Title: Members' Experiences

I want to write good things about the experience that I have had over the past month with Forte. And I will, but first I have to tell you of my first experiences, and they were not good.

The IDE version that I wanted to write about was the Linux version. I run Linux at home and I wanted to kick-start my learning of Java again. I thought that writing this review was a good way to kick-start the whole thing. Nearly 9 hours later I gave up. I so much wanted to do this review on my preferred platform but hey, I live in narrow bandwidth world and my k56 isn't up to the massive download that Forte is, 37Mb, and they don't offer it, at the time of writing, in modem friendly chunks. Back to Windows I do go.

Well, work is broadband, brand new ADSL. I love this. 100K per second makes my modem, 4k per second, look like the sloth of the internet world. Onto the laptop, the install went, (win2000 professional sp1) all 9 Mb. Install and away we go. Oops should have read the install blurb more. I have to install Java 2 first. I should have guessed that this was a bit suss. 9 Mb when the Linux one was 37Mb. So back to Sun.Com for some of the SDK. OK that looks better 29Mb. Aren't I glad of 100k per second.

So, the SDK is installed and now finally Forte.

<RANT> What a faf!. Sorry but that was a faf. I am getting back into Java and this is not doing me any favours. If people from SUN are reading this get it out on CD. You know the magazines that we all buy/get free. Stick on one of those and maybe you may get more of a share of the pie. Come on, you own the Language and yet do this to the first IDE that you have done? Give you a clue, make it easy as possible then more will do it. <\RANT>

First looks are impressive. It looks sexy and well thought out. It is a SDI environment and I am used to MDI but that is something that MS have made me used to with Visual Studio (Yes, before I get flamed, I do know you can switch). It looks nicer than KAWA (Didn't they get bought by someone?), VisualAge and anything MS. This is good. I feel at home and cosy. What were those problems that I was having... Must be something else.

A question that all good IDE's should address, I feel, is that you very rarely work on a single file of source code alone, that is, the current file is generally part of a project that is a whole bunch of other stuff that makes a project.

If you are currently using Visual Studio inc. .Net, then the project explorer that you get with that is good, but wait till you see this. You will, I hope, feel as I did, that MS gave you a view on things that was limited and you have blindly accepted this all along.

Simplicity is good especially when talking to programmers, and this is simplicity at its best. each tab gives you a window that has the relevant information that you requested there. The way that the packages, objects and members are arranged means that I have never navigated around a Java project so quickly and to the depth that I am able to in Forte. Simply put I can get the right code faster than I have ever done before in a project. It looks pretty when you are doing it too. I know I keep banging on about how good it looks but we, the developers, look at this IDE day in day out and it should appeal.

It good and clean. No extra information there and its colour coded. Onto the snags.

No drop down code help when you are typing.

No code folding.

(If you have seen this feature you love it straight away. If you haven't it is the principle that the class, method or other element that you are looking at can be hidden from the view of the file and folded away. Expanded by simply clicking on the '-' beside the definition. .Net users have this now and it is quite simply excellent.

Yep that is 2 snags. Not bad eh.

The next thing that I find that I need, and so do most of us, is help. MSDN is very good and in depth, but one nag that I have had is that it launches in another application and takes awhile doing it. So how do I get help. I have to mount the file system.

Hold up a minute there. I am in windows and what this Mount thingy anyway. Luckily I understand mount from Linux, but there are going to be a lot of confused developers around when they see that one.

I thought that one of the best things about Java was that the API help has always been HTML based and it works fine. KAWA had the simplest way of integrating this that I know. VisualAge, even InstallSheild Multi Platform haven't messed with this puppy. Yet Sun did. Go figure.

OK so lets navigate to the Doc folder and mount it like it wants. Arrrrrrgggggggh I haven't got it. It not included in the Java 2 SDK. I have another download to do. Just for the help.

<Rant> That sucks. Period. <\Rant>

I am not happy. This whole install thing sucks big time. OK, I should make allowances for the fact that this is a download and not a CD install. One thing; KAWA managed it. I had to have SDK installed beforehand but they didn't screw with the help system and they did have the drop down context help thingy. See editor grip 1. Hands up all those that are reading this that are with me on this. If you want someone to use your stuff make it easy for them to do it. I know this is free but so is Linux and Kdevelop.

You have been judged. Sorry Sun but if you want me to use it I don't want this complex download scenario. Love the product, nice and shiny. But I cannot use it straight out of the box and I am just getting back into the learning Java thing. Other, more experienced Java programmers may be thinking, 'uh not a problem, sounds nice', well good for them!

I thought Sun wanted more Java programmers? Still not convinced by the language, and some better programmers than me are still struggling with that! (see last edition of C Vu) and they make hard for me to use it.

Not very good at all. Especially from the people that own the Language.

Me, off to the VisualAge side of things maybe. Or if they get it out on CD and give it me working straight out of the box with all the good things that I know it can be then maybe, but not just yet.