. Eclipse is a hybrid
>> > >>between Visual Age and JBuilder and so I find Eclipse is a worst tool
>> > >>than
> VAJ.
>> A
>> > >>lot
>> > >>of good features like the versioning system, copying the classes, the
>> > >>layout,
>> > >>the kind of debugging, the way you run a class etc. have been lost
> with
>> > >>Eclipse.
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > We got one big plus. You can change your jdk when ever you want. Its
>> > > no possible for a IDE to survive I developers have to wait >6 month
>> > > to use the newest JDK. The code assist got better and its quite
>> > > cheap. The only thing I miss from time to time is moving methods.
>> > Fefactoring capabilities allow you to do this in eclipse. There are
>> > soooo many plug-ins out there. The beauty about Eclipse and IDE's like
>> > NetBeans is it's architecture allowing extensions. It was almost
>> > impossible using VAJ.
>> >
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >>We are working "officially" with JBuilder but some of us continue
>> > >>to use Visual Age, because it is more powerful and "easier" to use
> then
>> > >>JBuilder.
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > The ease of use is always in the eye of the beholder. Emacs user will
>> > > be faster with their familiar environment. But I would be slow like a
>> > > snail with it.
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >>Now our tech support intend soon to "officialize" Eclipse, but I and
>> other
>> > >>people still think that we have really lost a very powerful tool like
>> > >>Visual Age for Java.
>> > >>
>> > >>I really hope IBM change its idea, or at least that Eclipse retrieve
> all
>> > >>the good things of Visual Age.
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > VAJ is dead, no way back. Try to stay here, to get all the best from
>> > > VAJ into eclipse jdt.
>> > >
>> > > martin
>> >
>>
>>

--
Steven Green
steven.green30@verizon.net
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #40187 is a reply to message #39784] Tue, 31 December 2002 17:30 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kevin Duffey is currently offline Kevin DuffeyFriend
Messages: 304
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
I have to agree with another post I read not too long ago. Adding a GUI
builder would be great IF it doesn't bloat the hell out of our code, and
modifying the code doesn't affect the GUI. In other words, the GUI builder
should be able to take any application and "reverse engineer" it into
itself. JBuilder bloats the hell out of source and you can't ever modify it
outside of the JBuilder environment if you want to continue working in
JBuilder GUI. If the GUI editor can't be added in this manner, than leave it
out. And, it must not bloat code. It should be built in such a way to
optimize the source it is building. I mean, its one thing when you are
writing an app to optimize after you find problems. But a code generator
should ALWAYS optimize the code from the get go.

Now, if someone can tell me how you choose the different JDK to compile
against, that would be great. I see the global preference to change the JDK
..class output (from 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4), but I don't see where I can
select which JRE runs the code when I run it! I currently use my ant build
script to build it, and then a simple .bat batch file to launch it. Of
course, I am not doing full development inside of Eclipse in this manner,
because I don't use debugging, the Build All, and so forth, but I do get the
code completion and other features that speed up development.


"Steven Green" <steven.green30@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:auj1jn$hsk$1@rogue.oti.com...
> Personally, I liked VAJ, but I prefer eclipse ... even without a GUI
> builder, which I think Eclipse really needs (I like to do quick mockups
and
> to quickly test new components I am not used to; like to see the code that
> they generate). I love the refactoring (wish I had this kind of change
> ability years ago it really fits my style) Additionally, it really seems
> lighter weight than VAJ which was quickly becoming a resource hog. I like
> Netbeans for a variety of tasks and will use it if I need to do a quick
GUI
> or XML work, but beyond that things move much more quickly for me in
> Eclipse than in the other environments.
>
> Add a GUI builder and VI emulation and I will be much happier.
>
> -- Steve
>
> > And don't forget...you can pick the JRE / JDK to run / debug against.
> >
> > Darins
> >
> > "Scott Stanchfield" <scott@javadude.com> wrote in message
> > news:at64u1$a88$1@rogue.oti.com...
> >> Actually, I find the debugging almost identical to (if not better than)
> > VAJ.
> >> Eclipse has all the same options (conditional breakpoints, break for
> >> threads, break on exceptions, inspecting data, hot replace, etc).
> >>
> >> Running is slightly different, but not that far off. I find it easier
in
> >> Eclipse, especially configuring the runtime options.
> >>
> >> If you find something seems to be missing from Eclipse, please let us
all
> >> know. In many cases, it may just be slightly hidden; in other cases,
it's
> >> really missing, and we can always request features.
> >>
> >> Take care,
> >> -- Scott
> >>
> >> ============================================================ ==
> >> Scott Stanchfield scott@javadude.com http://javadude.com
> >>
> >> Lead author of "Effective VisualAge for Java, Version 3"
> >> http://javadude.com/evaj
> >>
> >> VisualAge for Java Tips and Tricks http://javadude.com/vaj
> >> Visit for Java Enlightenment! http://www.jguru.com
> >> ============================================================ ==
> >>
> >> "Andy Czerwonka" <czerwonka@arcticpenguin.ca> wrote in message
> >> news:3DF64EBA.5040604@arcticpenguin.ca...
> >> > Martin M
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #40210 is a reply to message #40187] Tue, 31 December 2002 22:25 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: ed.burnette.no.spam.sas.com

"Kevin" <supreme_java_guru_1@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:ausjjv$21e$1@rogue.oti.com...
> Now, if someone can tell me how you choose the different JDK to compile
> against, that would be great. I see the global preference to change the
JDK
> .class output (from 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4), but I don't see where I can
> select which JRE runs the code when I run it!

In the launch configuration, 4th tab called JRE sets that (in Eclipse
2.1M4). To make a launch configuration use the Run... command in the Run
menu.

> In other words, the GUI builder
> should be able to take any application and "reverse engineer" it into
> itself.

Seems unlikely. Even the GUI builder in WSAD requires a certain style of
code (e.g., code that was output by a GUI builder).
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #40488 is a reply to message #40210] Thu, 02 January 2003 03:56 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Steven Green is currently offline Steven GreenFriend
Messages: 5
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Ed Burnette wrote:

>
>> In other words, the GUI builder
>> should be able to take any application and "reverse engineer" it into
>> itself.
>
> Seems unlikely. Even the GUI builder in WSAD requires a certain style of
> code (e.g., code that was output by a GUI builder).

I had considered making a simple panel creator at one point, but do not have
the time to do it.

I was thinking of a tool that would create panels quickly but not matter if
you wanted to modify the heck out of the code and did not maintain extra
files to boot.

I figure I will pass along a 20k view of what I was thinking.

Create a panel tool that generates a list of fields, names, properties and
locations using standard naming convention. Compile the panel and extend it
to add user functionality. Reload the panel from the class, yes not the
Java source, using standard naming conventions and types rebuild the panel
from scratch using reflection.

Don't use these irritating XML forms and other things. If you want to modify
the code, don't modify it at all, extend it. The only purpose of this tool
would be to create the panel and layout, to add implementation you would
extend the class. The base class could be extended and reloaded into the
builder and it could rediscover and rebuild its properties through
reflection.

If you wanted to hide the details, and preclude recompilation of the class,
offer an option to generate the class without the reload properties built
in.

I may still make my panel making tool, but if I get to it any time soon, I'd
be really surprised.

--
Steven Green
steven.green30@verizon.net
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #42574 is a reply to message #37842] Tue, 21 January 2003 15:06 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: strongr.spam.be.gone.childpsych.columbia.edu

This may be a bit late to be joining this thread, but:
I really liked VAJava - I like Eclipse even more, and would
be happy to cut over completely to the new stuff, except
that there is no visual editor. Everything else is just
fine.

I happen to be a big fan of visual editors - they save me
a great deal of work writing boring code to manage the
appearence of an application, and allow me to prototype
quickly. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words,
and this can be said (sometimes) of code as well.

For some reason the whole idea of a visual editor seems to
have been relegated to the OPTIONAL bin, both by IBM and
by quite a few developers who seem to have little or no use
for such a facility (i.e. 'real programmers don't NEED a
visual editor') Maybe it's due to the server-side focus of
so much of recent Java development...

I disagree with this approach, especially as I have a project
written with VAJ that has quite a few visual classes, which i
would like to migrate to Eclipse or WSW without having to pay
$5K (?) for WSAD just to get a rudimentary V. 1.0 visual editor.
Right now we're using CodePro from Instantiations as a bridge to
the VAJ editor, but this can't go on forever.

Eclipse could sure use a visual editor of its own! Heck, if
NetBeans can do it...

Rick Strong
Project Leader
Columbia University



Scott Stanchfield wrote:
> Actually, I find the debugging almost identical to (if not better than) VAJ.
> Eclipse has all the same options (conditional breakpoints, break for
> threads, break on exceptions, inspecting data, hot replace, etc).
>
> Running is slightly different, but not that far off. I find it easier in
> Eclipse, especially configuring the runtime options.
>
> If you find something seems to be missing from Eclipse, please let us all
> know. In many cases, it may just be slightly hidden; in other cases, it's
> really missing, and we can always request features.
>
> Take care,
> -- Scott
>
> ============================================================ ==
> Scott Stanchfield scott@javadude.com http://javadude.com
>
> Lead author of "Effective VisualAge for Java, Version 3"
> http://javadude.com/evaj
>
> VisualAge for Java Tips and Tricks http://javadude.com/vaj
> Visit for Java Enlightenment! http://www.jguru.com
> ============================================================ ==
>
> "Andy Czerwonka" <czerwonka@arcticpenguin.ca> wrote in message
> news:3DF64EBA.5040604@arcticpenguin.ca...
>
>>Martin Möbius wrote:
>>
>>>AmSun, 15 Sep 2002 15:38:09 +0000 (UTC), deepblue_70@hotmail.com
>>>(John) wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>I really don't understand the reason for wich IBM doesn't want support
>>>>and develope anymore Visual Age for Java. Eclipse is a hybrid between
>>>>Visual Age and JBuilder and so I find Eclipse is a worst tool than VAJ.
>
> A
>
>>>>lot
>>>>of good features like the versioning system, copying the classes, the
>>>>layout,
>>>>the kind of debugging, the way you run a class etc. have been lost with
>>>>Eclipse.
>>>
>>>
>>>We got one big plus. You can change your jdk when ever you want. Its
>>>no possible for a IDE to survive I developers have to wait >6 month to
>>>use the newest JDK. The code assist got better and its quite cheap.
>>>The only thing I miss from time to time is moving methods.
>>
>>Fefactoring capabilities allow you to do this in eclipse. There are
>>soooo many plug-ins out there. The beauty about Eclipse and IDE's like
>>NetBeans is it's architecture allowing extensions. It was almost
>>impossible using VAJ.
>>
>>
>>>
>>>>We are working "officially" with JBuilder but some of us continue
>>>>to use Visual Age, because it is more powerful and "easier" to use then
>>>>JBuilder.
>>>
>>>
>>>The ease of use is always in the eye of the beholder. Emacs user will
>>>be faster with their familiar environment. But I would be slow like a
>>>snail with it.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Now our tech support intend soon to "officialize" Eclipse, but I and
>
> other
>
>>>>people still think that we have really lost a very powerful tool like
>>>>Visual Age for Java.
>>>>
>>>>I really hope IBM change its idea, or at least that Eclipse retrieve all
>>>>the good things of Visual Age.
>>>
>>>
>>>VAJ is dead, no way back. Try to stay here, to get all the best from
>>>VAJ into eclipse jdt.
>>>
>>>martin
>>
>
>
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #42635 is a reply to message #42574] Tue, 21 January 2003 16:43 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: dwhitema.us.ibm.com

This has been discussed quite a bit on eclipse.tools and the SWT mailing
list

"Rick Strong" <strongr@spam.be.gone.childpsych.columbia.edu> wrote in
message news:b0jmio$jn1$1@rogue.oti.com...
> This may be a bit late to be joining this thread, but:
> I really liked VAJava - I like Eclipse even more, and would
> be happy to cut over completely to the new stuff, except
> that there is no visual editor. Everything else is just
> fine.
>
> I happen to be a big fan of visual editors - they save me
> a great deal of work writing boring code to manage the
> appearence of an application, and allow me to prototype
> quickly. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words,
> and this can be said (sometimes) of code as well.
>
> For some reason the whole idea of a visual editor seems to
> have been relegated to the OPTIONAL bin, both by IBM and
> by quite a few developers who seem to have little or no use
> for such a facility (i.e. 'real programmers don't NEED a
> visual editor') Maybe it's due to the server-side focus of
> so much of recent Java development...
>
> I disagree with this approach, especially as I have a project
> written with VAJ that has quite a few visual classes, which i
> would like to migrate to Eclipse or WSW without having to pay
> $5K (?) for WSAD just to get a rudimentary V. 1.0 visual editor.
> Right now we're using CodePro from Instantiations as a bridge to
> the VAJ editor, but this can't go on forever.
>
> Eclipse could sure use a visual editor of its own! Heck, if
> NetBeans can do it...
>
> Rick Strong
> Project Leader
> Columbia University
>
>
>
> Scott Stanchfield wrote:
> > Actually, I find the debugging almost identical to (if not better than)
VAJ.
> > Eclipse has all the same options (conditional breakpoints, break for
> > threads, break on exceptions, inspecting data, hot replace, etc).
> >
> > Running is slightly different, but not that far off. I find it easier in
> > Eclipse, especially configuring the runtime options.
> >
> > If you find something seems to be missing from Eclipse, please let us
all
> > know. In many cases, it may just be slightly hidden; in other cases,
it's
> > really missing, and we can always request features.
> >
> > Take care,
> > -- Scott
> >
> > ============================================================ ==
> > Scott Stanchfield scott@javadude.com http://javadude.com
> >
> > Lead author of "Effective VisualAge for Java, Version 3"
> > http://javadude.com/evaj
> >
> > VisualAge for Java Tips and Tricks http://javadude.com/vaj
> > Visit for Java Enlightenment! http://www.jguru.com
> > ============================================================ ==
> >
> > "Andy Czerwonka" <czerwonka@arcticpenguin.ca> wrote in message
> > news:3DF64EBA.5040604@arcticpenguin.ca...
> >
> >>Martin M
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #42700 is a reply to message #42635] Tue, 21 January 2003 19:21 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: strongr.spam.be.gone.childpsych.columbia.edu

Thanks, yes, I have seen a few of the discussions, but so far what I've seen
doesn't really help me much. I gather there's a 1st-cut IBM visual editor,
and a few v. 0.x open-source projects...nothing really up to the standard
of the VCE. Have I missed something?

Rick Strong
Project Leader
Columbia University


David Whiteman wrote:
> This has been discussed quite a bit on eclipse.tools and the SWT mailing
> list
>
> "Rick Strong" <strongr@spam.be.gone.childpsych.columbia.edu> wrote in
> message news:b0jmio$jn1$1@rogue.oti.com...
>
>>This may be a bit late to be joining this thread, but:
>>I really liked VAJava - I like Eclipse even more, and would
>>be happy to cut over completely to the new stuff, except
>>that there is no visual editor. Everything else is just
>>fine.
>>
>>I happen to be a big fan of visual editors - they save me
>>a great deal of work writing boring code to manage the
>>appearence of an application, and allow me to prototype
>>quickly. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words,
>>and this can be said (sometimes) of code as well.
>>
>>For some reason the whole idea of a visual editor seems to
>>have been relegated to the OPTIONAL bin, both by IBM and
>>by quite a few developers who seem to have little or no use
>>for such a facility (i.e. 'real programmers don't NEED a
>>visual editor') Maybe it's due to the server-side focus of
>>so much of recent Java development...
>>
>>I disagree with this approach, especially as I have a project
>>written with VAJ that has quite a few visual classes, which i
>>would like to migrate to Eclipse or WSW without having to pay
>>$5K (?) for WSAD just to get a rudimentary V. 1.0 visual editor.
>>Right now we're using CodePro from Instantiations as a bridge to
>>the VAJ editor, but this can't go on forever.
>>
>>Eclipse could sure use a visual editor of its own! Heck, if
>>NetBeans can do it...
>>
>>Rick Strong
>>Project Leader
>>Columbia University
>>
>>
>>
>>Scott Stanchfield wrote:
>>
>>>Actually, I find the debugging almost identical to (if not better than)
>
> VAJ.
>
>>>Eclipse has all the same options (conditional breakpoints, break for
>>>threads, break on exceptions, inspecting data, hot replace, etc).
>>>
>>>Running is slightly different, but not that far off. I find it easier in
>>>Eclipse, especially configuring the runtime options.
>>>
>>>If you find something seems to be missing from Eclipse, please let us
>
> all
>
>>>know. In many cases, it may just be slightly hidden; in other cases,
>
> it's
>
>>>really missing, and we can always request features.
>>>
>>>Take care,
>>>-- Scott
>>>
>>> ============================================================ ==
>>>Scott Stanchfield scott@javadude.com http://javadude.com
>>>
>>>Lead author of "Effective VisualAge for Java, Version 3"
>>> http://javadude.com/evaj
>>>
>>>VisualAge for Java Tips and Tricks http://javadude.com/vaj
>>>Visit for Java Enlightenment! http://www.jguru.com
>>> ============================================================ ==
>>>
>>>"Andy Czerwonka" <czerwonka@arcticpenguin.ca> wrote in message
>>>news:3DF64EBA.5040604@arcticpenguin.ca...
>>>
>>>
>>>>Martin Möbius wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>AmSun, 15 Sep 2002 15:38:09 +0000 (UTC), deepblue_70@hotmail.com
>>>>>(John) wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>I really don't understand the reason for wich IBM doesn't want support
>>>>>>and develope anymore Visual Age for Java. Eclipse is a hybrid between
>>>>>>Visual Age and JBuilder and so I find Eclipse is a worst tool than
>
> VAJ.
>
>>>A
>>>
>>>
>>>>>>lot
>>>>>>of good features like the versioning system, copying the classes, the
>>>>>>layout,
>>>>>>the kind of debugging, the way you run a class etc. have been lost
>
> with
>
>>>>>>Eclipse.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>We got one big plus. You can change your jdk when ever you want. Its
>>>>>no possible for a IDE to survive I developers have to wait >6 month to
>>>>>use the newest JDK. The code assist got better and its quite cheap.
>>>>>The only thing I miss from time to time is moving methods.
>>>>
>>>>Fefactoring capabilities allow you to do this in eclipse. There are
>>>>soooo many plug-ins out there. The beauty about Eclipse and IDE's like
>>>>NetBeans is it's architecture allowing extensions. It was almost
>>>>impossible using VAJ.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>We are working "officially" with JBuilder but some of us continue
>>>>>>to use Visual Age, because it is more powerful and "easier" to use
>
> then
>
>>>>>>JBuilder.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>The ease of use is always in the eye of the beholder. Emacs user will
>>>>>be faster with their familiar environment. But I would be slow like a
>>>>>snail with it.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>Now our tech support intend soon to "officialize" Eclipse, but I and
>>>
>>>other
>>>
>>>
>>>>>>people still think that we have really lost a very powerful tool like
>>>>>>Visual Age for Java.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I really hope IBM change its idea, or at least that Eclipse retrieve
>
> all
>
>>>>>>the good things of Visual Age.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>VAJ is dead, no way back. Try to stay here, to get all the best from
>>>>>VAJ into eclipse jdt.
>>>>>
>>>>>martin
>>>>
>>>
>
>
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #42731 is a reply to message #42700] Tue, 21 January 2003 20:12 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: dwhitema.us.ibm.com

"Rick Strong" <strongr@spam.be.gone.childpsych.columbia.edu> wrote in
message news:b0k5gq$vhc$1@rogue.oti.com...
> Thanks, yes, I have seen a few of the discussions, but so far what I've
seen
> doesn't really help me much. I gather there's a 1st-cut IBM visual editor,
> and a few v. 0.x open-source projects...nothing really up to the standard
> of the VCE. Have I missed something?

I haven't tried the IBM one yet to know whether it's up to the standard of
the VCE. I don't get the impression that any of the open-source projects is
anywhere near that point though.

In general though, your question would be better posed on that newsgroup
since this particular one has a very narrow focus and does not get the
visibility the other one gets.

David
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #42762 is a reply to message #42700] Tue, 21 January 2003 21:23 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Colin Sharples is currently offline Colin SharplesFriend
Messages: 61
Registered: July 2009
Member
Rick Strong wrote:
> Thanks, yes, I have seen a few of the discussions, but so far what I've
> seen
> doesn't really help me much. I gather there's a 1st-cut IBM visual editor,
> and a few v. 0.x open-source projects...nothing really up to the standard
> of the VCE. Have I missed something?

The Java Visual Editor that is currently shipping with WSAD is *very*
good (but then I would say that, wouldn't I?).

I have never been a fan of such things in the past, but I am currently
converting a lot of my code to use the JVE because it is streets ahead
of anything that's been around before.

If you think Eclipse would be better with a visual editor, you could
always lobby IBM to donate the JVE to the Eclipse project. No guarantee
that they'd do that, of course, but if you don't ask...

--
Colin M Sharples/New Zealand/IBM, IT Architect, IBM Global Services
sharples@nz.ibm.com, t: 64-4-5769853, m: 64-21-402085, f: 64-4-5765616
"Sometimes I think the surest sign intelligent life exists
elsewhere in the Universe is that it's never tried to contact us"
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #42887 is a reply to message #42762] Wed, 22 January 2003 15:04 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: strongr.spam.be.gone.childpsych.columbia.edu

That's interesting (both points.) How much effort have you found it to be
to convert a VCE-generated class to its JVE equivalent? (I usually keep
visual connections to a minimum, just use them to connect components to
events, nothing fancy...)

(and I DO think it would be a great idea to donate the JVE to Eclipse.
after all, VAJ is available in a pro version for under $100 complete
with the VCE. A low-end Eclipse or WSW offering with a visual editor
would be VERY attractive!)

Where's a good place/person to lobby for this?

Thanks,

Rick Strong

Colin Sharples wrote:
> Rick Strong wrote:
>
>> Thanks, yes, I have seen a few of the discussions, but so far what
>> I've seen
>> doesn't really help me much. I gather there's a 1st-cut IBM visual
>> editor,
>> and a few v. 0.x open-source projects...nothing really up to the standard
>> of the VCE. Have I missed something?
>
>
> The Java Visual Editor that is currently shipping with WSAD is *very*
> good (but then I would say that, wouldn't I?).
>
> I have never been a fan of such things in the past, but I am currently
> converting a lot of my code to use the JVE because it is streets ahead
> of anything that's been around before.
>
> If you think Eclipse would be better with a visual editor, you could
> always lobby IBM to donate the JVE to the Eclipse project. No guarantee
> that they'd do that, of course, but if you don't ask...
>
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #43097 is a reply to message #42887] Wed, 22 January 2003 21:42 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Colin Sharples is currently offline Colin SharplesFriend
Messages: 61
Registered: July 2009
Member
Rick Strong wrote:
> That's interesting (both points.) How much effort have you found it to be
> to convert a VCE-generated class to its JVE equivalent? (I usually keep
> visual connections to a minimum, just use them to connect components to
> events, nothing fancy...)

JVE doesn't at present have visual connections. I thought they were a
waste of time, so I don't miss them, but a lot of ex-VCE users seem to
be unhappy that they are not included.

The JVE parses the Java source code to construct the design canvas, so
it's simply a matter of ensuring that your code follows the JVE coding
patterns, and everything will work. I don't have any VCE-generated code
(all mine is hand-written), so I can't comment on how easy it is to
convert. For my hand-written stuff, it has largely been straightforward,
although I've had a fair amount of work to convert some of my trickier
techniques for cutting down code into the visual style. I've had very
good results so far.

> (and I DO think it would be a great idea to donate the JVE to Eclipse.
> after all, VAJ is available in a pro version for under $100 complete
> with the VCE. A low-end Eclipse or WSW offering with a visual editor
> would be VERY attractive!)
>
> Where's a good place/person to lobby for this?

Start on eclipse.tools - see if you can raise some interest there. Talk
to your local IBM rep, or have a look at WSDD on the ibm.com site.
Encourage others to do the same. As you can see from my sig, I can't
participate - publicly at least ;-)

All the best.

--
Colin M Sharples/New Zealand/IBM, IT Architect, IBM Global Services
sharples@nz.ibm.com, t: 64-4-5769853, m: 64-21-402085, f: 64-4-5765616
"Sometimes I think the surest sign intelligent life exists
elsewhere in the Universe is that it's never tried to contact us"
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #66926 is a reply to message #42887] Wed, 23 February 2005 18:41 Go to previous message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: bob.objfac.com

There seems to be some missing information here. "Visual Editor Project
accepted IBM's visual editor for Java source code as the initial code
contribution." AFAIK, this _is_ the VCE from WSAD.

If you want to know how good it is in Eclipse, suggest you download and
try it.

Bob Foster

Rick Strong wrote:
> That's interesting (both points.) How much effort have you found it to be
> to convert a VCE-generated class to its JVE equivalent? (I usually keep
> visual connections to a minimum, just use them to connect components to
> events, nothing fancy...)
>
> (and I DO think it would be a great idea to donate the JVE to Eclipse.
> after all, VAJ is available in a pro version for under $100 complete
> with the VCE. A low-end Eclipse or WSW offering with a visual editor
> would be VERY attractive!)
>
> Where's a good place/person to lobby for this?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Rick Strong
>
> Colin Sharples wrote:
>
>> Rick Strong wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks, yes, I have seen a few of the discussions, but so far what
>>> I've seen
>>> doesn't really help me much. I gather there's a 1st-cut IBM visual
>>> editor,
>>> and a few v. 0.x open-source projects...nothing really up to the
>>> standard
>>> of the VCE. Have I missed something?
>>
>>
>>
>> The Java Visual Editor that is currently shipping with WSAD is *very*
>> good (but then I would say that, wouldn't I?).
>>
>> I have never been a fan of such things in the past, but I am currently
>> converting a lot of my code to use the JVE because it is streets ahead
>> of anything that's been around before.
>>
>> If you think Eclipse would be better with a visual editor, you could
>> always lobby IBM to donate the JVE to the Eclipse project. No
>> guarantee that they'd do that, of course, but if you don't ask...
>>
>
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #582182 is a reply to message #24207] Sun, 15 September 2002 17:49 Go to previous message
Martin Möbius is currently offline Martin MöbiusFriend
Messages: 90
Registered: July 2009
Member
AmSun, 15 Sep 2002 15:38:09 +0000 (UTC), deepblue_70@hotmail.com
(John) wrote:

>I really don't understand the reason for wich IBM doesn't want support
>and develope anymore Visual Age for Java. Eclipse is a hybrid between
>Visual Age and JBuilder and so I find Eclipse is a worst tool than VAJ. A
>lot
>of good features like the versioning system, copying the classes, the
>layout,
>the kind of debugging, the way you run a class etc. have been lost with
>Eclipse.

We got one big plus. You can change your jdk when ever you want. Its
no possible for a IDE to survive I developers have to wait >6 month to
use the newest JDK. The code assist got better and its quite cheap.
The only thing I miss from time to time is moving methods.

>We are working "officially" with JBuilder but some of us continue
>to use Visual Age, because it is more powerful and "easier" to use then
>JBuilder.

The ease of use is always in the eye of the beholder. Emacs user will
be faster with their familiar environment. But I would be slow like a
snail with it.

>Now our tech support intend soon to "officialize" Eclipse, but I and other
>people still think that we have really lost a very powerful tool like
>Visual Age for Java.
>
>I really hope IBM change its idea, or at least that Eclipse retrieve all
>the good things of Visual Age.

VAJ is dead, no way back. Try to stay here, to get all the best from
VAJ into eclipse jdt.

martin
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #582344 is a reply to message #24207] Mon, 16 September 2002 22:26 Go to previous message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: randall.rga.com

Sorry, this'll get a "little" flamey...I've used nearly every modern,
popular IDE out there. If it is your opinion that Visual Age for Java (VAJ)
is actually a good editor, you've lost all credibility you ever had. VAJ is
hardly what I would consider a good IDE. It doesn't even do code completion.
Sure, it'll write get/set for you, but how worthless is that? If you can't
type out a pair of get/set yourself in under 30 seconds, someone should've
taken your keyboard away a long, long time ago.

You're dead wrong about Eclipse taking away versioning, class-copying (wtf
is that worth anyway???), layout/usability, debugging, etc. Eclipse actually
offers you all of these things. I believe that the problem is that you just
haven't yet read the Ant manual...nor the Eclipse manual.

Visual Studio .NET is hands-down, no debating, the BEST IDE ever created by
man or God. I've used JBuilder and like it. Also used Forte for a long
time. It was the closest thing that the Java world had to Visual Studio.
See...Java is still chasing after Visual Basic for rapid development.

I'm still evaluating Eclipse, so cannot fairly compare it to Visual
Studio...but I think that it might come close to knocking Microsoft off of
the hill, so far as visual presentation, feature-list, and (the whole point)
improved developer productivity.

Can't believe that I even had to write this. VAJ a good IDE. Get real. Read
a manual. Learn something new. Ugh





"John" <deepblue_70@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:am29h1$fhe$1@rogue.oti.com...
> I really don't understand the reason for wich IBM doesn't want support
> and develope anymore Visual Age for Java. Eclipse is a hybrid between
> Visual Age and JBuilder and so I find Eclipse is a worst tool than VAJ. A
> lot
> of good features like the versioning system, copying the classes, the
> layout,
> the kind of debugging, the way you run a class etc. have been lost with
> Eclipse. We are working "officially" with JBuilder but some of us continue
> to use Visual Age, because it is more powerful and "easier" to use then
> JBuilder.
>
> Now our tech support intend soon to "officialize" Eclipse, but I and other
> people still think that we have really lost a very powerful tool like
> Visual Age for Java.
>
> I really hope IBM change its idea, or at least that Eclipse retrieve all
> the
> good things of Visual Age.
>
> John
>
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #582386 is a reply to message #24580] Tue, 17 September 2002 03:59 Go to previous message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: jed.wesley-smith.remove.remove.combined.com.au

what a great troll opportunity this thread is.

can you guys please post this stuff to the eclipse.tools newsgroup? not only
is it far more relevant there, you'll get plenty more takers... ;-)

btw. when in doubt about a newsgroup use eclipse.tools

"Randall Loffelmacher" <randall@rga.com> wrote in message
news:am5ks8$2qm$1@rogue.oti.com...
> Sorry, this'll get a "little" flamey...I've used nearly every modern,
> popular IDE out there. If it is your opinion that Visual Age for Java
(VAJ)
> is actually a good editor, you've lost all credibility you ever had. VAJ
is
> hardly what I would consider a good IDE. It doesn't even do code
completion.
> Sure, it'll write get/set for you, but how worthless is that? If you can't
> type out a pair of get/set yourself in under 30 seconds, someone should've
> taken your keyboard away a long, long time ago.
>
> You're dead wrong about Eclipse taking away versioning, class-copying (wtf
> is that worth anyway???), layout/usability, debugging, etc. Eclipse
actually
> offers you all of these things. I believe that the problem is that you
just
> haven't yet read the Ant manual...nor the Eclipse manual.
>
> Visual Studio .NET is hands-down, no debating, the BEST IDE ever created
by
> man or God. I've used JBuilder and like it. Also used Forte for a long
> time. It was the closest thing that the Java world had to Visual Studio.
> See...Java is still chasing after Visual Basic for rapid development.
>
> I'm still evaluating Eclipse, so cannot fairly compare it to Visual
> Studio...but I think that it might come close to knocking Microsoft off of
> the hill, so far as visual presentation, feature-list, and (the whole
point)
> improved developer productivity.
>
> Can't believe that I even had to write this. VAJ a good IDE. Get real.
Read
> a manual. Learn something new. Ugh
>
>
>
>
>
> "John" <deepblue_70@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:am29h1$fhe$1@rogue.oti.com...
> > I really don't understand the reason for wich IBM doesn't want support
> > and develope anymore Visual Age for Java. Eclipse is a hybrid between
> > Visual Age and JBuilder and so I find Eclipse is a worst tool than VAJ.
A
> > lot
> > of good features like the versioning system, copying the classes, the
> > layout,
> > the kind of debugging, the way you run a class etc. have been lost with
> > Eclipse. We are working "officially" with JBuilder but some of us
continue
> > to use Visual Age, because it is more powerful and "easier" to use then
> > JBuilder.
> >
> > Now our tech support intend soon to "officialize" Eclipse, but I and
other
> > people still think that we have really lost a very powerful tool like
> > Visual Age for Java.
> >
> > I really hope IBM change its idea, or at least that Eclipse retrieve all
> > the
> > good things of Visual Age.
> >
> > John
> >
>
>
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #582402 is a reply to message #24580] Tue, 17 September 2002 06:41 Go to previous message
Mattias Abrahamsson is currently offline Mattias AbrahamssonFriend
Messages: 2
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Randall,

Talk about being a flame bait... You are just showing your ignorance by
stating that VAJ "doesn't even do code completion" and later on "Get real.
Read a manual.". Did you ever read the VAJ manual?!

Regards,
Mattias

"Randall Loffelmacher" <randall@rga.com> wrote in message
news:am5ks8$2qm$1@rogue.oti.com...
> Sorry, this'll get a "little" flamey...I've used nearly every modern,
> popular IDE out there. If it is your opinion that Visual Age for Java
(VAJ)
> is actually a good editor, you've lost all credibility you ever had. VAJ
is
> hardly what I would consider a good IDE. It doesn't even do code
completion.
> Sure, it'll write get/set for you, but how worthless is that? If you can't
> type out a pair of get/set yourself in under 30 seconds, someone should've
> taken your keyboard away a long, long time ago.
>
> You're dead wrong about Eclipse taking away versioning, class-copying (wtf
> is that worth anyway???), layout/usability, debugging, etc. Eclipse
actually
> offers you all of these things. I believe that the problem is that you
just
> haven't yet read the Ant manual...nor the Eclipse manual.
>
> Visual Studio .NET is hands-down, no debating, the BEST IDE ever created
by
> man or God. I've used JBuilder and like it. Also used Forte for a long
> time. It was the closest thing that the Java world had to Visual Studio.
> See...Java is still chasing after Visual Basic for rapid development.
>
> I'm still evaluating Eclipse, so cannot fairly compare it to Visual
> Studio...but I think that it might come close to knocking Microsoft off of
> the hill, so far as visual presentation, feature-list, and (the whole
point)
> improved developer productivity.
>
> Can't believe that I even had to write this. VAJ a good IDE. Get real.
Read
> a manual. Learn something new. Ugh
>
>
>
>
>
> "John" <deepblue_70@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:am29h1$fhe$1@rogue.oti.com...
> > I really don't understand the reason for wich IBM doesn't want support
> > and develope anymore Visual Age for Java. Eclipse is a hybrid between
> > Visual Age and JBuilder and so I find Eclipse is a worst tool than VAJ.
A
> > lot
> > of good features like the versioning system, copying the classes, the
> > layout,
> > the kind of debugging, the way you run a class etc. have been lost with
> > Eclipse. We are working "officially" with JBuilder but some of us
continue
> > to use Visual Age, because it is more powerful and "easier" to use then
> > JBuilder.
> >
> > Now our tech support intend soon to "officialize" Eclipse, but I and
other
> > people still think that we have really lost a very powerful tool like
> > Visual Age for Java.
> >
> > I really hope IBM change its idea, or at least that Eclipse retrieve all
> > the
> > good things of Visual Age.
> >
> > John
> >
>
>
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #582460 is a reply to message #24207] Tue, 17 September 2002 08:34 Go to previous message
Paul is currently offline PaulFriend
Messages: 55
Registered: July 2009
Member
instantiations have developed some plugins to make the transition from vaj
to eclipse easier.

I agree, VAJ is/was a great IDE. saying that VAJ is really a poor cousin to
VAST. I'm sure eclipse will keep evolving and if you have the time maybe you
should start writing some plugins to incorprate the VAJ features that you
miss the most

Paul.

"John" <deepblue_70@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:am29h1$fhe$1@rogue.oti.com...
> I really don't understand the reason for wich IBM doesn't want support
> and develope anymore Visual Age for Java. Eclipse is a hybrid between
> Visual Age and JBuilder and so I find Eclipse is a worst tool than VAJ. A
> lot
> of good features like the versioning system, copying the classes, the
> layout,
> the kind of debugging, the way you run a class etc. have been lost with
> Eclipse. We are working "officially" with JBuilder but some of us continue
> to use Visual Age, because it is more powerful and "easier" to use then
> JBuilder.
>
> Now our tech support intend soon to "officialize" Eclipse, but I and other
> people still think that we have really lost a very powerful tool like
> Visual Age for Java.
>
> I really hope IBM change its idea, or at least that Eclipse retrieve all
> the
> good things of Visual Age.
>
> John
>
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #582485 is a reply to message #24779] Tue, 17 September 2002 18:14 Go to previous message
James Howe is currently offline James HoweFriend
Messages: 21
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
On Tue, 17 Sep 2002 09:34:22 +0100, "Paul" <whistlingdogg<NOSPAM>@hotmail.com> wrote:

>instantiations have developed some plugins to make the transition from vaj
>to eclipse easier.
>
>I agree, VAJ is/was a great IDE. saying that VAJ is really a poor cousin to
>VAST. I'm sure eclipse will keep evolving and if you have the time maybe you
>should start writing some plugins to incorprate the VAJ features that you
>miss the most

I've been playing with Eclipse for a little while after having used VAJ for quite some time. I too, am disappointed with Eclipse.
There are many features which I really miss, but one of the things which really bugs me is the way all my windows are confined to a
single window frame. Is it possible for a plugin to be written which lets you open multiple windows and place them where you want?
For example, I would like to have a separate JUnit window, a separate console window and one or more class hierarchy viewer windows.
I find the way Eclipse works to be very constraining.
James Howe mailto:jwh@riskmetrics.com
RiskMetrics Group, Inc.
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #582529 is a reply to message #24813] Tue, 17 September 2002 20:42 Go to previous message
John Arthorne is currently offline John ArthorneFriend
Messages: 176
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
Try Window->New Window.

See also the preference Workbench > Perspectives > Open new perspective
in new window.

>There are many features which I really miss, but one of the things which really bugs me is the way all my windows are confined to a
>single window frame. Is it possible for a plugin to be written which lets you open multiple windows and place them where you want?
>
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #582552 is a reply to message #24884] Tue, 17 September 2002 21:32 Go to previous message
James Howe is currently offline James HoweFriend
Messages: 21
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
On Tue, 17 Sep 2002 16:42:34 -0400, John Arthorne <john_arthorne@o_ti.com> wrote:
>>
>>There are many features which I really miss, but one of the things which really bugs me is the way all my windows are confined to a
>>single window frame. Is it possible for a plugin to be written which lets you open multiple windows and place them where you want?
>>
>
>Try Window->New Window.
>
>See also the preference Workbench > Perspectives > Open new perspective
>in new window.
>

But that opens a 'perspective' in a new window. Typically a perspective consists of many components (a project list, an editor,
console, search, etc.) I don't want new perspectives in a new window, I want an individual component in a new window. I want a
window with just a console, or just JUnit. As far as I can tell I can't do that.
James Howe mailto:jwh@riskmetrics.com
RiskMetrics Group, Inc.
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #582563 is a reply to message #24907] Tue, 17 September 2002 21:46 Go to previous message
Andrew McCullough is currently offline Andrew McCulloughFriend
Messages: 26
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Of course you can. Just close the windows you don't want and/or save these
"reduced" perspectives as a custom perspective (Window-->Save Perspective
As).

While I don't have the time or energy to properly participate in this
thread, there is nothing VAJ does that Eclipse does not do better, with the
possible exception of debugging (and even that is pretty close). I am also,
of course, disregarding ENVY, since a source control system should be
independent from the IDE.

-Andrew


"James Howe" <jwh@riskmetrics.com> wrote in message
news:oi7fouccu6c5icee7rsh3jpfu96bdtkjkj@4ax.com...
> On Tue, 17 Sep 2002 16:42:34 -0400, John Arthorne <john_arthorne@o_ti.com>
wrote:
> >>
> >>There are many features which I really miss, but one of the things which
really bugs me is the way all my windows are confined to a
> >>single window frame. Is it possible for a plugin to be written which
lets you open multiple windows and place them where you want?
> >>
> >
> >Try Window->New Window.
> >
> >See also the preference Workbench > Perspectives > Open new perspective
> >in new window.
> >
>
> But that opens a 'perspective' in a new window. Typically a perspective
consists of many components (a project list, an editor,
> console, search, etc.) I don't want new perspectives in a new window, I
want an individual component in a new window. I want a
> window with just a console, or just JUnit. As far as I can tell I can't
do that.
> James Howe mailto:jwh@riskmetrics.com
> RiskMetrics Group, Inc.
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #582590 is a reply to message #24907] Tue, 17 September 2002 23:40 Go to previous message
Scott Rutledge is currently offline Scott RutledgeFriend
Messages: 7
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
On Tue, 17 Sep 2002 17:32:30 -0400, James Howe <jwh@riskmetrics.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Sep 2002 16:42:34 -0400, John Arthorne <john_arthorne@o_ti.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>There are many features which I really miss, but one of the things which really bugs me is the way all my windows are confined to a
> >>single window frame. Is it possible for a plugin to be written which lets you open multiple windows and place them where you want?
> >>
> >
> >Try Window->New Window.
> >
> >See also the preference Workbench > Perspectives > Open new perspective
> >in new window.
> >
>
> But that opens a 'perspective' in a new window. Typically a perspective consists of many components (a project list, an editor,
> console, search, etc.) I don't want new perspectives in a new window, I want an individual component in a new window. I want a
> window with just a console, or just JUnit. As far as I can tell I can't do that.

You can make a view float on top of all the others by right-clicking on the title-bar, right-clicking, and selecting Quick-View. You can then resize the view to cover as much of the window as
you want. When you minimize a QuickView, it's icon is placed on the left-hand icon bar underneath the perspective shortcuts. This should give you the desired effect.

Scott
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #582609 is a reply to message #24907] Wed, 18 September 2002 05:08 Go to previous message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: linuxman.sd163.net

just make your custom perspective.

James Howe wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Sep 2002 16:42:34 -0400, John Arthorne <john_arthorne@o_ti.com> wrote:
>
>>>There are many features which I really miss, but one of the things which really bugs me is the way all my windows are confined to a
>>>single window frame. Is it possible for a plugin to be written which lets you open multiple windows and place them where you want?
>>>
>>
>>Try Window->New Window.
>>
>>See also the preference Workbench > Perspectives > Open new perspective
>>in new window.
>>
>
>
> But that opens a 'perspective' in a new window. Typically a perspective consists of many components (a project list, an editor,
> console, search, etc.) I don't want new perspectives in a new window, I want an individual component in a new window. I want a
> window with just a console, or just JUnit. As far as I can tell I can't do that.
> James Howe mailto:jwh@riskmetrics.com
> RiskMetrics Group, Inc.
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #582621 is a reply to message #25004] Wed, 18 September 2002 06:45 Go to previous message
Francesc Rosés is currently offline Francesc RosésFriend
Messages: 213
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
I agree except for the Visual Composition Editor (VCE). It seems no plans
to include the VCE into Eclipse but in WSAD 5.0. [Any WSAD 5.0 beta
disponible? IBM announced WDAD 5.0 will be available this September].

FRA

Andrew McCullough wrote:
> While I don't have the time or energy to properly participate in this
> thread, there is nothing VAJ does that Eclipse does not do better, with the
> possible exception of debugging (and even that is pretty close).

> -Andrew
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #582631 is a reply to message #25123] Wed, 18 September 2002 12:32 Go to previous message
Andrew McCullough is currently offline Andrew McCulloughFriend
Messages: 26
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Ah, yes, well, I concede that point. Lucky for me I don't do GUI
develpoment much :)

-Andrew

"Francesc Ros
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #582646 is a reply to message #25004] Wed, 18 September 2002 17:15 Go to previous message
Jim Sculley is currently offline Jim SculleyFriend
Messages: 17
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Andrew McCullough wrote:
> Of course you can. Just close the windows you don't want and/or save these
> "reduced" perspectives as a custom perspective (Window-->Save Perspective
> As).
>
> While I don't have the time or energy to properly participate in this
> thread, there is nothing VAJ does that Eclipse does not do better, with the
> possible exception of debugging (and even that is pretty close).

There are many things that VAJ did better. Method level editions for
one (the local history isn't as good in my opinion). Visual application
building. JavaBeans. The 'Problems' tab. Multiple Windows. The
combined stdin/stdout console. The ability to transport your entire
source code base effortlessly using a single file (the repository).

Having said that, Eclipse does many thing better as well. Switchable
JDK being the most important. If VAJ had that capability, I think that
many Eclipse users who came from a VAJ background would still be using VAJ.

> I am also,
> of course, disregarding ENVY, since a source control system should be
> independent from the IDE.

Nonsense. ENVY is what made VAJ better than the rest. Being freed from
the confines of the file system was wonderful. I look forward to using
Stellation which once again eliminates the file system from the
development equation.

Jim S.
I really, really don't miss Visual Age for Java.... (WAS: I miss Visual Age for Java...) [message #582654 is a reply to message #25204] Wed, 18 September 2002 18:31 Go to previous message
Andrew McCullough is currently offline Andrew McCulloughFriend
Messages: 26
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
First let me say that I _liked_ Visual Age once upon a time. After using
Eclipse for the past year you could not _pay_ me to go back. On my current
project they tried to use Visual Age. After enough
complaint/effort/pointing out of advanatges, the entire team of VAJ users
has switched, and not one has looked back. I estimate I am about 20% - 30%
more productive in Eclipse than I ever was in VAJ. A lot of that comes from
the refactoring, but some of it is just the overall design, usability, and
flexibility of the product is better.

<SNIP>

> There are many things that VAJ did better. Method level editions for
> one (the local history isn't as good in my opinion).

While I consider this a source control issue, the bottom line is that even
in VAJ method "editions" were a bit of a hack. You couldn't label them, for
example. I didn't end up using it much.

> Visual application building.

True, I concede this one point.

> JavaBeans.

What good was this, really? Then again, like I said I don't do much visual
programming (which seemed like the only place this was helpful).

> The 'Problems' tab.

Eclipse handles this much better, IMO. The task list + filters, in-editor
markers, double-click-to-problem, etc, all combine for much better "problem"
handling.

> Multiple Windows.

As discussed, you can do this in Eclipse.

> The combined stdin/stdout console.

Well, I never have much use for stdin, so maybe your right - I don't know.
But the stdout console in Eclipse seems to work just fine.

> The ability to transport your entire
> source code base effortlessly using a single file (the repository).

> Nonsense. ENVY is what made VAJ better than the rest. Being freed from
> the confines of the file system was wonderful. I look forward to using
> Stellation which once again eliminates the file system from the
> development equation.

Every source control system ever invented (except ENVY) abstracts the
storage mechanism from the end user. The user gets files: s/he doesn't
worry about how the server stores them. This is true in CVS, ClearCase,
VSS, PVCS, and any other source control system I've ever seen/used/heard of.
Stellation will be no different. The lack of end-user file support is what
doomed ENVY to complete and utter failure. That being said, ENVY was a
pretty pathetic source control system for a variety of other reasons, bust
most of them based around two themes: No files, and no support for anything
by Java (or Smalltalk, or generally "code"). It has some nifty features,
but at the end of the day it just didn't cut it. A few of the reasons:

1) it made using file based tools (ANT, formatters, code generators, you
name it) a nightmare

2) it made anyone who wanted to use VAJ with another source control system
an _absolute_ nightmare. I was on one project where you could only synch
with VSS when you went to lunch, or else you'd never get any work done.

3) author based development was/is a bad idea (I spent half my life changing
"users" and reassigning "ownership").

4) it could not store/version non-Java resources. <*** THIS is enough by
itself to make it near worthless

5) you could not have the same package in different projects/locations
(think: JUnit)

6) you could not use/reference third party libraries without a huge hassle.


> Having said that, Eclipse does many thing better as well. Switchable
> JDK being the most important. If VAJ had that capability, I think that
> many Eclipse users who came from a VAJ background would still be using
VAJ.

Eclipse does an awful lot of things better than VAJ, heres a few what I
consider the more important ones (* = completely missing in VAJ):

Refactoring Support *
Moving/Renaming things actually works *
Much smarter Templates
Files are actually readable outside the tool (VAJ "java" files are
horrendous) *
Much more flexible project/code organization
Much easier to extend (notice the myriad plugins)
Quick Fix is much better
Support for external JARs *
A "Source" view that actually works
On-the-fly problem indicators (w/o save) *
Better code assist (why did everyone get fully qualified names in VAJ?)
Better compare/merge support
Better implementation of standards (JPDA) *


Plus hundreds of little things, like:

Organize imports
Surround with Try/Catch
Much more pervasive hot-key/accelerator support
Better search

I few other things are harder o quantify. Like, why did VAJ hold all the
memory and system resources? Ever kill a DB program in Visual Age and/or
forget to close a DB connection/file/other resource? You had to shut down
VAJ to get it back. Got an stupid memory leak or infinite loop you right
after starting your program? Shut down VAJ.

Ah well. You're either convinced or not, but I really don't understand the
VAJ nostalgia. I think the issue is ENVY. People confuse the quirky,
interesting but immature source control system with VAJ the IDE. ENVY was
more limiting than enabling. Unfortunately, ENVY was never any project's
first choice for source control, so if the company uses VSS, ClearCase, even
CVS you were mostly screwed. But people only remember the "good times" with
ENVY when they had permission/power to use it exclusively and had no JSPs,
XML, .properties, or other resource files.

-Andrew
Re: I really, really don't miss Visual Age for Java.... (WAS: I miss Visual Age for Java...) [message #582678 is a reply to message #25244] Wed, 18 September 2002 18:41 Go to previous message
Andrew McCullough is currently offline Andrew McCulloughFriend
Messages: 26
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Hmm.. pardon my somewhat spotty English in that post, I was in a hurry :) I
think I am supposed to be working :)

<SNIP>
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #582693 is a reply to message #25164] Thu, 19 September 2002 00:30 Go to previous message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: jed.wesley-smith.remove.remove.combined.com.au

*,

This is such a wrong forum for this thread, but as its going anyway...

I liked VAJ, but AFAIC, the best thing you could say about the VCE in VAJ
was that it existed. It generated code from a meta-model that you could not
access, and the generated code was horrible stuff that you couldn't
edit/refactor or add to because it would get clobbered the next time you
used the VCE, and all in all was more of a PITA in the long term than it was
worth. The one in JBuilder is much better (although still not perfect).

As far as ENVY is concerned, I never saw the good side of that either. The
way it was used around here, you had to do all your merges manually, and it
didn't version normal files in the same way it versioned .java. And god help
you if you lost your connection to the repository, you could lose all your
unreleased work. Have that happen once and you need some special features to
ever develop fondness again. CVS at least will merge stuff well (although
the CVS support in WSAD4/Eclipse1 doesn't). We might not have been using it
all that well though, so I'm not sure if there are some good features I
missed.

Otherwise, there was certainly much to like about VAJ.

bewdy,
- jed.

"Andrew McCullough" <mccull1@us.ibm.com> wrote in message
news:am9qjo$6bg$1@rogue.oti.com...
> Ah, yes, well, I concede that point. Lucky for me I don't do GUI
> develpoment much :)
>
> -Andrew
>
> "Francesc Ros
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #582704 is a reply to message #25325] Wed, 18 September 2002 21:49 Go to previous message
Mark C. Chu-Carroll is currently offline Mark C. Chu-CarrollFriend
Messages: 32
Registered: July 2009
Member
On Thu, 19 Sep 2002 00:30:52 +0000, jed wrote:

> *,
>
> This is such a wrong forum for this thread, but as its going anyway...
>
> I liked VAJ, but AFAIC, the best thing you could say about the VCE in
> VAJ was that it existed. It generated code from a meta-model that you
> could not access, and the generated code was horrible stuff that you
> couldn't edit/refactor or add to because it would get clobbered the next
> time you used the VCE, and all in all was more of a PITA in the long
> term than it was worth. The one in JBuilder is much better (although
> still not perfect).
>
> As far as ENVY is concerned, I never saw the good side of that either.
> The way it was used around here, you had to do all your merges manually,
> and it didn't version normal files in the same way it versioned .java.
> And god help you if you lost your connection to the repository, you
> could lose all your unreleased work. Have that happen once and you need
> some special features to ever develop fondness again. CVS at least will
> merge stuff well (although the CVS support in WSAD4/Eclipse1 doesn't).
> We might not have been using it all that well though, so I'm not sure if
> there are some good features I missed.

I've used ENVY (it's one of the major inspirations behind Stellation). I
think it's a wonderful system in theory, but the practice was somewhat
lacking. If you used it correctly, *and* you had a solid reliable network
connection, *and* your work style exactly conformed to the way that
ENVY expected you to, *and* you were willing and able to work entirely
100% within the ENVY environment, then it was a really fantastic system.

The catch, of course, was that the basic model of ENVY was rather
complicated, and a lot of people didn't entirely understand it; and
a lot of people didn't have 100% reliable network connections; and
a lot of people's workstyles didn't conform to the ENVY process;
and a lot of people needed to interact with external tools. And for
anyone in any of those situations, the system was extremely painful,
and extremely frustrating.

In Stellation, we're doing our best to learn from both ENVY's
strengths, and its weaknesses. To see how we copy the strengths,
just look at our documents - ENVY like facilities are all over the
place. For what we're doing to address the weaknesses:

- We use a workspace based model. That means you don't need
a constant connection to the server. You do periodic updates
with the server, exactly the way you do with CVS, or with
a ClearCase snapshot view.

- We will provide both locking and optimistic concurrency. For
the optimistic mode, we have an extremely powerful merge operator,
which works considerably better than the merge in CVS.

- While versioning is on a fine grain, as in ENVY, we also have
aggregate objects that represent larger constructs. Importing and
exporting code through source files will be fast, easy, and flexible,
and we won't mangle your code when we do it. Aggregates make it
easy to seamlessly work with non-Stellation tools.

- Lots of the behavior of Stellation is customizable. We don't
force you to work with our programming workstyle. You can adapt
Stellation to your own preferred workstyle, and make it work
with you.

-Mark


--
Mark Craig Chu-Carroll, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
*** The Stellation project: Advanced SCM for Collaboration
*** http://www.eclipse.org/stellation
*** Work Email: mcc@watson.ibm.com ------- Personal Email: markcc@bestweb.net
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #582718 is a reply to message #25325] Thu, 19 September 2002 06:33 Go to previous message
Francesc Rosés is currently offline Francesc RosésFriend
Messages: 213
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
Jed,

Sorry by I don't agree. I think you don't know well the
VisualAge VCE if you compare it with JBuilder. And yes,
there is a part of "code regenerable", but you can write
before and after this code.

FRA

jed wrote:

> I liked VAJ, but AFAIC, the best thing you could say about the VCE in VAJ
> was that it existed. It generated code from a meta-model that you could not
> access, and the generated code was horrible stuff that you couldn't
> edit/refactor or add to because it would get clobbered the next time you
> used the VCE, and all in all was more of a PITA in the long term than it was
> worth. The one in JBuilder is much better (although still not perfect).


> bewdy,
> - jed.
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #582735 is a reply to message #25405] Thu, 19 September 2002 07:26 Go to previous message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: jed.wesley-smith.remove.remove.combined.com.au

Francesc,

Fair enough, everybody has their own style of doing things, and the VCE
didn't suit mine. If it suits yours then it is the hammer for the job, for
me it was more of a wet sponge ;-)

It was a while ago now that I used it, so the exact criticisms do not come
to mind, but I recall it generated a lot of methods for event processing
where I prefer to tie things together using Actions and structure the
classes around an MVC design. It was simply as much work to develop by hand
as to use the VCE and then refactor the classes, and it would not work with
anything not generated from scratch inside the VCE, so you are right, I
never really used it in anger.

JBuilder at least bases its model on the code, so you have the option of
making changes there OR using the visual designer, and even though it sticks
its stupid jbInit() methods in there, you can remove them and put them in
more descriptive methods and it will generally still work. Anyway, I use
Eclipse now and don't have much of a problem doing it all by hand. I would
still like to see a good Swing designer in Eclipse (as well as a SWT one of
course).

enjoy,
- jed.

"Francesc Ros
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #582749 is a reply to message #25365] Thu, 19 September 2002 07:28 Go to previous message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: jed.wesley-smith.remove.remove.combined.com.au

Mark,

Thanks for the detailed answer, most interesting. Looking forward to
Stellation when it ships.

bewdy,
- jed.
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #582766 is a reply to message #24660] Thu, 19 September 2002 08:34 Go to previous message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: bob.objfac.com

Oh, no, please leave the thread here. ;-}

Bob

"jed" <jed.wesley-smith.remove@remove.combined.com.au> wrote in message
news:am686f$9qd$1@rogue.oti.com...
> what a great troll opportunity this thread is.
>
> can you guys please post this stuff to the eclipse.tools newsgroup? not
only
> is it far more relevant there, you'll get plenty more takers... ;-)
>
> btw. when in doubt about a newsgroup use eclipse.tools
>
> "Randall Loffelmacher" <randall@rga.com> wrote in message
> news:am5ks8$2qm$1@rogue.oti.com...
> > Sorry, this'll get a "little" flamey...I've used nearly every modern,
> > popular IDE out there. If it is your opinion that Visual Age for Java
> (VAJ)
> > is actually a good editor, you've lost all credibility you ever had. VAJ
> is
> > hardly what I would consider a good IDE. It doesn't even do code
> completion.
> > Sure, it'll write get/set for you, but how worthless is that? If you
can't
> > type out a pair of get/set yourself in under 30 seconds, someone
should've
> > taken your keyboard away a long, long time ago.
> >
> > You're dead wrong about Eclipse taking away versioning, class-copying
(wtf
> > is that worth anyway???), layout/usability, debugging, etc. Eclipse
> actually
> > offers you all of these things. I believe that the problem is that you
> just
> > haven't yet read the Ant manual...nor the Eclipse manual.
> >
> > Visual Studio .NET is hands-down, no debating, the BEST IDE ever created
> by
> > man or God. I've used JBuilder and like it. Also used Forte for a long
> > time. It was the closest thing that the Java world had to Visual Studio.
> > See...Java is still chasing after Visual Basic for rapid development.
> >
> > I'm still evaluating Eclipse, so cannot fairly compare it to Visual
> > Studio...but I think that it might come close to knocking Microsoft off
of
> > the hill, so far as visual presentation, feature-list, and (the whole
> point)
> > improved developer productivity.
> >
> > Can't believe that I even had to write this. VAJ a good IDE. Get real.
> Read
> > a manual. Learn something new. Ugh
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > "John" <deepblue_70@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:am29h1$fhe$1@rogue.oti.com...
> > > I really don't understand the reason for wich IBM doesn't want support
> > > and develope anymore Visual Age for Java. Eclipse is a hybrid between
> > > Visual Age and JBuilder and so I find Eclipse is a worst tool than
VAJ.
> A
> > > lot
> > > of good features like the versioning system, copying the classes, the
> > > layout,
> > > the kind of debugging, the way you run a class etc. have been lost
with
> > > Eclipse. We are working "officially" with JBuilder but some of us
> continue
> > > to use Visual Age, because it is more powerful and "easier" to use
then
> > > JBuilder.
> > >
> > > Now our tech support intend soon to "officialize" Eclipse, but I and
> other
> > > people still think that we have really lost a very powerful tool like
> > > Visual Age for Java.
> > >
> > > I really hope IBM change its idea, or at least that Eclipse retrieve
all
> > > the
> > > good things of Visual Age.
> > >
> > > John
> > >
> >
> >
>
>
I miss Visual Age for SMALLTALK.... [message #582807 is a reply to message #24207] Thu, 19 September 2002 12:56 Go to previous message
kevin is currently offline kevinFriend
Messages: 4
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
John wrote:

> I really don't understand the reason for wich IBM doesn't want support
> and develope anymore Visual Age for Java. Eclipse is a hybrid between
> Visual Age and JBuilder and so I find Eclipse is a worst tool than VAJ. A
> lot
> of good features like the versioning system, copying the classes, the
> layout,
> the kind of debugging, the way you run a class etc. have been lost with
> Eclipse. We are working "officially" with JBuilder but some of us continue
> to use Visual Age, because it is more powerful and "easier" to use then
> JBuilder.

> Now our tech support intend soon to "officialize" Eclipse, but I and other
> people still think that we have really lost a very powerful tool like
> Visual Age for Java.

> I really hope IBM change its idea, or at least that Eclipse retrieve all
> the
> good things of Visual Age.

> John
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #582824 is a reply to message #25365] Thu, 19 September 2002 13:40 Go to previous message
Andrew McCullough is currently offline Andrew McCulloughFriend
Messages: 26
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
<SNIP>

> I've used ENVY (it's one of the major inspirations behind Stellation). I
> think it's a wonderful system in theory, but the practice was somewhat
> lacking. If you used it correctly, *and* you had a solid reliable network
> connection, *and* your work style exactly conformed to the way that
> ENVY expected you to, *and* you were willing and able to work entirely
> 100% within the ENVY environment, then it was a really fantastic system.

Very well summed up indeed. Can I use that? :)


> The catch, of course, was that the basic model of ENVY was rather
> complicated, and a lot of people didn't entirely understand it; and
> a lot of people didn't have 100% reliable network connections; and
> a lot of people's workstyles didn't conform to the ENVY process;
> and a lot of people needed to interact with external tools. And for
> anyone in any of those situations, the system was extremely painful,
> and extremely frustrating.
>
> In Stellation, we're doing our best to learn from both ENVY's
> strengths, and its weaknesses. To see how we copy the strengths,
> just look at our documents - ENVY like facilities are all over the
> place. For what we're doing to address the weaknesses:

<SNIPPED list of cool things about Stellation>

I can't wait. I like ENVY's ideas, but I completely agree with your
analysis of it's practicality. I look forward to seeing Stellation in
action. Just out of curiosity: I assume, since you can work off a
snapshot, that Stellation does not have a concept of author based
development as in ENVY? That was the one idea in ENVY I really didn't like
at all. The rest of my problems with ENVY were in it's
implementation/execution/integration with VAJ - but that one I just thought
was a bad idea.

-Andrew
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #582855 is a reply to message #25641] Thu, 19 September 2002 09:48 Go to previous message
Mark C. Chu-Carroll is currently offline Mark C. Chu-CarrollFriend
Messages: 32
Registered: July 2009
Member
On Thu, 19 Sep 2002 13:40:14 +0000, Andrew McCullough wrote:

> <SNIP>
>
>> I've used ENVY (it's one of the major inspirations behind Stellation).
>> I think it's a wonderful system in theory, but the practice was
>> somewhat lacking. If you used it correctly, *and* you had a solid
>> reliable network connection, *and* your work style exactly conformed to
>> the way that ENVY expected you to, *and* you were willing and able to
>> work entirely 100% within the ENVY environment, then it was a really
>> fantastic system.
>
> Very well summed up indeed. Can I use that? :)

It depends,,, Where do you want to use it? :-)

That paragraph sounds a bit more sarcastic than I actually
intended. I truly do think ENVY was an excellent system in a lot
of ways - that line at the end about it being fantastic is really
serious. You needed to buy into its whole approach, but it wasn't a
*bad* approach. If you could buy into it, then it was really
quite extraordinary. The problem is that a lot of people either
couldn't adopt its method, or disliked that method - and if you
didn't fully buy in to it, it became a very frustrating tool to use.


>> The catch, of course, was that the basic model of ENVY was rather
>> complicated, and a lot of people didn't entirely understand it; and a
>> lot of people didn't have 100% reliable network connections; and a lot
>> of people's workstyles didn't conform to the ENVY process; and a lot of
>> people needed to interact with external tools. And for anyone in any of
>> those situations, the system was extremely painful, and extremely
>> frustrating.
>>
>> In Stellation, we're doing our best to learn from both ENVY's
>> strengths, and its weaknesses. To see how we copy the strengths, just
>> look at our documents - ENVY like facilities are all over the place.
>> For what we're doing to address the weaknesses:
>
> <SNIPPED list of cool things about Stellation>
>
> I can't wait. I like ENVY's ideas, but I completely agree with your
> analysis of it's practicality. I look forward to seeing Stellation in
> action. Just out of curiosity: I assume, since you can work off a
> snapshot, that Stellation does not have a concept of author based
> development as in ENVY? That was the one idea in ENVY I really didn't
> like at all. The rest of my problems with ENVY were in it's
> implementation/execution/integration with VAJ - but that one I just
> thought was a bad idea.

I'm not entirely sure of what you mean by author based development. If
you mean the way that ENVY assigned components as being under development
by a particular person, then no, we aren't going to directly support
that. If you want it, you'll be able to do it, using a fairly simple
application of locks and triggers. But by default, that won't be the
way that Stellation behaves.

If I've misunderstood what you mean by author-based development, then
please explain what you mean, and I'll do my best to answer.

-Mark



--
Mark Craig Chu-Carroll, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
*** The Stellation project: Advanced SCM for Collaboration
*** http://www.eclipse.org/stellation
*** Work Email: mcc@watson.ibm.com ------- Personal Email: markcc@bestweb.net
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #582868 is a reply to message #25703] Thu, 19 September 2002 14:54 Go to previous message
Andrew McCullough is currently offline Andrew McCulloughFriend
Messages: 26
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
"Mark C. Chu-Carroll" <mcc@watson.ibm.com> wrote in message
news:amcjia$n4a$1@rogue.oti.com...
> On Thu, 19 Sep 2002 13:40:14 +0000, Andrew McCullough wrote:
>
> > <SNIP>
> >
> >> I've used ENVY (it's one of the major inspirations behind Stellation).
> >> I think it's a wonderful system in theory, but the practice was
> >> somewhat lacking. If you used it correctly, *and* you had a solid
> >> reliable network connection, *and* your work style exactly conformed to
> >> the way that ENVY expected you to, *and* you were willing and able to
> >> work entirely 100% within the ENVY environment, then it was a really
> >> fantastic system.
> >
> > Very well summed up indeed. Can I use that? :)
>
> It depends,,, Where do you want to use it? :-)

Well, it tends to come up in these "VAJ was the best thing ever"
discussions. For better or worse they tend to devolve into a discussion of
ENVY in some way or another.

> That paragraph sounds a bit more sarcastic than I actually
> intended. I truly do think ENVY was an excellent system in a lot
> of ways - that line at the end about it being fantastic is really
> serious. You needed to buy into its whole approach, but it wasn't a
> *bad* approach. If you could buy into it, then it was really
> quite extraordinary. The problem is that a lot of people either
> couldn't adopt its method, or disliked that method - and if you
> didn't fully buy in to it, it became a very frustrating tool to use.

I think the paragraph was very clear. You are exactly right: ENVY/VAJ
worked well (mostly) if you made it _THE_ tool and did everything the ENVY
way. The two exceptions (the "mostly") I make are: It never handled
non-code resources in an acceptable way, and the author based development
which I will discuss below.

The problem is that is not usually an option for someone like me (a
consultant). We have to use what the client wants to use, or what the
existing infrastructure provides. That usually means a source control
system other than ENVY, and it also means you don't get to pick how
everything is done. For those reasons, I think ENVY failed the
"practicality" test.


<SNIP>

> I'm not entirely sure of what you mean by author based development. If
> you mean the way that ENVY assigned components as being under development
> by a particular person, then no, we aren't going to directly support
> that. If you want it, you'll be able to do it, using a fairly simple
> application of locks and triggers. But by default, that won't be the
> way that Stellation behaves.

In VisualAge/ENVY (it is hard to discuss them as separate entities), there
was a project, package, and class owner. Only the class owner could release
a version, only the package owner could open/version a new edition of the
package, and only the project owner could open/version the project. In
modern development (especially with the rise of XP), many people take
responsibility for the same code, and this turned into a major headache.

The absolute worst was when people (foolishly) used passwords to
authenticate identity. That meant that you could be stuck, not being able to
do what you needed to do, if the person was out sick or just not available.
Without the passwords, you end up "changing workspace user" about 100 times
a day to get your work done and get the proper code released. What made it
even worse is that a non-owner could work on anything they wanted, but just
couldn't make it visible to the rest of the team. And since there was no
option for locking/checkout, and no real automatic merge support, people
clobbered each other's work all the time. So you got all the hassles of
"ownership" and none of the benefits.


-Andrew
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #582883 is a reply to message #25703] Thu, 19 September 2002 15:15 Go to previous message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: jeffo.odellsoft.com

To me, it always seemed that the Java's need to have a "file" as a primary
element of your code organization and delivery was a mismatch for Envy's
object database. Envy's object database approach was absolutely fantastic
for Smalltalk, which eschewed files completely. Envy was adapted to Java by
IBM to deliver a modern IDE quickly for Java, Eclipse was/is their longer
term strategy.

I've never had an experience close to using Envy with Smalltalk in any other
source code environment, except using Dolphin Smalltalk with a third party
system called STS that takes a similar object DB approach. In most others,
the unit of versioning is the file - which does not recognize the possible
units of versioning in an object world: classes, methods, etc.

The other big bummer of Envy was that it does not faciliate development in
multiple geographic locations.

I'm very interested in Stellation because it aims to provide Envy-like
functionality of recognizing the object model while dealing effectively with
the fact of life, like it or not (I don't, but I concede others do for valid
reasons), that delivery is somewhat file based. I applaud the effort and
hope to be able to work with the developers at some point.

As Kent Beck's tag line used to say "Source Code in files, how quaint"...
(FWIW - I'm *not* looking fo a flame war!). It appears files are here to
stay - I'm looking forward to Stellation to minimize the impact.

jlo

"Mark C. Chu-Carroll" <mcc@watson.ibm.com> wrote in message
news:amcjia$n4a$1@rogue.oti.com...
> On Thu, 19 Sep 2002 13:40:14 +0000, Andrew McCullough wrote:
>
> > <SNIP>
> >
> >> I've used ENVY (it's one of the major inspirations behind Stellation).
> >> I think it's a wonderful system in theory, but the practice was
> >> somewhat lacking. If you used it correctly, *and* you had a solid
> >> reliable network connection, *and* your work style exactly conformed to
> >> the way that ENVY expected you to, *and* you were willing and able to
> >> work entirely 100% within the ENVY environment, then it was a really
> >> fantastic system.
> >
> > Very well summed up indeed. Can I use that? :)
>
> It depends,,, Where do you want to use it? :-)
>
> That paragraph sounds a bit more sarcastic than I actually
> intended. I truly do think ENVY was an excellent system in a lot
> of ways - that line at the end about it being fantastic is really
> serious. You needed to buy into its whole approach, but it wasn't a
> *bad* approach. If you could buy into it, then it was really
> quite extraordinary. The problem is that a lot of people either
> couldn't adopt its method, or disliked that method - and if you
> didn't fully buy in to it, it became a very frustrating tool to use.
>
>
> >> The catch, of course, was that the basic model of ENVY was rather
> >> complicated, and a lot of people didn't entirely understand it; and a
> >> lot of people didn't have 100% reliable network connections; and a lot
> >> of people's workstyles didn't conform to the ENVY process; and a lot of
> >> people needed to interact with external tools. And for anyone in any of
> >> those situations, the system was extremely painful, and extremely
> >> frustrating.
> >>
> >> In Stellation, we're doing our best to learn from both ENVY's
> >> strengths, and its weaknesses. To see how we copy the strengths, just
> >> look at our documents - ENVY like facilities are all over the place.
> >> For what we're doing to address the weaknesses:
> >
> > <SNIPPED list of cool things about Stellation>
> >
> > I can't wait. I like ENVY's ideas, but I completely agree with your
> > analysis of it's practicality. I look forward to seeing Stellation in
> > action. Just out of curiosity: I assume, since you can work off a
> > snapshot, that Stellation does not have a concept of author based
> > development as in ENVY? That was the one idea in ENVY I really didn't
> > like at all. The rest of my problems with ENVY were in it's
> > implementation/execution/integration with VAJ - but that one I just
> > thought was a bad idea.
>
> I'm not entirely sure of what you mean by author based development. If
> you mean the way that ENVY assigned components as being under development
> by a particular person, then no, we aren't going to directly support
> that. If you want it, you'll be able to do it, using a fairly simple
> application of locks and triggers. But by default, that won't be the
> way that Stellation behaves.
>
> If I've misunderstood what you mean by author-based development, then
> please explain what you mean, and I'll do my best to answer.
>
> -Mark
>
>
>
> --
> Mark Craig Chu-Carroll, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
> *** The Stellation project: Advanced SCM for Collaboration
> *** http://www.eclipse.org/stellation
> *** Work Email: mcc@watson.ibm.com ------- Personal Email:
markcc@bestweb.net
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #582896 is a reply to message #25727] Thu, 19 September 2002 12:35 Go to previous message
Mark C. Chu-Carroll is currently offline Mark C. Chu-CarrollFriend
Messages: 32
Registered: July 2009
Member
On Thu, 19 Sep 2002 14:54:08 +0000, Andrew McCullough wrote:


> "Mark C. Chu-Carroll" <mcc@watson.ibm.com> wrote in message
> news:amcjia$n4a$1@rogue.oti.com...
>> On Thu, 19 Sep 2002 13:40:14 +0000, Andrew McCullough wrote:
>>
>> > <SNIP>
>> >
>> >> I've used ENVY (it's one of the major inspirations behind
>> >> Stellation). I think it's a wonderful system in theory, but the
>> >> practice was somewhat lacking. If you used it correctly, *and* you
>> >> had a solid reliable network connection, *and* your work style
>> >> exactly conformed to the way that ENVY expected you to, *and* you
>> >> were willing and able to work entirely 100% within the ENVY
>> >> environment, then it was a really fantastic system.
>> >
>> > Very well summed up indeed. Can I use that? :)
>>
>> It depends,,, Where do you want to use it? :-)
>
> Well, it tends to come up in these "VAJ was the best thing ever"
> discussions. For better or worse they tend to devolve into a discussion
> of ENVY in some way or another.

Then feel free to quote me, as long as you're being civil.


<SNIP>

>> I'm not entirely sure of what you mean by author based development. If
>> you mean the way that ENVY assigned components as being under
>> development by a particular person, then no, we aren't going to
>> directly support that. If you want it, you'll be able to do it, using a
>> fairly simple application of locks and triggers. But by default, that
>> won't be the way that Stellation behaves.
>
> In VisualAge/ENVY (it is hard to discuss them as separate entities),
> there was a project, package, and class owner. Only the class owner
> could release a version, only the package owner could open/version a new
> edition of the package, and only the project owner could open/version
> the project. In modern development (especially with the rise of XP),
> many people take responsibility for the same code, and this turned into
> a major headache.

That's what I thought you meant. So no, Stellation does not do that
by default. If you really want it, you can build it fairly easily
using triggers, locks, and access control lists. But I can't really
see why you'd want to - with Stellation style branching and
locking, you can get the same effect with less administrative
load, and less intrusion on the work cycle of the developers.

The default mode of Stellation is optimistic concurrency with
advisory locks. So you can edit anything you want, and checkin any
changes you want (provided you have checkin privileges on the
target branch). If you want, you can declare a set of fragments
that you're working on, and other being who are also working
on those fragments will be warned of the potential for conflict.

-Mark


--
Mark Craig Chu-Carroll, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
*** The Stellation project: Advanced SCM for Collaboration
*** http://www.eclipse.org/stellation
*** Work Email: mcc@watson.ibm.com ------- Personal Email: markcc@bestweb.net
Re: I really, really don't miss Visual Age for Java.... (WAS: I miss Visual Age for Java...) [message #582902 is a reply to message #25244] Thu, 19 September 2002 18:31 Go to previous message
Jim Sculley is currently offline Jim SculleyFriend
Messages: 17
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Andrew McCullough wrote:
> First let me say that I _liked_ Visual Age once upon a time. After using
> Eclipse for the past year you could not _pay_ me to go back. On my current
> project they tried to use Visual Age.

Gack. I wouldn't recommend VAJ today. I'm just pointing out that it
was one of the best in its time, and that if certain things such as JDK
switching had been implemented, it would not have seen the mass
defection to Eclipse.

> After enough
> complaint/effort/pointing out of advanatges, the entire team of VAJ users
> has switched, and not one has looked back. I estimate I am about 20% - 30%
> more productive in Eclipse than I ever was in VAJ. A lot of that comes from
> the refactoring, but some of it is just the overall design, usability, and
> flexibility of the product is better.

Erm, VAJ had refactoring via Instantiations' tools.

>
> <SNIP>
>
>>There are many things that VAJ did better. Method level editions for
>>one (the local history isn't as good in my opinion).
>
>
> While I consider this a source control issue, the bottom line is that even
> in VAJ method "editions" were a bit of a hack. You couldn't label them, for
> example. I didn't end up using it much.

I used them all the time myself.

<snip>
>
>
> What good was this, really? Then again, like I said I don't do much visual
> programming (which seemed like the only place this was helpful).

Indeed. The power was that even non-viusal things could be used as
beans in the VCE.

>
>
>>The 'Problems' tab.
>
>
> Eclipse handles this much better, IMO. The task list + filters, in-editor
> markers, double-click-to-problem, etc, all combine for much better "problem"
> handling.

Blech. I preferred VAJ's tree structure for this, and the combination
of the tree of problems with a soure pane in which to fix things. As it
is in Eclipse, I have too many editor tabs opening all the time. A
second row of tabs (ala jEdit woud be nice).

>
>
>>Multiple Windows.
>
>
> As discussed, you can do this in Eclipse.

It's not nearly the same, nor as flexible. I can't open a window
containing a single method for instance.

>
>
>>The combined stdin/stdout console.
>
>
> Well, I never have much use for stdin, so maybe your right - I don't know.
> But the stdout console in Eclipse seems to work just fine.

It seems a bit pokey to me at times, but on the whole it does the job.

>
>
>>The ability to transport your entire
>>source code base effortlessly using a single file (the repository).
>
>
>>Nonsense. ENVY is what made VAJ better than the rest. Being freed from
>>the confines of the file system was wonderful. I look forward to using
>>Stellation which once again eliminates the file system from the
>>development equation.
>
>
> Every source control system ever invented (except ENVY) abstracts the
> storage mechanism from the end user. The user gets files: s/he doesn't
> worry about how the server stores them.

When using ENVY, I never thought of them as files. They were
compilation units. Thinking of classes as files is incorrect thinking
in my opinion. The specification supports this.

> This is true in CVS, ClearCase,
> VSS, PVCS, and any other source control system I've ever seen/used/heard of.
> Stellation will be no different. The lack of end-user file support is what
> doomed ENVY to complete and utter failure.

It failed?

<snip>
>
> 1) it made using file based tools (ANT, formatters, code generators, you
> name it) a nightmare

VAJ did provide the Tools API fior such things.

>
> 2) it made anyone who wanted to use VAJ with another source control system
> an _absolute_ nightmare.

Plenty of folks used it with CVS.

> I was on one project where you could only synch
> with VSS when you went to lunch, or else you'd never get any work done.
>
> 3) author based development was/is a bad idea (I spent half my life changing
> "users" and reassigning "ownership").

This is a matter of philosophy I suspect. Personally, I've not had to
work in large teams so it wasn't an issue.

>
> 4) it could not store/version non-Java resources. <*** THIS is enough by
> itself to make it near worthless

VAJ added this ability at some point.

>
> 5) you could not have the same package in different projects/locations
> (think: JUnit)
>

Isn't one of the fundamental tenets of unit testing that you only test
the public interface, because any private/protected/default access code
that isn't called by public code has no reason to exist? If so, why
would you need to have tests in the same package as code? In any event,
you can also implement tests as inner classes, which lets you test any
method you want. The inner class class files are easily stripped out
prior to deployment.

> 6) you could not use/reference third party libraries without a huge hassle.

Often because those libraries were

a) broken (the VAJ compiler tended to be more compliant)

b) made incorrect assumptions

Some notable exceptions were Java3D and the JMF. VAJ didn't like third
party tools that used native code. A definite shortcoming.

>
>
>
>>Having said that, Eclipse does many thing better as well. Switchable
>>JDK being the most important. If VAJ had that capability, I think that
>>many Eclipse users who came from a VAJ background would still be using
>
> VAJ.
>
> Eclipse does an awful lot of things better than VAJ, heres a few what I
> consider the more important ones (* = completely missing in VAJ):
>
> Refactoring Support *

Code Assist from Instantiations did this.

> Moving/Renaming things actually works *

See above. Even better was the ability to change the name of a method
and have VAJ keep the old name *and* create a new method.

> Much smarter Templates

Agreed.

> Files are actually readable outside the tool (VAJ "java" files are
> horrendous) *

How so? If you are talking about the reordering problem, Instantiations
' tool solved this as well.

> Much more flexible project/code organization

Seems to be a wash to me.

> Much easier to extend (notice the myriad plugins)

Sure. Definitely more open.

> Quick Fix is much better

I preferred the VAJ version where it popped up a dialog listing all the
errors on saving. To each his own.

> Support for external JARs *

VAJ supported this for runtime, but not compile time.

> A "Source" view that actually works

Viewing the entire source file is pointless in my opinion. I never did
it in VAJ, I never do it in Eclipse.

> On-the-fly problem indicators (w/o save) *

I save so often that they don't do much for me.

> Better code assist (why did everyone get fully qualified names in VAJ?)

Hmmm. I think this was user-definable. Its been a while.

> Better compare/merge support

Depends on your development philosophy.

> Better implementation of standards (JPDA) *

Well, I'll take the VAJ debugger over any other debugger in existenceat
the time. It was HotSwapping long before anyone else, and the HotSwap
was more powerful.

>
>
> Plus hundreds of little things, like:
>
> Organize imports

I think this may be my favorite.

<remainder snipped>

The bottom line is that both had strengths and weaknesses, and each had
lovers and haters. Seems a waste of a thread to discuss something that
has been true since time began :)

Beats working I suppose....

Jim S.
Re: ENVY and the Type Hierachy (was: I miss Visual Age for Java....) [message #582944 is a reply to message #25641] Thu, 19 September 2002 22:45 Go to previous message
Alex Hudspith is currently offline Alex HudspithFriend
Messages: 1
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
(With apologies for replying in a thread that increasingly doesn't belong here...)

Wow! It's great to know that there's more than one person in the world who could see strengths _and_ weaknesses in ENVY. (Seems
most people are too religous about the matter.)

I adored it at first, whilst working with all Java code and a good understanding of (and alignment with) the ENVY philosophy. As
time went on, I found myself working more and more with non-Java resources and developers who either didn't like it or just didn't
get it.

Eclipse came just at the right time, providing very good CVS integration (I wouldn't dream of using CVS without it), but I look
forward something that can combine the strengths of both systems, so good luck to Stellation.

As far as other Eclipse stuff goes, I think it's mostly right (mostly great even). Lots of people in my team think it's a killer
IDE. But am I the only one that finds the Eclipse Type Hierachy view really annoying? In VisualAge the type hierachy always showed
exactly what I wanted it to. The Eclipse one always feels like a lazy, second class citizen. ('Link Type Hierachy to active
editor' just isn't the same.)

Alex.

"Andrew McCullough" <mccull1@us.ibm.com> wrote in message news:amciu2$mmb$1@rogue.oti.com...
> <SNIP>
>
> > I've used ENVY (it's one of the major inspirations behind Stellation). I
> > think it's a wonderful system in theory, but the practice was somewhat
> > lacking. If you used it correctly, *and* you had a solid reliable network
> > connection, *and* your work style exactly conformed to the way that
> > ENVY expected you to, *and* you were willing and able to work entirely
> > 100% within the ENVY environment, then it was a really fantastic system.
>
> Very well summed up indeed. Can I use that? :)
>
>
> > The catch, of course, was that the basic model of ENVY was rather
> > complicated, and a lot of people didn't entirely understand it; and
> > a lot of people didn't have 100% reliable network connections; and
> > a lot of people's workstyles didn't conform to the ENVY process;
> > and a lot of people needed to interact with external tools. And for
> > anyone in any of those situations, the system was extremely painful,
> > and extremely frustrating.
> >
> > In Stellation, we're doing our best to learn from both ENVY's
> > strengths, and its weaknesses. To see how we copy the strengths,
> > just look at our documents - ENVY like facilities are all over the
> > place. For what we're doing to address the weaknesses:
>
> <SNIPPED list of cool things about Stellation>
>
> I can't wait. I like ENVY's ideas, but I completely agree with your
> analysis of it's practicality. I look forward to seeing Stellation in
> action. Just out of curiosity: I assume, since you can work off a
> snapshot, that Stellation does not have a concept of author based
> development as in ENVY? That was the one idea in ENVY I really didn't like
> at all. The rest of my problems with ENVY were in it's
> implementation/execution/integration with VAJ - but that one I just thought
> was a bad idea.
>
> -Andrew
>
>
>
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #583060 is a reply to message #25727] Sat, 21 September 2002 18:02 Go to previous message
Eric Clayberg is currently offline Eric ClaybergFriend
Messages: 979
Registered: July 2009
Location: Boston, MA
Senior Member
"Andrew McCullough" <mccull1@us.ibm.com> wrote in message
news:amcn8i$q58$1@rogue.oti.com...
>
> In VisualAge/ENVY (it is hard to discuss them as separate entities), there
> was a project, package, and class owner. Only the class owner could
release
> a version, only the package owner could open/version a new edition of the
> package, and only the project owner could open/version the project. In
> modern development (especially with the rise of XP), many people take
> responsibility for the same code, and this turned into a major headache.

Sounds like you should have been using VA Assist which added numerous
enhacements to VAJ to eliminate those headaches. IBM was using hundreds of
licenses of VA Assist, so it should have been easily available to you.

> The absolute worst was when people (foolishly) used passwords to
> authenticate identity. That meant that you could be stuck, not being able
to
> do what you needed to do, if the person was out sick or just not
available.

In that case, you definitely should have been using VA Assist as it
completely eliminated that problem in VAJ.

> Without the passwords, you end up "changing workspace user" about 100
times
> a day to get your work done and get the proper code released.

Wow! Sounds like you could have paid for VA Assist in a couple of days at
that rate.

> What made it even worse is that a non-owner could work on anything they
> wanted, but just couldn't make it visible to the rest of the team.

....unless you were using VA Assist, in which case this was easy to do.

> And since there was no
> option for locking/checkout, and no real automatic merge support, people
> clobbered each other's work all the time.

VA Assist's automatic open edition checking would have eliminated most of
these issues as well.

With VA Assist being readily available to almost everyone (including being
free for VAJ Entry and Pro users), it always surprises me to see someone
making these complaints about VAJ.

-Eric Clayberg
Sr. Vice President of Product Development
Instantiations, Inc.
mailto:cpsws-support@instantiations.com
http://www.instantiations.com
http://www.instantiations.com/codepro/ws/
http://www.instantiations.com/assist/
http://www.instantiations.com/jfactor/
Re: I really, really don't miss Visual Age for Java.... (WAS: I miss Visual Age for Java...) [message #583074 is a reply to message #25244] Sat, 21 September 2002 18:46 Go to previous message
Eric Clayberg is currently offline Eric ClaybergFriend
Messages: 979
Registered: July 2009
Location: Boston, MA
Senior Member
"Andrew McCullough" <mccull1@us.ibm.com> wrote in message
news:amafk2$lf8$1@rogue.oti.com...
>
> Eclipse handles this much better, IMO.

I disagree. The Task view in Eclipse is overloaded with way too may
unrelated tasks. The Task views filter dialog is a nightmare.

> The lack of end-user file support is what
> doomed ENVY to complete and utter failure.

ENVY has been in continuous use for more than a decade by many of IBM's
largest customers, so I can't imagine how you could label it a "complete and
utter failure". Many of the world's largest IT projects were implemented
using ENVY as the source code control mechanism of choice.

> it made using file based tools (ANT, formatters, code generators, you
> name it) a nightmare

Several alternative code formatters were available for VAJ including
JIndent...

http://www.instantiations.com/assist/docs/browser_custom_for matter.htm

> author based development was/is a bad idea (I spent half my life changing
> "users" and reassigning "ownership").

VA Assist provided numerous features that directly solved this problem...

http://www.instantiations.com/assist/docs/
http://www.instantiations.com/assist/docs/envy_super_user.ht m
http://www.instantiations.com/assist/docs/envy_super_group.h tm

> it could not store/version non-Java resources. <*** THIS is enough by
> itself to make it near worthless

This was added in VAJ 3.5.

> you could not have the same package in different projects/locations
> (think: JUnit)

VAJ 3.5 introduced Solutions which solved this problem quite nicely.

> 6) you could not use/reference third party libraries without a huge
hassle.

That depends on what you wanted to do and whether the 3rd party had
integrated their tool with VAJ or not. The VAJ Tools API allowed many
companies to plug their tools into VAJ.

> Refactoring Support *

Extremely high quality refactoring support (better than what is in Eclipse
in many ways) has been available for VAJ for almost two years...

http://www.instantiations.com/jfactor/default.htm

> Much smarter Templates

Also available for VAJ via VA Assist.

http://www.instantiations.com/assist/docs/browser_macros_key word.htm

> A "Source" view that actually works

Also available for VAJ via VA Assist.

http://www.instantiations.com/assist/docs/browser_whole_clas s_edit.htm

> Much more pervasive hot-key/accelerator support

Also available for VAJ via VA Assist. This is much better in VAJ using VA
Assist than it is in Eclipse. With VA Assist, you could assign hot-keys to
any menu item and then easily share those key confugurations with other team
members.

http://www.instantiations.com/assist/docs/browser_menu_accel .htm

> Better search

Also available for VAJ via VA Assist (including RegEx support, case
sensitive replace, full repository searching, etc.).

http://www.instantiations.com/assist/docs/browser_search_dia log.htm
http://www.instantiations.com/assist/docs/browser_search_rep lace.htm

http://www.instantiations.com/assist/docs/envy_repository_st ring_query.htm

http://www.instantiations.com/assist/docs/browser_references _declarations.ht
m

Many of the "better search" options in Eclipse seem to have been cribbed
from VA Assist.

> I think the issue is ENVY. People confuse the quirky,
> interesting but immature source control system with VAJ the IDE.

"Immature"? That is just nonsense. I've used ENVY for more than ten years
myself and have never found anything better (and I have used many of the
alternatives).

> ENVY was more limiting than enabling.

Only for those who could not be bothered to learn how to use it properly.
ENVY itself is actually quite powerful (and much more powerful than what was
exposed in VAJ). You might want to read the book "Mastering ENVY/Developer"
before you dismiss it.

http://www.envymasters.com/
http://books.cambridge.org/0521666503.htm

> Unfortunately, ENVY was never any project's
> first choice for source control

Also nonsesne. I have worked on dozens of very large projects that
specifically *chose* ENVY as their desired source code manager.

-Eric Clayberg
Sr. Vice President of Product Development
Instantiations, Inc.
mailto:cpsws-support@instantiations.com
http://www.instantiations.com
http://www.instantiations.com/codepro/ws/
http://www.instantiations.com/assist/
http://www.instantiations.com/jfactor/
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #583342 is a reply to message #24907] Thu, 26 September 2002 08:57 Go to previous message
user is currently offline userFriend
Messages: 296
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
James Howe wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Sep 2002 16:42:34 -0400, John Arthorne <john_arthorne@o_ti.com> wrote:
>
>>>There are many features which I really miss, but one of the things which really bugs me is the way all my windows are confined to a
>>>single window frame. Is it possible for a plugin to be written which lets you open multiple windows and place them where you want?
>>>
>>
>>Try Window->New Window.
>>
>>See also the preference Workbench > Perspectives > Open new perspective
>>in new window.
>>
>
>
> But that opens a 'perspective' in a new window. Typically a perspective consists of many components (a project list, an editor,
> console, search, etc.) I don't want new perspectives in a new window, I want an individual component in a new window. I want a
> window with just a console, or just JUnit. As far as I can tell I can't do that.
> James Howe mailto:jwh@riskmetrics.com
> RiskMetrics Group, Inc.

Try dreagging a tab outside the eclipse window, then drop it. Instant
floating view in its own window. I have dual monitors and this is
invaluable. Elcipse even remembers their location between restarts.
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #583372 is a reply to message #26971] Thu, 26 September 2002 12:44 Go to previous message
James Howe is currently offline James HoweFriend
Messages: 21
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
On Thu, 26 Sep 2002 09:57:14 +0100, user@domain.invalid wrote:

>James Howe wrote:
>> On Tue, 17 Sep 2002 16:42:34 -0400, John Arthorne <john_arthorne@o_ti.com> wrote:
>>
>>>>There are many features which I really miss, but one of the things which really bugs me is the way all my windows are confined to a
>>>>single window frame. Is it possible for a plugin to be written which lets you open multiple windows and place them where you want?
>>>>
>>>
>>>Try Window->New Window.
>>>
>>>See also the preference Workbench > Perspectives > Open new perspective
>>>in new window.
>>>
>>
>>
>> But that opens a 'perspective' in a new window. Typically a perspective consists of many components (a project list, an editor,
>> console, search, etc.) I don't want new perspectives in a new window, I want an individual component in a new window. I want a
>> window with just a console, or just JUnit. As far as I can tell I can't do that.
>> James Howe mailto:jwh@riskmetrics.com
>> RiskMetrics Group, Inc.
>
>Try dreagging a tab outside the eclipse window, then drop it. Instant
>floating view in its own window. I have dual monitors and this is
>invaluable. Elcipse even remembers their location between restarts.


Either I'm doing something wrong, have some preference setting set somewhere, or something, but I can't seem to do what you
describe. If I drag a window I can drop in on the bar on the right side, where it creates a 'fast view'. Clicking on this view
brings the window up on top of the other windows in the main window, but I can't move or resize it. It is in a fixed position. If
I attempt to move it, it will end up becoming a tab on one of the other windows if I drop it. I'm running Eclipse 2.0.

James Howe mailto:jwh@riskmetrics.com
RiskMetrics Group, Inc.
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #583488 is a reply to message #27050] Fri, 27 September 2002 01:19 Go to previous message
Ian Graham is currently offline Ian GrahamFriend
Messages: 24
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
I can't get this working either, and it would make a HUGE difference to
me. Could it be platform-dependent? I'm on a Solaris system, and all I
get is a no-entry symbol as soon as I've moved the window frame outside
the Eclipse window.

I have at least discovered that I can rearrange the editors within the
Eclipse window, but I would really really like to have free-floating
editors and other views.

Ian

James Howe wrote:

> On Thu, 26 Sep 2002 09:57:14 +0100, user@domain.invalid wrote:
>
>
>>James Howe wrote:
>>
>>>On Tue, 17 Sep 2002 16:42:34 -0400, John Arthorne <john_arthorne@o_ti.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>>There are many features which I really miss, but one of the things which really bugs me is the way all my windows are confined to a
>>>>>single window frame. Is it possible for a plugin to be written which lets you open multiple windows and place them where you want?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>Try Window->New Window.
>>>>
>>>>See also the preference Workbench > Perspectives > Open new perspective
>>>>in new window.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>But that opens a 'perspective' in a new window. Typically a perspective consists of many components (a project list, an editor,
>>>console, search, etc.) I don't want new perspectives in a new window, I want an individual component in a new window. I want a
>>>window with just a console, or just JUnit. As far as I can tell I can't do that.
>>>James Howe mailto:jwh@riskmetrics.com
>>>RiskMetrics Group, Inc.
>>>
>>Try dreagging a tab outside the eclipse window, then drop it. Instant
>>floating view in its own window. I have dual monitors and this is
>>invaluable. Elcipse even remembers their location between restarts.
>>
>
>
> Either I'm doing something wrong, have some preference setting set somewhere, or something, but I can't seem to do what you
> describe. If I drag a window I can drop in on the bar on the right side, where it creates a 'fast view'. Clicking on this view
> brings the window up on top of the other windows in the main window, but I can't move or resize it. It is in a fixed position. If
> I attempt to move it, it will end up becoming a tab on one of the other windows if I drop it. I'm running Eclipse 2.0.
>
> James Howe mailto:jwh@riskmetrics.com
> RiskMetrics Group, Inc.
>
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #583678 is a reply to message #27314] Sat, 28 September 2002 18:22 Go to previous message
Andrew McCullough is currently offline Andrew McCulloughFriend
Messages: 26
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
I believe this only worked in Eclipse 1.0/WSAD 4.X. I am not sure why the
feature was removed. It also didn't work with editors, by the way.

-Andrew

"Ian Graham" <ian@kelman.com> wrote in message
news:3D93B211.3080800@kelman.com...
> I can't get this working either, and it would make a HUGE difference to
> me. Could it be platform-dependent? I'm on a Solaris system, and all I
> get is a no-entry symbol as soon as I've moved the window frame outside
> the Eclipse window.
>
> I have at least discovered that I can rearrange the editors within the
> Eclipse window, but I would really really like to have free-floating
> editors and other views.
>
> Ian
>
> James Howe wrote:
>
> > On Thu, 26 Sep 2002 09:57:14 +0100, user@domain.invalid wrote:
> >
> >
> >>James Howe wrote:
> >>
> >>>On Tue, 17 Sep 2002 16:42:34 -0400, John Arthorne
<john_arthorne@o_ti.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>>There are many features which I really miss, but one of the things
which really bugs me is the way all my windows are confined to a
> >>>>>single window frame. Is it possible for a plugin to be written which
lets you open multiple windows and place them where you want?
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>Try Window->New Window.
> >>>>
> >>>>See also the preference Workbench > Perspectives > Open new
perspective
> >>>>in new window.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>But that opens a 'perspective' in a new window. Typically a
perspective consists of many components (a project list, an editor,
> >>>console, search, etc.) I don't want new perspectives in a new window,
I want an individual component in a new window. I want a
> >>>window with just a console, or just JUnit. As far as I can tell I
can't do that.
> >>>James Howe mailto:jwh@riskmetrics.com
> >>>RiskMetrics Group, Inc.
> >>>
> >>Try dreagging a tab outside the eclipse window, then drop it. Instant
> >>floating view in its own window. I have dual monitors and this is
> >>invaluable. Elcipse even remembers their location between restarts.
> >>
> >
> >
> > Either I'm doing something wrong, have some preference setting set
somewhere, or something, but I can't seem to do what you
> > describe. If I drag a window I can drop in on the bar on the right
side, where it creates a 'fast view'. Clicking on this view
> > brings the window up on top of the other windows in the main window, but
I can't move or resize it. It is in a fixed position. If
> > I attempt to move it, it will end up becoming a tab on one of the other
windows if I drop it. I'm running Eclipse 2.0.
> >
> > James Howe mailto:jwh@riskmetrics.com
> > RiskMetrics Group, Inc.
> >
>
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #583963 is a reply to message #28231] Thu, 03 October 2002 03:28 Go to previous message
Renaud Waldura is currently offline Renaud WalduraFriend
Messages: 4
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
You guys really need to add your comments to bug 22881!
http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=22881



"Andrew McCullough" <mccull1@us.ibm.com> wrote in message
news:an4qmn$oj0$1@rogue.oti.com...
>
> I believe this only worked in Eclipse 1.0/WSAD 4.X. I am not sure why the
> feature was removed. It also didn't work with editors, by the way.
>
> -Andrew
>
> "Ian Graham" <ian@kelman.com> wrote in message
> news:3D93B211.3080800@kelman.com...
> > I can't get this working either, and it would make a HUGE difference to
> > me. Could it be platform-dependent? I'm on a Solaris system, and all I
> > get is a no-entry symbol as soon as I've moved the window frame outside
> > the Eclipse window.
> >
> > I have at least discovered that I can rearrange the editors within the
> > Eclipse window, but I would really really like to have free-floating
> > editors and other views.
> >
> > Ian
> >
> > James Howe wrote:
> >
> > > On Thu, 26 Sep 2002 09:57:14 +0100, user@domain.invalid wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >>James Howe wrote:
> > >>
> > >>>On Tue, 17 Sep 2002 16:42:34 -0400, John Arthorne
> <john_arthorne@o_ti.com> wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>>>There are many features which I really miss, but one of the things
> which really bugs me is the way all my windows are confined to a
> > >>>>>single window frame. Is it possible for a plugin to be written
which
> lets you open multiple windows and place them where you want?
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>Try Window->New Window.
> > >>>>
> > >>>>See also the preference Workbench > Perspectives > Open new
> perspective
> > >>>>in new window.
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>
> > >>>But that opens a 'perspective' in a new window. Typically a
> perspective consists of many components (a project list, an editor,
> > >>>console, search, etc.) I don't want new perspectives in a new
window,
> I want an individual component in a new window. I want a
> > >>>window with just a console, or just JUnit. As far as I can tell I
> can't do that.
> > >>>James Howe mailto:jwh@riskmetrics.com
> > >>>RiskMetrics Group, Inc.
> > >>>
> > >>Try dreagging a tab outside the eclipse window, then drop it. Instant
> > >>floating view in its own window. I have dual monitors and this is
> > >>invaluable. Elcipse even remembers their location between restarts.
> > >>
> > >
> > >
> > > Either I'm doing something wrong, have some preference setting set
> somewhere, or something, but I can't seem to do what you
> > > describe. If I drag a window I can drop in on the bar on the right
> side, where it creates a 'fast view'. Clicking on this view
> > > brings the window up on top of the other windows in the main window,
but
> I can't move or resize it. It is in a fixed position. If
> > > I attempt to move it, it will end up becoming a tab on one of the
other
> windows if I drop it. I'm running Eclipse 2.0.
> > >
> > > James Howe mailto:jwh@riskmetrics.com
> > > RiskMetrics Group, Inc.
> > >
> >
>
>
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #587405 is a reply to message #24249] Tue, 10 December 2002 20:29 Go to previous message
Andy Czerwonka is currently offline Andy CzerwonkaFriend
Messages: 42
Registered: July 2009
Member
Martin Möbius wrote:
> AmSun, 15 Sep 2002 15:38:09 +0000 (UTC), deepblue_70@hotmail.com
> (John) wrote:
>
>
>>I really don't understand the reason for wich IBM doesn't want support
>>and develope anymore Visual Age for Java. Eclipse is a hybrid between
>>Visual Age and JBuilder and so I find Eclipse is a worst tool than VAJ. A
>>lot
>>of good features like the versioning system, copying the classes, the
>>layout,
>>the kind of debugging, the way you run a class etc. have been lost with
>>Eclipse.
>
>
> We got one big plus. You can change your jdk when ever you want. Its
> no possible for a IDE to survive I developers have to wait >6 month to
> use the newest JDK. The code assist got better and its quite cheap.
> The only thing I miss from time to time is moving methods.
Fefactoring capabilities allow you to do this in eclipse. There are
soooo many plug-ins out there. The beauty about Eclipse and IDE's like
NetBeans is it's architecture allowing extensions. It was almost
impossible using VAJ.

>
>
>>We are working "officially" with JBuilder but some of us continue
>>to use Visual Age, because it is more powerful and "easier" to use then
>>JBuilder.
>
>
> The ease of use is always in the eye of the beholder. Emacs user will
> be faster with their familiar environment. But I would be slow like a
> snail with it.
>
>
>>Now our tech support intend soon to "officialize" Eclipse, but I and other
>>people still think that we have really lost a very powerful tool like
>>Visual Age for Java.
>>
>>I really hope IBM change its idea, or at least that Eclipse retrieve all
>>the good things of Visual Age.
>
>
> VAJ is dead, no way back. Try to stay here, to get all the best from
> VAJ into eclipse jdt.
>
> martin
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #587415 is a reply to message #37811] Wed, 11 December 2002 01:43 Go to previous message
Scott Stanchfield is currently offline Scott StanchfieldFriend
Messages: 263
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
Actually, I find the debugging almost identical to (if not better than) VAJ.
Eclipse has all the same options (conditional breakpoints, break for
threads, break on exceptions, inspecting data, hot replace, etc).

Running is slightly different, but not that far off. I find it easier in
Eclipse, especially configuring the runtime options.

If you find something seems to be missing from Eclipse, please let us all
know. In many cases, it may just be slightly hidden; in other cases, it's
really missing, and we can always request features.

Take care,
-- Scott

============================================================ ==
Scott Stanchfield scott@javadude.com http://javadude.com

Lead author of "Effective VisualAge for Java, Version 3"
http://javadude.com/evaj

VisualAge for Java Tips and Tricks http://javadude.com/vaj
Visit for Java Enlightenment! http://www.jguru.com
============================================================ ==

"Andy Czerwonka" <czerwonka@arcticpenguin.ca> wrote in message
news:3DF64EBA.5040604@arcticpenguin.ca...
> Martin M
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #587448 is a reply to message #37842] Wed, 11 December 2002 13:56 Go to previous message
Darin Swanson is currently offline Darin SwansonFriend
Messages: 2386
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
And don't forget...you can pick the JRE / JDK to run / debug against.

Darins

"Scott Stanchfield" <scott@javadude.com> wrote in message
news:at64u1$a88$1@rogue.oti.com...
> Actually, I find the debugging almost identical to (if not better than)
VAJ.
> Eclipse has all the same options (conditional breakpoints, break for
> threads, break on exceptions, inspecting data, hot replace, etc).
>
> Running is slightly different, but not that far off. I find it easier in
> Eclipse, especially configuring the runtime options.
>
> If you find something seems to be missing from Eclipse, please let us all
> know. In many cases, it may just be slightly hidden; in other cases, it's
> really missing, and we can always request features.
>
> Take care,
> -- Scott
>
> ============================================================ ==
> Scott Stanchfield scott@javadude.com http://javadude.com
>
> Lead author of "Effective VisualAge for Java, Version 3"
> http://javadude.com/evaj
>
> VisualAge for Java Tips and Tricks http://javadude.com/vaj
> Visit for Java Enlightenment! http://www.jguru.com
> ============================================================ ==
>
> "Andy Czerwonka" <czerwonka@arcticpenguin.ca> wrote in message
> news:3DF64EBA.5040604@arcticpenguin.ca...
> > Martin M
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #588084 is a reply to message #37909] Sat, 28 December 2002 02:45 Go to previous message
Steven Green is currently offline Steven GreenFriend
Messages: 5
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Personally, I liked VAJ, but I prefer eclipse ... even without a GUI
builder, which I think Eclipse really needs (I like to do quick mockups and
to quickly test new components I am not used to; like to see the code that
they generate). I love the refactoring (wish I had this kind of change
ability years ago it really fits my style) Additionally, it really seems
lighter weight than VAJ which was quickly becoming a resource hog. I like
Netbeans for a variety of tasks and will use it if I need to do a quick GUI
or XML work, but beyond that things move much more quickly for me in
Eclipse than in the other environments.

Add a GUI builder and VI emulation and I will be much happier.

-- Steve

> And don't forget...you can pick the JRE / JDK to run / debug against.
>
> Darins
>
> "Scott Stanchfield" <scott@javadude.com> wrote in message
> news:at64u1$a88$1@rogue.oti.com...
>> Actually, I find the debugging almost identical to (if not better than)
> VAJ.
>> Eclipse has all the same options (conditional breakpoints, break for
>> threads, break on exceptions, inspecting data, hot replace, etc).
>>
>> Running is slightly different, but not that far off. I find it easier in
>> Eclipse, especially configuring the runtime options.
>>
>> If you find something seems to be missing from Eclipse, please let us all
>> know. In many cases, it may just be slightly hidden; in other cases, it's
>> really missing, and we can always request features.
>>
>> Take care,
>> -- Scott
>>
>> ============================================================ ==
>> Scott Stanchfield scott@javadude.com http://javadude.com
>>
>> Lead author of "Effective VisualAge for Java, Version 3"
>> http://javadude.com/evaj
>>
>> VisualAge for Java Tips and Tricks http://javadude.com/vaj
>> Visit for Java Enlightenment! http://www.jguru.com
>> ============================================================ ==
>>
>> "Andy Czerwonka" <czerwonka@arcticpenguin.ca> wrote in message
>> news:3DF64EBA.5040604@arcticpenguin.ca...
>> > Martin Möbius wrote:
>> > > AmSun, 15 Sep 2002 15:38:09 +0000 (UTC), deepblue_70@hotmail.com
>> > > (John) wrote:
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >>I really don't understand the reason for wich IBM doesn't want
>> > >>support and develope anymore Visual Age for Java. Eclipse is a hybrid
>> > >>between Visual Age and JBuilder and so I find Eclipse is a worst tool
>> > >>than
> VAJ.
>> A
>> > >>lot
>> > >>of good features like the versioning system, copying the classes, the
>> > >>layout,
>> > >>the kind of debugging, the way you run a class etc. have been lost
> with
>> > >>Eclipse.
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > We got one big plus. You can change your jdk when ever you want. Its
>> > > no possible for a IDE to survive I developers have to wait >6 month
>> > > to use the newest JDK. The code assist got better and its quite
>> > > cheap. The only thing I miss from time to time is moving methods.
>> > Fefactoring capabilities allow you to do this in eclipse. There are
>> > soooo many plug-ins out there. The beauty about Eclipse and IDE's like
>> > NetBeans is it's architecture allowing extensions. It was almost
>> > impossible using VAJ.
>> >
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >>We are working "officially" with JBuilder but some of us continue
>> > >>to use Visual Age, because it is more powerful and "easier" to use
> then
>> > >>JBuilder.
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > The ease of use is always in the eye of the beholder. Emacs user will
>> > > be faster with their familiar environment. But I would be slow like a
>> > > snail with it.
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >>Now our tech support intend soon to "officialize" Eclipse, but I and
>> other
>> > >>people still think that we have really lost a very powerful tool like
>> > >>Visual Age for Java.
>> > >>
>> > >>I really hope IBM change its idea, or at least that Eclipse retrieve
> all
>> > >>the good things of Visual Age.
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > VAJ is dead, no way back. Try to stay here, to get all the best from
>> > > VAJ into eclipse jdt.
>> > >
>> > > martin
>> >
>>
>>

--
Steven Green
steven.green30@verizon.net
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #588224 is a reply to message #39784] Tue, 31 December 2002 17:30 Go to previous message
Kevin Duffey is currently offline Kevin DuffeyFriend
Messages: 304
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
I have to agree with another post I read not too long ago. Adding a GUI
builder would be great IF it doesn't bloat the hell out of our code, and
modifying the code doesn't affect the GUI. In other words, the GUI builder
should be able to take any application and "reverse engineer" it into
itself. JBuilder bloats the hell out of source and you can't ever modify it
outside of the JBuilder environment if you want to continue working in
JBuilder GUI. If the GUI editor can't be added in this manner, than leave it
out. And, it must not bloat code. It should be built in such a way to
optimize the source it is building. I mean, its one thing when you are
writing an app to optimize after you find problems. But a code generator
should ALWAYS optimize the code from the get go.

Now, if someone can tell me how you choose the different JDK to compile
against, that would be great. I see the global preference to change the JDK
..class output (from 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4), but I don't see where I can
select which JRE runs the code when I run it! I currently use my ant build
script to build it, and then a simple .bat batch file to launch it. Of
course, I am not doing full development inside of Eclipse in this manner,
because I don't use debugging, the Build All, and so forth, but I do get the
code completion and other features that speed up development.


"Steven Green" <steven.green30@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:auj1jn$hsk$1@rogue.oti.com...
> Personally, I liked VAJ, but I prefer eclipse ... even without a GUI
> builder, which I think Eclipse really needs (I like to do quick mockups
and
> to quickly test new components I am not used to; like to see the code that
> they generate). I love the refactoring (wish I had this kind of change
> ability years ago it really fits my style) Additionally, it really seems
> lighter weight than VAJ which was quickly becoming a resource hog. I like
> Netbeans for a variety of tasks and will use it if I need to do a quick
GUI
> or XML work, but beyond that things move much more quickly for me in
> Eclipse than in the other environments.
>
> Add a GUI builder and VI emulation and I will be much happier.
>
> -- Steve
>
> > And don't forget...you can pick the JRE / JDK to run / debug against.
> >
> > Darins
> >
> > "Scott Stanchfield" <scott@javadude.com> wrote in message
> > news:at64u1$a88$1@rogue.oti.com...
> >> Actually, I find the debugging almost identical to (if not better than)
> > VAJ.
> >> Eclipse has all the same options (conditional breakpoints, break for
> >> threads, break on exceptions, inspecting data, hot replace, etc).
> >>
> >> Running is slightly different, but not that far off. I find it easier
in
> >> Eclipse, especially configuring the runtime options.
> >>
> >> If you find something seems to be missing from Eclipse, please let us
all
> >> know. In many cases, it may just be slightly hidden; in other cases,
it's
> >> really missing, and we can always request features.
> >>
> >> Take care,
> >> -- Scott
> >>
> >> ============================================================ ==
> >> Scott Stanchfield scott@javadude.com http://javadude.com
> >>
> >> Lead author of "Effective VisualAge for Java, Version 3"
> >> http://javadude.com/evaj
> >>
> >> VisualAge for Java Tips and Tricks http://javadude.com/vaj
> >> Visit for Java Enlightenment! http://www.jguru.com
> >> ============================================================ ==
> >>
> >> "Andy Czerwonka" <czerwonka@arcticpenguin.ca> wrote in message
> >> news:3DF64EBA.5040604@arcticpenguin.ca...
> >> > Martin M
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #588234 is a reply to message #40187] Tue, 31 December 2002 22:25 Go to previous message
Ed Burnette is currently offline Ed BurnetteFriend
Messages: 279
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
"Kevin" <supreme_java_guru_1@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:ausjjv$21e$1@rogue.oti.com...
> Now, if someone can tell me how you choose the different JDK to compile
> against, that would be great. I see the global preference to change the
JDK
> .class output (from 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4), but I don't see where I can
> select which JRE runs the code when I run it!

In the launch configuration, 4th tab called JRE sets that (in Eclipse
2.1M4). To make a launch configuration use the Run... command in the Run
menu.

> In other words, the GUI builder
> should be able to take any application and "reverse engineer" it into
> itself.

Seems unlikely. Even the GUI builder in WSAD requires a certain style of
code (e.g., code that was output by a GUI builder).
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #588297 is a reply to message #40210] Thu, 02 January 2003 03:56 Go to previous message
Steven Green is currently offline Steven GreenFriend
Messages: 5
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Ed Burnette wrote:

>
>> In other words, the GUI builder
>> should be able to take any application and "reverse engineer" it into
>> itself.
>
> Seems unlikely. Even the GUI builder in WSAD requires a certain style of
> code (e.g., code that was output by a GUI builder).

I had considered making a simple panel creator at one point, but do not have
the time to do it.

I was thinking of a tool that would create panels quickly but not matter if
you wanted to modify the heck out of the code and did not maintain extra
files to boot.

I figure I will pass along a 20k view of what I was thinking.

Create a panel tool that generates a list of fields, names, properties and
locations using standard naming convention. Compile the panel and extend it
to add user functionality. Reload the panel from the class, yes not the
Java source, using standard naming conventions and types rebuild the panel
from scratch using reflection.

Don't use these irritating XML forms and other things. If you want to modify
the code, don't modify it at all, extend it. The only purpose of this tool
would be to create the panel and layout, to add implementation you would
extend the class. The base class could be extended and reloaded into the
builder and it could rediscover and rebuild its properties through
reflection.

If you wanted to hide the details, and preclude recompilation of the class,
offer an option to generate the class without the reload properties built
in.

I may still make my panel making tool, but if I get to it any time soon, I'd
be really surprised.

--
Steven Green
steven.green30@verizon.net
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #589001 is a reply to message #37842] Tue, 21 January 2003 15:06 Go to previous message
Rick Strong is currently offline Rick StrongFriend
Messages: 14
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
This may be a bit late to be joining this thread, but:
I really liked VAJava - I like Eclipse even more, and would
be happy to cut over completely to the new stuff, except
that there is no visual editor. Everything else is just
fine.

I happen to be a big fan of visual editors - they save me
a great deal of work writing boring code to manage the
appearence of an application, and allow me to prototype
quickly. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words,
and this can be said (sometimes) of code as well.

For some reason the whole idea of a visual editor seems to
have been relegated to the OPTIONAL bin, both by IBM and
by quite a few developers who seem to have little or no use
for such a facility (i.e. 'real programmers don't NEED a
visual editor') Maybe it's due to the server-side focus of
so much of recent Java development...

I disagree with this approach, especially as I have a project
written with VAJ that has quite a few visual classes, which i
would like to migrate to Eclipse or WSW without having to pay
$5K (?) for WSAD just to get a rudimentary V. 1.0 visual editor.
Right now we're using CodePro from Instantiations as a bridge to
the VAJ editor, but this can't go on forever.

Eclipse could sure use a visual editor of its own! Heck, if
NetBeans can do it...

Rick Strong
Project Leader
Columbia University



Scott Stanchfield wrote:
> Actually, I find the debugging almost identical to (if not better than) VAJ.
> Eclipse has all the same options (conditional breakpoints, break for
> threads, break on exceptions, inspecting data, hot replace, etc).
>
> Running is slightly different, but not that far off. I find it easier in
> Eclipse, especially configuring the runtime options.
>
> If you find something seems to be missing from Eclipse, please let us all
> know. In many cases, it may just be slightly hidden; in other cases, it's
> really missing, and we can always request features.
>
> Take care,
> -- Scott
>
> ============================================================ ==
> Scott Stanchfield scott@javadude.com http://javadude.com
>
> Lead author of "Effective VisualAge for Java, Version 3"
> http://javadude.com/evaj
>
> VisualAge for Java Tips and Tricks http://javadude.com/vaj
> Visit for Java Enlightenment! http://www.jguru.com
> ============================================================ ==
>
> "Andy Czerwonka" <czerwonka@arcticpenguin.ca> wrote in message
> news:3DF64EBA.5040604@arcticpenguin.ca...
>
>>Martin Möbius wrote:
>>
>>>AmSun, 15 Sep 2002 15:38:09 +0000 (UTC), deepblue_70@hotmail.com
>>>(John) wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>I really don't understand the reason for wich IBM doesn't want support
>>>>and develope anymore Visual Age for Java. Eclipse is a hybrid between
>>>>Visual Age and JBuilder and so I find Eclipse is a worst tool than VAJ.
>
> A
>
>>>>lot
>>>>of good features like the versioning system, copying the classes, the
>>>>layout,
>>>>the kind of debugging, the way you run a class etc. have been lost with
>>>>Eclipse.
>>>
>>>
>>>We got one big plus. You can change your jdk when ever you want. Its
>>>no possible for a IDE to survive I developers have to wait >6 month to
>>>use the newest JDK. The code assist got better and its quite cheap.
>>>The only thing I miss from time to time is moving methods.
>>
>>Fefactoring capabilities allow you to do this in eclipse. There are
>>soooo many plug-ins out there. The beauty about Eclipse and IDE's like
>>NetBeans is it's architecture allowing extensions. It was almost
>>impossible using VAJ.
>>
>>
>>>
>>>>We are working "officially" with JBuilder but some of us continue
>>>>to use Visual Age, because it is more powerful and "easier" to use then
>>>>JBuilder.
>>>
>>>
>>>The ease of use is always in the eye of the beholder. Emacs user will
>>>be faster with their familiar environment. But I would be slow like a
>>>snail with it.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Now our tech support intend soon to "officialize" Eclipse, but I and
>
> other
>
>>>>people still think that we have really lost a very powerful tool like
>>>>Visual Age for Java.
>>>>
>>>>I really hope IBM change its idea, or at least that Eclipse retrieve all
>>>>the good things of Visual Age.
>>>
>>>
>>>VAJ is dead, no way back. Try to stay here, to get all the best from
>>>VAJ into eclipse jdt.
>>>
>>>martin
>>
>
>
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #589028 is a reply to message #42574] Tue, 21 January 2003 16:43 Go to previous message
David Whiteman is currently offline David WhitemanFriend
Messages: 166
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
This has been discussed quite a bit on eclipse.tools and the SWT mailing
list

"Rick Strong" <strongr@spam.be.gone.childpsych.columbia.edu> wrote in
message news:b0jmio$jn1$1@rogue.oti.com...
> This may be a bit late to be joining this thread, but:
> I really liked VAJava - I like Eclipse even more, and would
> be happy to cut over completely to the new stuff, except
> that there is no visual editor. Everything else is just
> fine.
>
> I happen to be a big fan of visual editors - they save me
> a great deal of work writing boring code to manage the
> appearence of an application, and allow me to prototype
> quickly. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words,
> and this can be said (sometimes) of code as well.
>
> For some reason the whole idea of a visual editor seems to
> have been relegated to the OPTIONAL bin, both by IBM and
> by quite a few developers who seem to have little or no use
> for such a facility (i.e. 'real programmers don't NEED a
> visual editor') Maybe it's due to the server-side focus of
> so much of recent Java development...
>
> I disagree with this approach, especially as I have a project
> written with VAJ that has quite a few visual classes, which i
> would like to migrate to Eclipse or WSW without having to pay
> $5K (?) for WSAD just to get a rudimentary V. 1.0 visual editor.
> Right now we're using CodePro from Instantiations as a bridge to
> the VAJ editor, but this can't go on forever.
>
> Eclipse could sure use a visual editor of its own! Heck, if
> NetBeans can do it...
>
> Rick Strong
> Project Leader
> Columbia University
>
>
>
> Scott Stanchfield wrote:
> > Actually, I find the debugging almost identical to (if not better than)
VAJ.
> > Eclipse has all the same options (conditional breakpoints, break for
> > threads, break on exceptions, inspecting data, hot replace, etc).
> >
> > Running is slightly different, but not that far off. I find it easier in
> > Eclipse, especially configuring the runtime options.
> >
> > If you find something seems to be missing from Eclipse, please let us
all
> > know. In many cases, it may just be slightly hidden; in other cases,
it's
> > really missing, and we can always request features.
> >
> > Take care,
> > -- Scott
> >
> > ============================================================ ==
> > Scott Stanchfield scott@javadude.com http://javadude.com
> >
> > Lead author of "Effective VisualAge for Java, Version 3"
> > http://javadude.com/evaj
> >
> > VisualAge for Java Tips and Tricks http://javadude.com/vaj
> > Visit for Java Enlightenment! http://www.jguru.com
> > ============================================================ ==
> >
> > "Andy Czerwonka" <czerwonka@arcticpenguin.ca> wrote in message
> > news:3DF64EBA.5040604@arcticpenguin.ca...
> >
> >>Martin M
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #589065 is a reply to message #42635] Tue, 21 January 2003 19:21 Go to previous message
Rick Strong is currently offline Rick StrongFriend
Messages: 14
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Thanks, yes, I have seen a few of the discussions, but so far what I've seen
doesn't really help me much. I gather there's a 1st-cut IBM visual editor,
and a few v. 0.x open-source projects...nothing really up to the standard
of the VCE. Have I missed something?

Rick Strong
Project Leader
Columbia University


David Whiteman wrote:
> This has been discussed quite a bit on eclipse.tools and the SWT mailing
> list
>
> "Rick Strong" <strongr@spam.be.gone.childpsych.columbia.edu> wrote in
> message news:b0jmio$jn1$1@rogue.oti.com...
>
>>This may be a bit late to be joining this thread, but:
>>I really liked VAJava - I like Eclipse even more, and would
>>be happy to cut over completely to the new stuff, except
>>that there is no visual editor. Everything else is just
>>fine.
>>
>>I happen to be a big fan of visual editors - they save me
>>a great deal of work writing boring code to manage the
>>appearence of an application, and allow me to prototype
>>quickly. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words,
>>and this can be said (sometimes) of code as well.
>>
>>For some reason the whole idea of a visual editor seems to
>>have been relegated to the OPTIONAL bin, both by IBM and
>>by quite a few developers who seem to have little or no use
>>for such a facility (i.e. 'real programmers don't NEED a
>>visual editor') Maybe it's due to the server-side focus of
>>so much of recent Java development...
>>
>>I disagree with this approach, especially as I have a project
>>written with VAJ that has quite a few visual classes, which i
>>would like to migrate to Eclipse or WSW without having to pay
>>$5K (?) for WSAD just to get a rudimentary V. 1.0 visual editor.
>>Right now we're using CodePro from Instantiations as a bridge to
>>the VAJ editor, but this can't go on forever.
>>
>>Eclipse could sure use a visual editor of its own! Heck, if
>>NetBeans can do it...
>>
>>Rick Strong
>>Project Leader
>>Columbia University
>>
>>
>>
>>Scott Stanchfield wrote:
>>
>>>Actually, I find the debugging almost identical to (if not better than)
>
> VAJ.
>
>>>Eclipse has all the same options (conditional breakpoints, break for
>>>threads, break on exceptions, inspecting data, hot replace, etc).
>>>
>>>Running is slightly different, but not that far off. I find it easier in
>>>Eclipse, especially configuring the runtime options.
>>>
>>>If you find something seems to be missing from Eclipse, please let us
>
> all
>
>>>know. In many cases, it may just be slightly hidden; in other cases,
>
> it's
>
>>>really missing, and we can always request features.
>>>
>>>Take care,
>>>-- Scott
>>>
>>> ============================================================ ==
>>>Scott Stanchfield scott@javadude.com http://javadude.com
>>>
>>>Lead author of "Effective VisualAge for Java, Version 3"
>>> http://javadude.com/evaj
>>>
>>>VisualAge for Java Tips and Tricks http://javadude.com/vaj
>>>Visit for Java Enlightenment! http://www.jguru.com
>>> ============================================================ ==
>>>
>>>"Andy Czerwonka" <czerwonka@arcticpenguin.ca> wrote in message
>>>news:3DF64EBA.5040604@arcticpenguin.ca...
>>>
>>>
>>>>Martin Möbius wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>AmSun, 15 Sep 2002 15:38:09 +0000 (UTC), deepblue_70@hotmail.com
>>>>>(John) wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>I really don't understand the reason for wich IBM doesn't want support
>>>>>>and develope anymore Visual Age for Java. Eclipse is a hybrid between
>>>>>>Visual Age and JBuilder and so I find Eclipse is a worst tool than
>
> VAJ.
>
>>>A
>>>
>>>
>>>>>>lot
>>>>>>of good features like the versioning system, copying the classes, the
>>>>>>layout,
>>>>>>the kind of debugging, the way you run a class etc. have been lost
>
> with
>
>>>>>>Eclipse.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>We got one big plus. You can change your jdk when ever you want. Its
>>>>>no possible for a IDE to survive I developers have to wait >6 month to
>>>>>use the newest JDK. The code assist got better and its quite cheap.
>>>>>The only thing I miss from time to time is moving methods.
>>>>
>>>>Fefactoring capabilities allow you to do this in eclipse. There are
>>>>soooo many plug-ins out there. The beauty about Eclipse and IDE's like
>>>>NetBeans is it's architecture allowing extensions. It was almost
>>>>impossible using VAJ.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>We are working "officially" with JBuilder but some of us continue
>>>>>>to use Visual Age, because it is more powerful and "easier" to use
>
> then
>
>>>>>>JBuilder.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>The ease of use is always in the eye of the beholder. Emacs user will
>>>>>be faster with their familiar environment. But I would be slow like a
>>>>>snail with it.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>Now our tech support intend soon to "officialize" Eclipse, but I and
>>>
>>>other
>>>
>>>
>>>>>>people still think that we have really lost a very powerful tool like
>>>>>>Visual Age for Java.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I really hope IBM change its idea, or at least that Eclipse retrieve
>
> all
>
>>>>>>the good things of Visual Age.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>VAJ is dead, no way back. Try to stay here, to get all the best from
>>>>>VAJ into eclipse jdt.
>>>>>
>>>>>martin
>>>>
>>>
>
>
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #589074 is a reply to message #42700] Tue, 21 January 2003 20:12 Go to previous message
David Whiteman is currently offline David WhitemanFriend
Messages: 166
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
"Rick Strong" <strongr@spam.be.gone.childpsych.columbia.edu> wrote in
message news:b0k5gq$vhc$1@rogue.oti.com...
> Thanks, yes, I have seen a few of the discussions, but so far what I've
seen
> doesn't really help me much. I gather there's a 1st-cut IBM visual editor,
> and a few v. 0.x open-source projects...nothing really up to the standard
> of the VCE. Have I missed something?

I haven't tried the IBM one yet to know whether it's up to the standard of
the VCE. I don't get the impression that any of the open-source projects is
anywhere near that point though.

In general though, your question would be better posed on that newsgroup
since this particular one has a very narrow focus and does not get the
visibility the other one gets.

David
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #589081 is a reply to message #42700] Tue, 21 January 2003 21:23 Go to previous message
Colin Sharples is currently offline Colin SharplesFriend
Messages: 61
Registered: July 2009
Member
Rick Strong wrote:
> Thanks, yes, I have seen a few of the discussions, but so far what I've
> seen
> doesn't really help me much. I gather there's a 1st-cut IBM visual editor,
> and a few v. 0.x open-source projects...nothing really up to the standard
> of the VCE. Have I missed something?

The Java Visual Editor that is currently shipping with WSAD is *very*
good (but then I would say that, wouldn't I?).

I have never been a fan of such things in the past, but I am currently
converting a lot of my code to use the JVE because it is streets ahead
of anything that's been around before.

If you think Eclipse would be better with a visual editor, you could
always lobby IBM to donate the JVE to the Eclipse project. No guarantee
that they'd do that, of course, but if you don't ask...

--
Colin M Sharples/New Zealand/IBM, IT Architect, IBM Global Services
sharples@nz.ibm.com, t: 64-4-5769853, m: 64-21-402085, f: 64-4-5765616
"Sometimes I think the surest sign intelligent life exists
elsewhere in the Universe is that it's never tried to contact us"
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #589135 is a reply to message #42762] Wed, 22 January 2003 15:04 Go to previous message
Rick Strong is currently offline Rick StrongFriend
Messages: 14
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
That's interesting (both points.) How much effort have you found it to be
to convert a VCE-generated class to its JVE equivalent? (I usually keep
visual connections to a minimum, just use them to connect components to
events, nothing fancy...)

(and I DO think it would be a great idea to donate the JVE to Eclipse.
after all, VAJ is available in a pro version for under $100 complete
with the VCE. A low-end Eclipse or WSW offering with a visual editor
would be VERY attractive!)

Where's a good place/person to lobby for this?

Thanks,

Rick Strong

Colin Sharples wrote:
> Rick Strong wrote:
>
>> Thanks, yes, I have seen a few of the discussions, but so far what
>> I've seen
>> doesn't really help me much. I gather there's a 1st-cut IBM visual
>> editor,
>> and a few v. 0.x open-source projects...nothing really up to the standard
>> of the VCE. Have I missed something?
>
>
> The Java Visual Editor that is currently shipping with WSAD is *very*
> good (but then I would say that, wouldn't I?).
>
> I have never been a fan of such things in the past, but I am currently
> converting a lot of my code to use the JVE because it is streets ahead
> of anything that's been around before.
>
> If you think Eclipse would be better with a visual editor, you could
> always lobby IBM to donate the JVE to the Eclipse project. No guarantee
> that they'd do that, of course, but if you don't ask...
>
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #589206 is a reply to message #42887] Wed, 22 January 2003 21:42 Go to previous message
Colin Sharples is currently offline Colin SharplesFriend
Messages: 61
Registered: July 2009
Member
Rick Strong wrote:
> That's interesting (both points.) How much effort have you found it to be
> to convert a VCE-generated class to its JVE equivalent? (I usually keep
> visual connections to a minimum, just use them to connect components to
> events, nothing fancy...)

JVE doesn't at present have visual connections. I thought they were a
waste of time, so I don't miss them, but a lot of ex-VCE users seem to
be unhappy that they are not included.

The JVE parses the Java source code to construct the design canvas, so
it's simply a matter of ensuring that your code follows the JVE coding
patterns, and everything will work. I don't have any VCE-generated code
(all mine is hand-written), so I can't comment on how easy it is to
convert. For my hand-written stuff, it has largely been straightforward,
although I've had a fair amount of work to convert some of my trickier
techniques for cutting down code into the visual style. I've had very
good results so far.

> (and I DO think it would be a great idea to donate the JVE to Eclipse.
> after all, VAJ is available in a pro version for under $100 complete
> with the VCE. A low-end Eclipse or WSW offering with a visual editor
> would be VERY attractive!)
>
> Where's a good place/person to lobby for this?

Start on eclipse.tools - see if you can raise some interest there. Talk
to your local IBM rep, or have a look at WSDD on the ibm.com site.
Encourage others to do the same. As you can see from my sig, I can't
participate - publicly at least ;-)

All the best.

--
Colin M Sharples/New Zealand/IBM, IT Architect, IBM Global Services
sharples@nz.ibm.com, t: 64-4-5769853, m: 64-21-402085, f: 64-4-5765616
"Sometimes I think the surest sign intelligent life exists
elsewhere in the Universe is that it's never tried to contact us"
Re: I miss Visual Age for Java.... [message #598486 is a reply to message #42887] Wed, 23 February 2005 18:41 Go to previous message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: bob.objfac.com

There seems to be some missing information here. "Visual Editor Project
accepted IBM's visual editor for Java source code as the initial code
contribution." AFAIK, this _is_ the VCE from WSAD.

If you want to know how good it is in Eclipse, suggest you download and
try it.

Bob Foster

Rick Strong wrote:
> That's interesting (both points.) How much effort have you found it to be
> to convert a VCE-generated class to its JVE equivalent? (I usually keep
> visual connections to a minimum, just use them to connect components to
> events, nothing fancy...)
>
> (and I DO think it would be a great idea to donate the JVE to Eclipse.
> after all, VAJ is available in a pro version for under $100 complete
> with the VCE. A low-end Eclipse or WSW offering with a visual editor
> would be VERY attractive!)
>
> Where's a good place/person to lobby for this?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Rick Strong
>
> Colin Sharples wrote:
>
>> Rick Strong wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks, yes, I have seen a few of the discussions, but so far what
>>> I've seen
>>> doesn't really help me much. I gather there's a 1st-cut IBM visual
>>> editor,
>>> and a few v. 0.x open-source projects...nothing really up to the
>>> standard
>>> of the VCE. Have I missed something?
>>
>>
>>
>> The Java Visual Editor that is currently shipping with WSAD is *very*
>> good (but then I would say that, wouldn't I?).
>>
>> I have never been a fan of such things in the past, but I am currently
>> converting a lot of my code to use the JVE because it is streets ahead
>> of anything that's been around before.
>>
>> If you think Eclipse would be better with a visual editor, you could
>> always lobby IBM to donate the JVE to the Eclipse project. No
>> guarantee that they'd do that, of course, but if you don't ask...
>>
>
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