I hope I didn't come across being anti-IDE... that wasn't my intent. Even though I don't use an IDE myself for my web development work, I would not dissuade anyone from using one. The point I was trying to make, perhaps not as elloquently as I had hoped, was that starting out by hand will probably teach you more in the long-run.
Your point about IDE/NitroX finding what are basically minor typos and things like that in your config is perfectly valid, but it could be more helpful to have to find them yourself because you could see how Struts shows exceptions and learn how to use that information to track down the problem, rather than have a tool reveal them for you. I can't argue the tool will save you time, and that's great, but I would be concerned that the learning wouldn't be as solid (even if you as an example in fact counters this! :) ). Maybe there is a compromise position... whatever you decide to use, whether it's Notepad or Eclipse with 100 different plug-ins, don't allow the tool to do the work for you in the beginning exclusively. If NitroX finds a configuration problem, fine, but make sure you understand why what is says is wrong is wrong (and if it won't tell you, find the problem yourself!). That way at least the tools won't be masking your understanding, it'll just be enhancing your efficiency, which of course is the point of such tools. Is that a reasonable middle-ground Brian? :) -- Frank W. Zammetti Founder and Chief Software Architect Omnytex Technologies http://www.omnytex.com On Fri, February 11, 2005 12:24 pm, Brian Bezanson said: > Last year when I started a new development project and chose Struts as > the core application development technology I looked at and evaluated > the three main IDE enhancements for Struts that I saw. I first decided > that Eclipse 3.0 was going to be my IDE of choice. I then evaluated > MyEclipse, Struts Studio, and NitroX. MyEclipse was still early in the > Struts support at that time and NitroX was a beta. > > That said, I ended up going with both NitroX and MyEclipse. I do all > my primary development in NitroX using CVS for my code repository. I > then use MyEclipse to do a final syntax check/validation on the code > -- MyEclipse' does JSP compilation and syntax checking a little > stringer than NitroX. > > I have to counter Frank's argument from the benefits of the IDE side. > I used the IDE/NitroX to develop my code -- I didn't use any of the > wizards of NitroX to develop my code. I used a good Struts book -- > amazingly (despite my hating the title) I found the Jakarta Struts for > Dummies book to be very well written and easy to learn from/reference. > > The benefits of NitroX for Struts development is how it scans and > analyzes the application. It will spot problems between my > Struts-config.xml file, my validation.xml and application resources > where typos the manual way can cause you hours and hours of debugging. > > The other part of having a good IDE is debugging the code. I have a > complex Struts application that I developed as the only developer > (actually I ended up building my own Struts application generator to > build/rebuild 80+% of the site). This site has over 100 JSP pages, > over 400 java classes, and works on a database system with ~100 > tables. The ability to set breakpoints in JSP pages and watch the > action happen live versus adding in log statements if you didn't use > an IDE to debug the system is worth far more than the ~$500 the tool > costs in time savings alone. > > Hope that helps -- my 2 cents. > > Brian > >> On Fri, February 11, 2005 9:53 am, Rafael Taboada said: >> > Greetings from Peru >> > >> > Hi, i'm new in this list. I want to know if anybody tried Struts >> > Studio IDE. Is it good?. Are there any other IDEs?. Because I'm new >> > using struts, i'w like to use an IDE that help me using struts. >> > >> > Thanks >> > >> > -- >> > >> > Rafael Taboada > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
