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Java Development on Linux

By Nathan Boeger

Developing in Java is complex. What with the abundance of Java Beans, Swing components, AWT components, and limitless classes, it can be a struggle to decide which is best to use, especially when programming Java GUI applications. You need a good GUI IDE that lets you see what you're creating in realtime. Although JBuilder 4 Enterprise is Inprise/Borland's latest release, the version 3.5 update is most widely accepted. The best thing about this update is that it runs on Linux. Of course, there are a number of other impressive features as well.

What's New

One useful addition is the revamped right-click menus. These little menus are very useful when navigating through your code, or when you need to make a quick change to your IDE environment or coding style. From these menus, I use the Browse symbol option to highlight components and visit the source to see what methods and public variables are available. The Structure pane docked alongside the main IDE window contains variable names that let you make sure you've spelled your class names correctly. This saves a lot of time in debugging, and eliminates silly errors from typos. With the Structure pane, you just click on an object to get the exact name. I only wish I could copy and paste the object's name into my code directly.

JBuilder 3.5 (Linux) Enterprise Edition Inprise/Borland