Article:		Eclipse Web Tools
Subject:		Is it so great?
Date:		2005-10-06 00:19:34
From:		Helm
I'm sorry, but I don't see it so great as it is described here. I have Eclipse WTP 0.7 and I cannot talk about much stability not user friendly interface. Yes it has many features, but it takes a lot of time to discover them and make them run. For example even in this version you cannot validate JSP pages which contains custom tags with exported variables such as some Struts tags. You can post a bug, but cannot expect any reply. I have very good experience with IntelliJ Idea IDE. Yes it is commercial, yes it hasn't as much features and plugins as Eclipse. But it has exactly that you need, easy accessible, easy rememberable. And this is productivity, and productivity matters. May be I'm to critical, but this is my feeling about Eclipse WTP. I'm looking forward to other posts to this article.

Showing messages 1 through 2 of 2.

• Is it so great?
  2005-10-06 08:13:00  lawrencemandel [View]
  
  
  I've heard a lot of feedback (some good, some bad) from users about WTP 0.7. Speaking to your concerns about stability and ease of use, as I wrote in the article, these are goals of the WTP project that we are continuing to work towards. Although we are continually evaluating our own work (I've opened several usability bugs against WTP 0.7 that should be addressed in WTP 1.0), a lot of the most useful suggestions come from people in the community like you. I'd encourage you to keep opening bugs. They aren't ignored. (If you feel a bug has been ignored please request further information from the owner. You're also welcome to cc me and I'll follow up with the owner.)
  
  I don't think you're being too critical but although criticism is useful it is much more useful to the project if you contribute your energy to fixing what you think it wrong. Contributing to the fix can involve simply opening a good bug or going further and contributing a code patch as many in the community have already done. If you're willing to be more involved (and you may already be a very active bug or code contributor) I'd welcome the help of someone with a critical eye.
  
  Lawrence
• Is it so great?
  2005-10-10 04:30:34  Helm [View]
  
  
  I'm glad to see your reaction. I would post my ideas to community as soon as I have a time. I like using open source projects, but in this case - when I'm comparing usability of Idea and Eclipse, it is somewhere else. I'm looking forward, to future development of Eclipse and I hope, that it would be more developer oriented in sense that:
  
  - I don't need visual wizard for everything
  - I don't need ten thousands of settings for everything
  
  - I want easy accessible and functionable most used functions (fe.: I have never seen better wise autofill (Ctrl-Space thing) as in Idea)
  - If it is not enough, I will do the difficult things in code or in config files of application, and IDE should not complicate this way of work (for example by autorewriting these app. configs)
  - I want to clearly see, what IDE is doing
  
  This is all. I won't write more here and I'd rather write to Eclipse community soon.