4J

The short version: I like it :)

I have not done any real Java development yet, but instead I am now using it for my Perl and Bash scripting requirements.

First of all, I just have to very shortly explain why the switch. I came across the Epic project page a couple of days ago. It was a pure change thing. Anyway, I got interested, and decided to give Eclipse with the Epic plug-in a go. I used the IBM documentation from the site as a guideline for getting going.

Now, I am not yet that good with the editor, and there are still a lot of stuff that freaks me out (like perspectives), but it is growing on me. I especially like what the Epic plug in can do, and I am busy learning how to get Perl code executed on remote systems.

Finally, I also got hold of 'shelled' - a plug in that adds syntax highlighting and other goodies for shell script editing.

So, from today I am officially using Eclipse as my Perl and Shell script editor of choice. There are still a heck of a lot of things about Eclipse I need to learn, like how to use CVS. I suspect all the efforts will be wort it in the end, as the Eclipse platform is a truly cross platform power development environment.

hopefully I can post some updates from time to time here.

Other resources: Eclipse home page