NetBeans 7.0 Is Now Available

An anonymous reader writes "Oracle releases NetBeans IDE 7.0, which introduces language support for development to the proposed Java SE 7 specification with the JDK 7 developer preview. The release also provides enhanced integration with the Oracle WebLogic server, as well as support for Oracle Database and GlassFish 3.1. Additional highlights include Maven 3 and HTML5 editing support; a new GridBagLayout designer for improved Swing GUI development; enhancements to the Java editor, and more."

Re:Cool!

[ink]

Visual Studio can work with Java projects? If you want to use the Microsoft vertical stack, then stick with Visual Studio. Netbeans supports several application stacks -- many use it just for it's comprehensive PHP support.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Best IDE Out There

[teknopurge]

http://jvi.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net] parent was close. The best part of NB is how light-weight the modules are: NB was built to be a platform from day-1; has epic other language support.(php, ruby, python, C, etc...)

Re:All 64-bit? IDE/executables/runtime script, etc

[Jahava]

May not make sense to some of you, but I am trying to go completely 64-bit here (may sound strange, but string processing seems faster on it, even notepad.exe itself, by far, vs. 32-bit in native 32-bit OS environs no less - very noticeable!)

I'm going to go off-topic for a second to address your post. Firstly, preliminary research (I mean that) suggests that NetBeans is pure Java, so it will run in whatever JVM you have. Both 32- and 64-bit JVMs are offered, so it sounds like NetBeans will run in 64-bit mode. However, there is also information [netbeans.org] that suggests the NetBeans installer only supports the 32-bit JVM, so you'll likely have to install it with a 32-bit application, but can run it as a 64-bit application.

Regardless, I feel that you're a bit misguided about the nature of 64-bit architectures. Let me list for you the big advantages that 64-bit has over 32-bit:

• (1): You can directly access a 64-bit virtual memory space. This means that individual applications aren't limited to 3 GB of virtual address space like they are in a 32-bit world.
• (2): You have access to some more modern architecture features over 32-bit systems.
• (3): A single register can hold 8 bytes instead of 4 bytes.

So let's break this down. (1) means that applications that use huge amounts of memory (over 3 GB) at the same time will likely run faster. Most applications come nowhere near this, and NetBeans is no exception. Unless you're running enterprise applications or database servers, you shouldn't notice any change from this strength, and even then, only those applications need to be 64-bit to gain the advantage. You can use 32-bit NetBeans to build a 64-bit GlassFish application.

(2) means that your system's paging layouts and execution environment can take advantage of some of the offerings of the modern architecture for both security and efficiency. This is almost entirely handled by the kernel, meaning that if you're running a 64-bit kernel, you're fine. Actually, modern 32-bit kernels can also take advantage of 64-bit architecture security features, so either way you're good. A 64-bit kernel can easily run 32-bit applications, so (2) alone isn't a reason to favor 64-bit applications.

Finally, (3) means that certain operations dealing with gigantic numbers will be more efficient. It also means that compilers can do some slight optimization tricks on non-huge values. Unless you're running a math-intensive application (MatLab, Mathematica, etc.) , you shouldn't notice any difference from this.

I suppose, in summary, that your claim that even Notepad runs faster in 64-bit seems unlikely. Most applications gain no noticeable advantage being 32-bit over 64-bit. If you care about efficiency, use a 64-bit kernel, and run whatever applications are most convenient. If you want to read up on 64-bit architectures, check out Wikipedia [wikipedia.org].