NetBeans: The Definitive Guide

Preface

Is NetBeans for You?

Is NetBeans for you? The algorithm for answering this question is:

1. Determine what NetBeans does.

2. Decide if that functionality is for you.

NetBeans is first and foremost a well-crafted open source programmer’s integrated development environment (IDE). It’s powerful, it’s useful, it’s extensible, it’s open, and it’s free.

Sometimes it is incorrectly thought that integrated development environments are intended to make Java™ programming easier. You know already, though, that advanced tools don’t save work so much as they make the same amount of work yield more effective results. That’s what NetBeans does; it allows you to trade one set of practices for another. The practices that NetBeans imposes are fully as intricate as your current development practices. More intricate, perhaps, because if you are a real programmer, you will want to supplement your work style with NetBeans rather than attempting to use NetBeans to completely replace your current work style. The practice of NetBeans development is not easier. It’s just more effective than what you were doing before NetBeans. You get more done with NetBeans.

Is This Book for You?

Well, for a start, NetBeans: The Definitive Guide is a book written by a select team of NetBeans enthusiasts and experts, all of whom are talented and experienced programmers. Some have used NetBeans almost since the beginning. Each has had his theories about programming using NetBeans tested in real world software engineering. ...