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Eclipse - You're Killing Me

Posted At : October 27, 2006 10:58 AM | Posted By : todd sharp
Related Categories: ColdFusion, Rants

I've wasted about 2 hours this morning with Eclipse. I downloaded it a long time ago with the full intention of jumping on the bandwagon of using a full featured open source IDE but had some problems with it that made me decide against using it. It seemed too laggy to me - slow to open files, slow to bring up the code hints, just really slow overall. I ruled out my machine since I'm running it on a 2.6 ghz P4 with a gig of RAM - not a monster, but a more than competent machine in my mind to run something like Eclipse. This morning I decided to give it another shot and I'm not too happy. It has completely crashed twice. The first time I'll blame myself since I tried to create a project with a folder containing about 4 gigs of pictures (my fault). I tried to cancel it and it froze up. No problem...Task Manager - End Task. Restart Ecliplse - workspace in use. OK, reboot. Good...cool...workspace still in use.....huh? OK....create a new workspace...cool...New Project...cool....open a file...right click on something...abort...what? Huh? OK....maybe i'm running a bad version (3.1)...maybe I should upgrade...delete Eclipse...file in use....FORGET IT!

Now granted I'm having a horrible day. I shouldn't have gotten out of bed. Really. Seriously. Unfortunately, I think I'll have to forget about good old Eclipse for another few months until this experience is but a faded memory.

Ironically as I have been typing this post Eclipse has opened itself up twice on my machine. One of the instances of it has the original environment that I tried to set up fully built. OK.....one more chance, but I'm warning you.............

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What OS are you running? I think you should see what could be causing your problem (jvm issues?) as eclipse is pretty darn awesome.

Don't give up yet!

# Posted By Aaron Lynch | 10/27/06 10:26 AM

Currently Win2k. I'm getting a new machine (Intel Core Duo) with WinXP in a few weeks, so maybe I'll have more luck with that.

# Posted By todd sharp | 10/27/06 10:28 AM

Eclipse's performance was just fine on my 2Ghz, 1GB RAM PC. However, I experienced Eclipse crashes on that PC and my currrent PC. I talk with developers on a daily basis who rave about Eclipse. Personally, it has slowed down my development experience. I have a full list of things I have issues with. The funny thing is that people who support Eclipse always argue I should be doing this or that instead, but my current development process works just fine this was and is efficient (that's not to say I'm in love with it).

Eclipse is a decent product, especially for the price. I think it needs to be:

1. more stable
2. upgrades should not break plugins
3. should be easier to use for the average web developer (we're not all Java programmers, nor do many of us have the desire to even learn Java).

# Posted By TJ Downes | 10/27/06 10:57 AM

I totally agree with your experience. I found Eclipse to be completely bloated and slow. Also, the interface leaves much to be desired. I personally don't understand how or why Adobe would build Flex Builder on top of it.

Part of the problem is that it is written in Java. I've never seen anything behave spritely in Java. Eclipse is trying to be a "platform", which I guess is an excuse for its kitchen sink design philosophy. Also, it has a completely confusing website -- it's like walking into the middle of someone else's thought.

# Posted By Geoff | 10/27/06 10:58 AM

Very strange... I find it really fast, and the extensibility is practically infinite from XML tools to database tools. Speedwise it is certainly faster than DW ever was for me. Just out of curiosity, what version of the JVM are you using? If not 1.5, I would certainly try that before giving up.

# Posted By Dave Shuck | 10/27/06 11:03 AM

There goes one of those Eclipse users telling you what to do :)

ps - Eclipse does have a slight learning curve/barrier to entry. But once you get into it and use it 23.5 hrs a day like I do it becomes a very nice tool to have in your arsenal.

# Posted By Aaron Lynch | 10/27/06 11:07 AM

I have several projects with gig's of photos and they run great in ECLIPSE 3.1 and I have an old 1GHZ G4 apple. If you are getting a new machine get an Apple. It will run eclipse fine :). And the new ones run windwos and OS X.

I also have eclipse running on a WINDOWS XP machine at home. Maybe it is Windows 2K.

Don't give up. ECLIPSE is the way to go :)

# Posted By jlr | 10/27/06 11:45 AM

Eclipse sucks. Homesite Forever!

# Posted By ACE | 10/27/06 11:51 AM

Homesite+ ... I couldn't find anything better than this in, what, 5 or 6 years it's out of development...

dreamweaver is too sh*** for hand coding ( think update to see the changes, there's html editors better than this ).

eclipse i s t o o s l o w ..... yeah you have extended suport for multiple type of 'languages' then you have to give the extension about a hour to make it work the way you want ...

# Posted By Grillo | 10/27/06 12:11 PM

Currently Java Runtime 1.4.2 - upgrading to 1.5 right now, I'll let you know if it appears to make a difference.

# Posted By todd sharp | 10/27/06 12:23 PM

I'm running the latest version of CF Eclipse on a MacBook and couldn't be happier. Faster than DW on my old Dell laptop and while a couple of things aren't perfect (can't double click files in finder to open them, ftp connections time out on you if you're dev'ing an old project over FTP, etc.) I can't imagine going back - especially with the benefits of so many plug-ins/workspaces.

Good luck either way!

# Posted By Peter Bell | 10/27/06 12:40 PM

For those of you using Homestite do you do source control?

In my experience ECLIPSE is the way to go if you use SVN or CVS.

# Posted By jlr | 10/27/06 12:42 PM

Wow, I can not believe someone said Eclipse Sucks, Homesite forever. Eclispe is by far the best and most customizable IDE out there. I suspect your running into problems because change is never easy. Stick with it and you will soon realize what most of us have. Once you are comfortable with it you will never go back.

# Posted By dan | 10/27/06 12:59 PM

Let the flames begin :->

# Posted By Peter Bell | 10/27/06 1:04 PM

Upgraded to JVM 1.5 and Eclipse 3.2

So far, so good [crosses fingers].....

After coding for 15 minutes, there are definitely things to get used to. I'll wait a week before passing judgement. I'll post a follow up next week with my feelings (since this obviously is a much hotter topic than I thought it would be).

# Posted By todd sharp | 10/27/06 1:16 PM

Todd, when you start playing with it you will find some cool stuff. You might want to check out the snippets feature. Here are some examples of snippets with variables that I based off of a blog post by Aaron Lynch on using the admin API. Taking these examples you will easily see how to do your own. They are great for doing repetitive stuff like getters/setters, etc.
http://www.daveshuck.com/blog/index.cfm/2006/5/25/...

Another cool feature... start working on a file, saving a few times. Then right-click on it and choose "compare with" ---> "local history".

Pseudo version control! :)

# Posted By Dave Shuck | 10/27/06 1:36 PM

Dave - Compare with local history - now THAT is cool!

I'll check out the snippets too - I also like your post from this morning - how many of us have a "testStuff" directory with 957 testSomething.cfm files in it. I may become a convert....I'm starting to like what I'm seeing.

# Posted By todd sharp | 10/27/06 1:48 PM

JTR...

I'm surprised to hear anyone say that Eclipse and version control go hand in hand. Yes you can use them together, and I know here are some nice integration tools if you use Subversion (and CVS?), but I really don't see how using eclipse means you're using version control or how not using eclipse means you aren't using version control.

It took me a while to get used to the User Interface, but I think I got the hang of eclipse now.

# Posted By Jeff Houser | 10/27/06 3:14 PM

It was in reference to Homesite and I asked what they were using for version control.

I like the plugins for Eclipse the best out of everything I have found. I never really liked using Homesite with a non-integrated vesion control system, but then again i am on a Mac :)

Just a personal preference.

# Posted By jlr | 10/27/06 3:41 PM

"should be easier to use for the average web developer"

Check out Aptana (http://www.aptana.com), which available stand alone or as an Eclpse plugin. VERY good toolset for web developers. I've had a few snags running CFEclipse on Aptana, but not many.

# Posted By 6dust | 10/28/06 10:02 AM

I have heard several cases of Aptana wiping out CFEclipse's association to CFM templates. What was your solution 6dust?

# Posted By Dave Shuck | 10/28/06 12:56 PM

Hmmm... didn't ever have that happen. The perspectives are a little different, but it's not hard to switch. It might be because I always added on CFEclipse to the stand alone Aptana, but I'm not sure.

# Posted By 6dust | 10/28/06 2:19 PM

How goes life with eclipse?

# Posted By Ryan Everhart | 11/6/06 11:13 AM

My god i'm sick to death of eclipse/flex builer 2.0.. well a bit of a love hate relationship really, because it is a great ide. But I keep getting an error when i look at certain parts of my application in design mode. It's one of those complicated jvm exit code=1 things which i can only solve by deleting the workbench.xml file. But this only allows me to open eclipse again, if i try view the file again in design mode it crashes.. well.. sometimes... sometimes if i make some minor code change and then change to design mode it works, but it's only a matter of time before it happens again. If anyone has any ideas i'll post more details? Am I alone on this one? I think it's driving me insane

# Posted By roller | 5/1/07 11:23 AM

Well - assuming that you've paid for the software I'd have to imagine there is some sort of support available to you from Adobe?

PS - for those who visit this thread via Google....I now use and love CFEclipse! People are right - you really should give it a chance.

# Posted By todd sharp | 5/1/07 11:47 AM

Todd, I am glad to see that you finally got some sense. Good job with that! :)

# Posted By Dave Shuck | 5/1/07 11:50 AM

BTW, don't remember if I told you but I am digging the current skin. Looks great.

# Posted By Dave Shuck | 5/1/07 12:12 PM

Funny you should say that because I was going to tell you the same thing this morning. Thanks!

# Posted By todd sharp | 5/1/07 12:14 PM

Sweet! I will quote you on that and pass it on to Mrs. Shuck.

# Posted By Dave Shuck | 5/1/07 12:17 PM

oh... you were talking about the skin, not me having gained sense! lol

# Posted By Dave Shuck | 5/1/07 12:17 PM

I've been using Eclipse for a few years now and I generally loathe it. It is slow, buggy, a resource hog and has a clunky UI.

The latest problem: Everytime I right click anywhere it freezes for 30-45 seconds.

# Posted By A K | 4/2/08 1:03 PM

Eclipse is slow, absolutely full of
bugs, eats up memory like a fat
boy eating cake, plugin developement
is non trivial, APIs are not backward
compatible, jars with more than 1
version are dumped into the plugins
directory, the updater gets stuck
if you install too many plugins.

Let's face it, Eclipse is an extreme PIECE OF SHIT!

# Posted By Seventeen Reasons | 4/18/08 5:58 PM

Eclipse is killing me too. I am also a long-standing user, but like a few other posters, the damned thing freezes for 30-40 seconds virtually everytime I right click. i'm on 3.2.1 and have tried both jdk 1.4 & 1.5..

can anyone else offer any solutions to this particularly annoying problem?

oh.. and eclipse is definitely a hog.. especially if you run your webapp within it as I'm sure most of us do..

# Posted By cass | 5/15/08 8:14 PM

sorry.. one more point..

for me.. the lag doesn't happen consistently.. it's worse on

* xml files..maybe trying to read the dtd?
* files that have been modified.. comparing against cvs?

just trying to accumulate data so that we can *hopefully* get to the bottom of this.

cheers.

# Posted By cass | 5/15/08 8:43 PM

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