
Show HN: CoolBeans, an IDE distribution - fierarul
http://coolbeans.xyz/
======
eropple
I legit didn't know NetBeans still existed. I've been on IntelliJ for most of
the last decade.

Any NetBeans users feel like explaining why they've stuck with it?

~~~
tofflos
I like the simplicity of it.

It has strong Maven-support, does code completion, suggests changes to my
code, accelerates my typing with snippets and supports many common
refactorings. I don't know how the quality of those features stack up against
other IDEs. Maybe I'm missing out but I do feel that they are pretty good.

I give IntelliJ and Eclipse a test-drive from time to time but usually
uninstall them within the hour.

Having said that NetBeans does have some flaws. Recently I've really come to
appreciate the terminal integration in Visual Studio Code and would like to
see something similar in NetBeans. The author of the article seems interested
in native OS integration so perhaps we can expect to see some improvements in
this area? ;-)

~~~
Rapzid
Love VSCode however had to start working with a Grails stack this year.
Support for groovy and gsp not there but they are working on it... Rather,
there seems to be movement in tackling the JVM based languages running along
side each other. And by they I mean the various teams working on the
extensions under the "Java Support" umbrella.

~~~
vorg
Not sure if any of those "Java Support" teams are really working on Apache
Groovy support for VSCode -- they would be working on supporting growing JVM
ecosystems (e.g. Java 11, Scala, Kotlin), not declining ones. Virtually every
Grails stack out there is still using version 2, even though version 3 was
released well over 3 years ago -- a sure sign of a declining ecosystem. Is the
Grails stack you're working on any different?

~~~
Rapzid
It has been upgraded to Grails 3. I can't speak to the wider Groovy and Grails
recent trends(I know they have been trending down in recent years), however
Grails development seems to be picking up a bit and I'm certainly going to be
dealing with it for the foreseeable future.

VS Code's Java support actually works really well now with a few rough edges
based on a mostly Java project I was working with today. Unfortunately even
when components are largely Java, a lot of testing and build scripting(Gradle)
will be in Groovy. The terseness is nice for sure.. But it means leaving VS
Code for IDEA.

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stuaxo
I spent a good part of my career in netbeans doing j2me.

These days I still use NB keybindings in pycharm.

This could really do with explaining what the changes and fixes are that it
makes.

~~~
fierarul
You mean like some release notes? Good idea.

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karmakaze
At a former startup I had to work with a mix of Java, PHP, js and html/css.
After looking around found NetBeans to be more suitable than InelliJ/Eclipse +
something else.

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stabbles
I can't think of any reason anyone would want to switch to this IDE. Is it a
natural choice for NetBeans users? Are there even NetBeans users left?

~~~
fierarul
Over 1 million active NetBeans users.

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passthejoe
NetBeans is moving to the Apache Foundation, and this is an attempt to allow
"more flexibility with regard to plugins licensing."

~~~
pedrocx486
You mean the Apache Graveyard, where Google Wave now lies.

~~~
vorg
And Open Office. And Apache Groovy. 6 months ago, the Groovy project managers
at the Apache Foundation removed version 3.0 preview support from version 2.6,
and unofficially put version 3.0 into permanent alpha version. They're now
milking Groovy and Grails for consulting fees and conferences like Gr8Conf and
Greach, both of which are Groovy only in name because most of their talks are
about other JVm technologies, not Groovy or Grails.

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Drdrdrq
I loved NB, but moved away from it when Python support was first thrown out to
a separate extension, then made more and more difficult to install. I wonder
if this is something this distribution aims to solve? That said, I'm mostly
happy with vscode and am not switching back anyway.

~~~
fierarul
I believe non-Java communities would also like a good IDE.

PHP developers seem to be pretty dedicated once they start using NetBeans.

Python developers might also be the case. We also supported Ruby at some
point.

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mdaniel
I was surprised there is no link to the source for the "distribution." It
seems like that would raise the hurdle for anyone wishing to submit bugfixes.

~~~
fierarul
I believe submitting fixes to the upstream Apache NetBeans is the way to go:
[https://github.com/apache/incubator-
netbeans](https://github.com/apache/incubator-netbeans)

PS: Although reproducible builds are on the list...

~~~
mdaniel
I would expect that is true only if coolbeans makes no code changes, but my
impression from reading the page is that it "fixes minor annoyances" which
sounds like code changes to me. My mental model for this situation is the same
as the Debian and Ubuntu relationship.

Don't get me wrong, AFAIK since NB is Apache Licensed then he doesn't have to
publish any of the changes; I was just surprised.

------
samspenc
Anyone know about Netbeans / CoolBeans' support for Angular / React and other
front-end technologies?

