[ACCEPTED]-What is a good IDE for Java programming on a low end laptop?-ide

How low end is it? I used to use IntelliJ Idea and loved, it 3 also ran faster than eclipse for me. DrJava is 2 also very small and light weight. But personally 1 I prefer vim + javac the best. :)

Netbeans is a little less sluggish than 2 Eclipse, but it's a huge memory hog.

Emacs 1 is always a fine choice too.

I actually don't consider that a "low end" machine.

I've 19 used Eclipse and NetBeans on a P3 1.2 Ghz 18 512M RAM laptop, and they both run. They 17 are a bit sluggish, but usable. Between 16 the 2 I'd say NetBeans was less sluggish, probably 15 because there aren't as many UI elements 14 and frames all over.

My primary home laptop 13 is a Toshiba 512M Pentium M 2 Ghz, and Eclipse 12 runs fine on it (So does Visual Studio 2008).

It 11 seems with these big IDEs, RAM > CPU at 10 influencing speed.

Edit: it may be worth 9 noting that my P3 1.2 Ghz laptop is running 8 Ubuntu and my Pentium M 2 Ghz is running 7 Win XP.

Eclipse is noticably faster in Linux. I 6 once tested large project build times in:

WinXP 5 running Eclipse -vs- WinXP Running VMWare 4 Workstation Running Ubunty Running Eclipse

Suprisingly, Ubuntu 3 in VMWare was consistently much faster, about 2 30-sec faster over what was a 7-minute build 1 process on Windows.

You Could try JEdit, while it is not a true IDE, it 9 does support a ton of Java centric functions 8 like source formatting, syntax highlighting, and 7 a java debugger, and bunch of other functions 6 all of which can be added/subtracted via 5 a plugin system. I've used it in the past 4 when I wanted something with more power 3 than notepad, but less bulky than Eclipse.

It's 2 all open source and free, and portable to 1 most systems since it is written in Java.

A nice lightweight editor is Notepad++. Based on 10 a powerful editing component Scintilla, Notepad++ is 9 written in C++ and uses pure Win32 API and 8 STL which ensures a higher execution speed 7 and smaller program size. By optimizing 6 as many routines as possible without losing 5 user friendlyness, Notepad++ is trying to 4 reduce the world carbon dioxide emissions. When 3 using less CPU power, the PC can throttle 2 down and reduce power consumption, resulting 1 in a greener environment.

I guess it is the JCreator Pro.. The free 2 version, JCreator lite is OK but have limited 1 capabilities.

You might have a look at BlueJ

0

I haven't tried it yet, but recently stumbled 8 upon JCoder, which is a Java IDE written in C++. Minimum 7 memory requirement stated is 512MB.

Also, you 6 could consider running an older version 5 of Eclipse, and/or trying to tune Eclipse 4 to run better on your hardware. A Google 3 search for "Eclipse performance tuning" is 2 turning up a bunch of pages with suggestions 1 that may be applicable.

The older versions of IntelliJ IDEA like 4 3,4,5 can run easily on that memory - provided 3 you don't have a huge project, and are willing 2 to miss out on some features in the new 1 versions.

Text editor plus the Java console are your 6 best tools if you are on a low end computer 5 and you don't need debugging and such.

It 4 really depends on your project more than 3 the actual piece of hardware, so you need 2 to think about it with pros and cons.

Good 1 luck.

I was always partial to JCreator back in the day.

0

you can use netbeans with only the modules 5 your using (same thing with eclipse) or 4 geany (using linux?) not a ide but a really 3 nice text editor with ide functionalities other 2 option is using netbeans/eclipse older versions 1 that are way more efficient

Get more memory if you can.

SciTE, JUnit, Ant 10 and jvisualvm used to run fine on my notebook, which 9 had 768M, or the 2GB/1GHz netbook I now 8 use. On the rare occasions you must use 7 a debugger, then there's always jdb. The 6 problems I've had with IDEs on notebooks 5 are more to do with screen estate rather 4 than performance. OTOH I gave up on Netbeans 3 as its text editor was too slow on a 'standard 2 built business desktop' machine last time 1 I was contracting.

gvim + ctags + ant

You will run out of memory 2 if using almost ANY modern AppServer anyway.

I 1 hope you're not.

I have been using E Text Editor, a port of TextMate and am loving 3 it. Comes with built in syntax highlighting, snippets, can 2 download TextMate bundles and fully customizable/extendible 1 in ruby.

I occasionally use TextPad for simple Java 4 programs. It's very lightweight, free (well, nagware, but 3 inexpensive to buy) and has a simple to 2 use compile and run option. Also syntax 1 highlighting, though I've never used it.

The important question is what features 10 you think should be in a good IDE.

Code completion? JavaDoc 9 in mouse overs? "Go to definition"? Built-in 8 debugger? Syntax highlighting? Incremental 7 compilation?

A good place to start, would 6 be to get the code to build with ant as 5 it allows you to move this out of the IDE 4 where it hopefully needs less space to run.

I 3 believe the requirements of older versions 2 of JBuilder were quite low. You might want 1 to buy a used one for this purpose.

Is there a chance of upgrading the laptop's 7 memory? CPU doesn't matter much, but IDEs 6 are nearly always huge memory hogs (even 5 EMACS was considered that in its time).

I'd 4 say that you can run eclipse quite well 3 in 1GB (maybe even 512MB) using windows 2 XP, if you don't do huge projects and don't 1 run any other massive apps at the same time.

As long as I already have a project set 2 up, I use vim/gvim for most maintenance development 1 or fooling around.

First of all, memory is the problem.

Linux 30 performs fairly well with low memory, but 29 pc isn't great and mac is abysmal! (if you 28 have 512M and less than 4gb hard disk free, it 27 will barely work at all! This is because 26 the mac allocates it's swap from "Free space" on 25 your hard drive)

Macs are easy to upgrade 24 though. I got 4gb for my laptop at fry's 23 for less than $100, and the slots are inside 22 the battery compartment. After the upgrade, my 21 bottom-of-the-line mac has never once given 20 me a single time to be concerned about its' performance.

PCs 19 are more difficult than the mac, but vary 18 based on model.

Okay, so let's say you don't 17 want to upgrade.

The most important thing 16 to do then is to be sure you have a local 15 copy of the Javadocs. You'll miss them 14 VERY QUICKLY if you don't have eclipse/netbeans.

After 13 that, who cares what editor you use. Personally 12 I'd use the built-in editor because I'm 11 not actually that impressed with coloring 10 and auto-formatting.

If you need context 9 coloring, I guess vim would be the most 8 light-weight editor with a Java mode (at 7 least I believe it has one). JEdit is fairly 6 light-weight, and so is emacs and I know 5 they both have java modes.

For builds just 4 use ant or maybe maven, building in the 3 IDE is nice but overrated.

The biggest thing, as 2 I said, is always have the javadocs on a 1 browser bookmark.