Edward Ort's Blog

Thoughts on NetBeans Software Day

I've got to admit, I don't use NetBeans as much as I could or should. But after attending NetBeans Software Day on Monday I'm psyched. I'm going to the blackboard now and will write 100 times "I'm going to use NetBeans 5.5." I guess part of it is the infectious enthusiasm of almost 1000 "NetBeanies" (did I just invent that term?) packed into a room designed to hold hundreds fewer. I didn't hear anyone complain -- now that's a good sign. But the other (more practical) part of it is that NetBeans 5.5 (now available as a Beta release)looks very functionally rich and really, really, really easy to use.

As someone who's had to live with the clumsy coding that it takes to build a web service and a web service app, and also someone who pretty regularly looks at (pardon the expression) SOA middleware, what a relief it is to see web services built through well-designed wizards and drag and drop components, visual orchestration tools, and features that actually help you understand ridiculously complex schemas. What will they think of next?

Let me tell you, if you're an enterprise app developer, and you haven't tried NetBeans 5.5, you should. As Ludo Champenois, the web services demo presenter at NetBeans Day said, "This ain't your father's IDE."

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