Well, this is actually already old news, but I really feel that I should write at least a few paragraphs about this.
I have been using NetBeans 5.0 since its earlierst public EA/Beta releases, simply because its new and added feature set (see
here)
makes it so compelling. While other Java IDEs like e.g. Eclipse offer
sometime similar features, it is often enough quite cumbersome to
install these features as ad(d)-ons (ever tried to make Eclipse produce
a useful web service?). Also, web service consumption in NetBeans
becomes as trivial, as it is in Visual Studio.
I
have been a very long-time and dedicated fan of Microsoft's Visual
Studio product family. I would also argue that it is still the best
general purpose product on the market. However, NetBeans 5.0 is coming
very close and the incremental benefit from moving from NetBeans 4.1 to
5.0 was significantly higher than moving from the (stable) Visual
Studio 2003 to the (frequently crashing) Visual Studio 2005.
Continuing:
I just wanted to add that NetBeans 5.0 is - in fact - the first beta/EA
product that I used to write some production software. I was working
outlining some web application for a baby stitting coop: the idea is
that mothers sit their children for each other not for money, but
collect 'points' they can use against future sits. With 30+ members of
such a coop, accounting can get quite .. hmm .. interesting. My little
web application is based on the open source
Ozone OO database and uses servelets and JSPs.
Writing this software from scratch in NB 5 was quite easy and
straightforward. It does not use web services (yet), but a future
version will. If you are interested in the code, please let me know.