I just downloaded the new J2SE JDK 5.0, and it came with NetBeans. At first, I had no idea what that was, but I installed it and discovered it was an awesome free IDE. So I love it now -- it makes it so easy to make complex classes and packages full of GUIs, etc. But I've heard good things about Eclipse, too. I've heard they're fairly similar. Experienced Java Programmers: Which do you like better, or do you go old-school (like I did and still do to some degree) with Notepad? What are the advantages of each?

elAmericano

I personally like to use eclipse at home, but at school we use JCreator. Eclipse is nice becuase you can download plugins such as a visual Swing editor and even PHP if you wanted to use them together (which makes nice usage with applets, passing in parameters dynamically). Eclipse also uses Apache Ant which allows you to create jar files and javadocs at the click of a button. When you click 'run' in Eclipse, it will automatically compile your program for you. Eclipse was actually made in Java itself! Eclipse will automatically find JDKs on your computer. If you download the JavaDocs, it will find that as well, and allow you to hold control over a class/method/variable name and click to show its source (yes, you can now view the code of the actual java packages). JCreator doesn't compare, so don't worry about that...LOL As for NetBeans though, I've never used it, but have always been curious: looks like it is time for me to test it out, eh? Seriously though, I HIGHLY recommend Eclispe. (get it here: http://www.eclipse.org)

Ancibit

vim!
http://www.vim.org/

why?
- runs on anything
- extensible and scriptable
- supports regexps and other nice stuff

I used to use jEdit for similar reasons, but found it a bit of a memory hog

--
Don't Stand on your head - you'll get footprints in your hair
                                           http://charlieharvey.org.uk
                                              http://charlieharvey.com

use edit plus, it is simple to use. For study eclipse is too much. If you want the edit plus i can give it to you. Add me on aim: sn: jeunaly

well i'd go with netbeans, as with notepad in some OS(like mine-WINDOWS Vista)we've got to set a JAVA environment to run programs written in notepad.
that's a big advantage in netbeans.

Notepad++, from sourceforge
syntax colouring & folding windows only