Java based IDE = Very bad IDEa

December 4, 2007 – 8:23 pm Tags: , ,

Have you ever used Eclipse or any Eclipse-based IDE, such as Zend Studio Neon or Aptana Studio?

All fine tools, but they have a big problem: Java

Note: this post is a bit old (late 2007), and IDEs have gotten better since then. For example, NetBeans 6.5 is a personal favorite of mine now. If you still want to read me bashing Java IDEs, feel free to continue reading!

Java is bad - why?

Java in itself is a fine programming language, but the problem comes from its nature as a language which requires a runtime.

If you’ve used any Eclipse-based IDE, you’ve probably noticed how it starts getting slower and slower when your project gets larger. With small projects the slowness is not even always noticeable.

Take Visual Studio 2005, my all time favorite IDE, as a comparison: It’s blazing fast no matter how large your project gets. Code-assist is instant etc.


Compare VS to Eclipse and you start noticing how everything takes longer: Starting the IDE, opening a project, opening a file, code-assist, even completing a word after hitting enter in assist is slower!

Want a non-Java PHP IDE? You’re out of luck

This is especially problematic in PHP IDE’s. Let’s name a few PHP IDEs:

  • Eclipse PDT: Java
  • Zend Studio: Java
  • Zend Studio Neon: Eclipse based

There actually is a Visual Studio plugin for PHP, but surprise surprise, it costs money to use after 30 days. Oh, not to mention that it isn’t as nearly as good as Zend Studio Neon is, even though Neon is still in beta.

What can we do?

So what options are there?

  • Wait until the IDE developers come to their senses and realize, that Java isn’t fit for heavy applications like IDE’s
  • Buy bigger, more powerful and faster PC’s with more RAM. Oh, by the way, I have 3 GB’s of it and that didn’t solve anything in this matter.
  • Suck it up, stop complaining and continue enduring slow applications

Option #3 isn’t a terribly bad choice. However when common tasks start getting slow, it can sum up to much more in total lost time. Not to mention that slow computers are known to cause stress!

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  1. 22 Responses to “Java based IDE = Very bad IDEa”

  2. Have you ever used another java-coded IDEs rather than Eclipse? I’m using IDEA (not for PHP but for Java) and there is no such a problem.

    By Sam on Dec 4, 2007

  3. I have used Netbeans and it was kind of slowish. I have to admit that it was on my older PC and I don’t know how it would run on my current box.

    By Jani Hartikainen on Dec 4, 2007

  4. + You can configure some memory-related settings. At least is is possible in IDEA and Zend Studio via config files ;)

    By Sam on Dec 4, 2007

  5. PHP Designer
    http://www.mpsoftware.dk/phpdesigner.php

    is pretty cool and very fast (not java based)

    the 2 things is bad about it
    it is not available on linux
    the pro version is cost some money ( but it worse )

    By Mohammad Elkersh on Dec 4, 2007

  6. sorry
    the pro version is “Worth” not worse :D

    By Mohammad Elkersh on Dec 4, 2007

  7. Nahh… don’t like it. It have no good code copmletion at all.

    By Sam on Dec 4, 2007

  8. I mean complex @phpdoc-style completion and inherited classes completion.

    By Sam on Dec 4, 2007

  9. Eclipse works fine with me, I don’t get the feeling of it being slow and I’ve “only” got 2 gb of ram.

    If workspaces are starting to slow down then I believe there are command line options to clean them up. Haven’t done that myself, but I believe that I read about it somewhere.

    Eclipse I think is as good as a big IDE can get with extensibility and all. The alternative would be something like Textmate - which isn’t bad at all - but a very different approach which makes for very different methods of development.

    By Pelle on Dec 5, 2007

  10. I decided to go and try to find some info on how to speed Eclipse up. It appears that it’s somewhat common that it can be slow at times.

    However, if you can, you can up the Java VM RAM limits to up the performance a bit.

    I haven’t tested this with any other Eclipse-based IDE than Zend Neon, but it seems to speed it up a bit:

    By changing the -Xms and -Xmx arguments in the eclipse.ini, or in Neon’s case, ZendNeon.ini, you can change the memory limits. Replace the text in ZendNeon.ini with the following if you think you have 1GB extra RAM for it to use:

    -startup
plugins\com.zend.php.startup_1.0.0.jar
-vmargs
-Xms1024M
-Xmx1024M

    Some more information about tweaking the memory limits can be found at this EclipseZone article on performance

    By Jani Hartikainen on Dec 6, 2007

  11. I guess I have to start using something better than HTML-Kit!

    By Icheb on Dec 6, 2007

  12. Well, I have to disagree a bit with your opinions.

    Java isn’t bad.

    First, on to your argument about java to not able to handle big load. Are you familiar with Java Enterprise edition? It is used in big (and i mean huge) enterprise software and it works very well in it.

    One of the main ideologies behind Java is portability. You can take eclipse, for example and be quite sure that it runs in all java environments.

    On the other hand, Visual Studio is proprietary stuff, and runs properly only in Windows. It is also developed by Microsoft. This means that the developers of the VS have had special knowledge about the inner workings of the operating system and thus they have been able to optimize their software to work fast on, yes, you guessed right: Windows. Of course Eclipse can’t be as fast, as it isn’t optimized to solely one platform and neither is the java runtime. So your comparison of VisualStudio to Eclipse really isn’t fair, it’s like comparing apples and oranges.

    I have used both Visual Studio and Eclipse and I have to say that although VS IDE is great, it also has its own shortcomings and it isn’t always even fast. Speaking about performance, the function-completion feature, for example, is a resource hog.

    So in future, when comparing, look things from a bit broader perspective, please :)

    And oh yeah, btw. you _can_ compile java to native code as well…

    By matti on Dec 8, 2007

  13. Well, those Enterprise solutions tend to run on very high-end (ie. Enterprise-spec ;)) machines…

    Anyways, you’re right on target that the point of view of this post is quite… narrow. I always try to improve my postings, so point taken. :)

    By Jani Hartikainen on Dec 8, 2007

  14. Java is not bad.

    Java could suck because of what you said. But ponder on this:

    Can you use your Visual Studio on Linux, Unix or Mac?

    i gues not…Because it’s just stuck and will suck on windows.

    By ni_lus on Dec 27, 2007

  15. I agree! Java IDEs are slow! I have a 2 GB RAM and still not getting the experience that I am getting from Visual Studio 2005. It is a fact that applications developed using C++ are the fastest applications. I wish someone would just develop an IDE using C++.

    By Yasser on Jan 4, 2008

  16. Yeah! IDE in C++! Better yet: IDE written in assembly (though I know C++ code might sometimes be faster)! And with ASM they would not finish word-wrapping in the next 10 years. Whoops… Zend Neon isn’t capable of word-wrapping?! Damn! Use notepad! :) As I see all current PHP IDEs are a bunch of junk. Why does it matter how fast they _don’t_ work or cannot be used?

    By Lewyx on Feb 8, 2008

  17. the ide is not the problem…its the operating system its running on, try the *nix system and it works just fine…windows services,pool sucks… that is. :)

    By hackertaz on Jul 28, 2008

  18. though i agree with c++ = speed

    By hackertaz on Jul 28, 2008

  19. The Eclipse-based Zend IDE is a complete dog, I agree. But the normal Zend Studio is Java-based and runs just fine on mediocre hardware. I suggest you give that one a try.

    By Simon on Jul 28, 2008

  20. Hahaha, I tried to study Java. Problem was, I never found a Java IDE that did not put me to sleep at night. I ended up getting a copy of Visual C# express and loved it. I still want to learn Java, but until now I couldn’t find anything - even those commercial applications that give trial stuff - that matches the speed of Visual studio.

    By Eternal Blue on Sep 10, 2008

  21. One word: VIM.

    It may not be a pre-configured, “out-of-the-box” IDE like Eclipse or Zend Studio, but it’s lean, it’s fast, and it’s cross-platform. Not only that, but with the growing number of available PHP scripts and the bevy of configurable options, it’s extensible. With just a little bit of effort, VIM can be made to behave in exactly the same way (and with almost all of the same features) as Eclipse or even Zend Studio, replete with syntax highlighting, code completion, code templates, debugging, unit testing, on-line documentation, project/file manager, SVN access, and more.

    For more information on using VIM as a PHP IDE, use your favorite Google search terms or shoot me an email. :)

    By Adam Parrott on Sep 15, 2008

  22. Real men use VI :)

    By Chris on Sep 23, 2008

  23. hey Are U nuts??
    I think U dont know anything about programming or else U wont say that Java is waste

    If U want a perfect IDE for java and PHP developmetn then Use Netbeans IDE ..The best open source IDE till date!!!

    By ashik on Feb 27, 2009

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