C#, General, Java

Visual Studio vs Eclipse

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I often see people in newsgroups saying how wonderful Visual Studio is, and they often claim it’s the “best IDE in the world”. Strangely enough, most go silent when I ask how many other IDEs they’ve used for a significant amount of time. I’m not going to make any claims as to which IDE is “the best” – I haven’t used all the IDEs available, and I know full well that one (IDEA) is often regarded as superior to Eclipse. However, here are a few reasons I prefer Eclipse to Visual Studio (even bearing in mind VS 2005, which is a great improvement). Visual Studio has much more of a focus on designers (which I don’t
tend to use, for reasons given elsewhere) and much less of a focus on making actual coding as easy as possible.

Note that this isn’t a comparison of Java and C# (although those are the languages I use in Eclipse and VS respectively). For the most part, I believe C# is an improvement on Java, and the .NET framework is an improvement on the Java standard library. It’s just a shame the tools aren’t as good. For reference, I’m comparing VS2005 and Eclipse 3.1.1. There are new features being introduced to Eclipse all the time (as I write, 3.2M4 is out, with some nice looking things) and obviously MS is working on improving VS as well. So, without further ado (and in no particular order):

Open Type/Resource

When I hit Ctrl-Shift-T in Eclipse, an “Open Type” dialog comes up. I can then type in the name of any type (whether it’s my code, 3rd party library code, or the Java standard library code) and the type is opened. If the source is available (which it generally is – I’ve used very few closed source 3rd party Java components, and the source for the Java standard library is available) the source opens up; otherwise a list of members is displayed.

In large solutions, this is an enormous productivity gain. I regularly work with solutions with thousands of classes – remembering where each one is in VS is a bit of a nightmare. Non-Java resources can also be opened in the same way in Eclipse, using Ctrl-Shift-R instead. One neat feature is that Eclipse knows the Java naming conventions, and lets you type just the initial letters instead of the type name itself. (You only ever need to type as much as you want in order to find the type you’re after anyway, of course.) So for example, if I type “NPE”, I’m offered NullPointerException and NoPermissionException.

Note that this isn’t the same as the “Find Symbol” search offered by VS 2005. Instead, it’s a live updating search – as you type, the list is updated. This is very handy if you can’t remember whether it’s ArgumentNullException or NullArgumentException and the like – it’s very fast to experiment with.

There’s good news here: Visual Studio users have a saviour in the form of a free add-in called DPack, by USysWare. This offers dialogs
for opening types, members (like the Outline dialog, Ctrl-O, in Eclipse), and files. I’ve only just heard about it, and haven’t tried it on a large solution yet, but I have high hopes for it.

Sensible overload intellisense

(I’m using the word intellisense for what Eclipse calls Code Assist – I’m sure you know what I mean.) For some reason, although Visual Studio is perfectly capable of displaying the choice of multiple methods within a drop-down list, when it comes to overloads it prefers a spinner. Here’s what you get if you type sb.Append( into Visual Studio, where sb is a StringBuilder
variable:

Here’s what happens if you do the equivalent in Eclipse:

Look ma, I can see more than one option at once!

Organise imports

For those of you who aren’t Java programmers, import statements are the equivalent to using directives in C# – they basically import a type or namespace so that it can be used without the namespace being specified. In Visual Studio, you either have to manually type the using directives in (which can be a distraction, as you have to go to the top of the file and then back to where you were) or (with 2005) you can hit Shift-Alt-F10 after typing the name ofthe type, and it will give you the option of adding a using statement, or filling in the namespace for you. Now, as far as I’m aware, you have to do that manually for each type. With Eclipse, I can write a load of code which won’t currently compile, then hit Ctrl-Shift-O and the imports are added. I’m only prompted if there are multiple types available from different namespaces with the same name. Not only that, but I can get intellisense for the type name while I’m typing it even before I’ve added the import – and picking the type adds the import automatically. In addition, organise imports removes import statements which aren’t needed – so if you’ve added something but then gone back and removed it, you don’t have misleading/distracting lines at the top of your file. A feature which isn’t relevant to C# anyway but which is quite neat is that Eclipse allows you to specify how many individual type imports you want before it imports the whole package (e.g. import java.util.*). This allows people to code in whatever style they want, and still get
plenty of assistance from Eclipse.

Great JUnit integration

I confess I’ve barely tried the unit testing available in Team System, but it seems to be a bit of a pain in the neck to use. In Eclipse, having written a test class, I can launch it with a simple (okay, a slightly complicated – you learn to be a bit of a spider) key combination. Similarly I can select a package or a whole source directory and run all the unit tests within it. Oh, and it’s got a red/green bar, unlike Team System (from what I’ve seen). It may sound like a trivial thing, but having a big red/green bar in your face is a great motivator in test driven development. Numbers take more time to process – and really, the most important thing you need to know is whether all the tests have passed or not. Now, Jamie Cansdale has done a great job with TestDriven.NET, and I’m hoping that he’ll integrate it with VS2005 even better, but Eclipse is still in the lead at this point for me. Of course, it helps that it just comes with all this stuff, without extra downloads (although there are plenty of plugins available). Oh, and just in case anyone at Microsoft thinks I’ve forgotten: no, unit testing still doesn’t belong in just Team System. It should be in the Express editions, in my view…

Better refactoring

MS has made no secret of the fact that it doesn’t have many refactorings available out of the box. Apparently they’re hoping 3rd parties will add their own – and I’m sure they will, at a cost. It’s a shame that you have to buy two products in 2005 before you can get the same level of refactoring that has been available in Eclipse (and other IDEs) for years. (I know I was using Eclipse in 2001, and possibly earlier.)

Not only does Eclipse have rather more refactorings available, but they’re smarter, too. Here’s some sample code in C#:

public void DoSomething()
{
    string x = "Hello";
    byte[] b = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(x);
    byte[] firstHalf = new byte[b.Length / 2];
    Array.Copy(b, firstHalf, firstHalf.Length);
    Console.WriteLine(firstHalf[0]);
}

public void DoSomethingElse()
{
    string x = "Hello there";
    byte[] b = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(x);
    byte[] firstHalf = new byte[b.Length / 2];
    Array.Copy(b, firstHalf, firstHalf.Length);
    Console.WriteLine(firstHalf[0]);
}

If I select the last middle lines of the first method, and use the ExtractMethod refactoring, here’s what I get:

public void DoSomething()
{
    string x = "Hello";
    byte[] firstHalf = GetFirstHalf(x);
    Console.WriteLine(firstHalf[0]);
}

private static byte[] GetFirstHalf(string x)
{
    byte[] b = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(x);
    byte[] firstHalf = new byte[b.Length / 2];
    Array.Copy(b, firstHalf, firstHalf.Length);
    return firstHalf;
}

public void DoSomethingElse()
{
    string x = "Hello there";
    byte[] b = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(x);
    byte[] firstHalf = new byte[b.Length / 2];
    Array.Copy(b, firstHalf, firstHalf.Length);
    Console.WriteLine(firstHalf[0]);
}

Note that second method is left entirely alone. In Eclipse, if I have some similar Java code:

public void doSomething() throws UnsupportedEncodingException
{
    String x = "hello";        
    byte[] b = x.getBytes("UTF-8");
    byte[] firstHalf = new byte[b.length/2];
    System.arraycopy(b, 0, firstHalf, 0, firstHalf.length);
    System.out.println (firstHalf[0]);
}

public void doSomethingElse() throws UnsupportedEncodingException
{
    String y = "hello there";        
    byte[] bytes = y.getBytes("UTF-8");
    byte[] firstHalfOfArray = new byte[bytes.length/2];
    System.arraycopy(bytes, 0, firstHalfOfArray, 0, firstHalfOfArray.length);
    System.out.println (firstHalfOfArray[0]);
}

and again select Extract Method, then the dialog not only gives me rather more options, but one of them is whether to replace the duplicate code snippet elsewhere (along with a preview). Here’s the result:

public void doSomething() throws UnsupportedEncodingException
{
    String x = "hello";        
    byte[] firstHalf = getFirstHalf(x);
    System.out.println (firstHalf[0]);
}

private byte[] getFirstHalf(String x) throws UnsupportedEncodingException
{
    byte[] b = x.getBytes("UTF-8");
    byte[] firstHalf = new byte[b.length/2];
    System.arraycopy(b, 0, firstHalf, 0, firstHalf.length);
    return firstHalf;
}

public void doSomethingElse() throws UnsupportedEncodingException
{
    String y = "hello there";        
    byte[] firstHalfOfArray = getFirstHalf(y);
    System.out.println (firstHalfOfArray[0]);
}

Note the change to doSomethingElse. I’d even tried to be nasty to Eclipse, making the variable names different in the second method. It still does the business.

Navigational Hyperlinks

If I hold down Ctrl and hover over something in Eclipse (e.g. a variable, method or type name), it becomes a hyperlink. Click on the link, and it takes you to the declaration. Much simpler than right-clicking and hunting for “Go to definition”. Mind you, even that much
isn’t necessary in Eclipse with the Declaration view. If you leave your cursor in a variable, method or type name for a second, the Declaration view shows the appropriate code – the line
declaring the variable, the code for the method, or the code for the whole type. Very handy if you just want to check something quickly, without even changing which editor you’re using. (For those of you who haven’t used Eclipse, a view is a window like the Output window in VS.NET. Pretty much any window which isn’t an editor or a dialog is a view.)

Update! VS 2005 has these features too!
F12 is used to go to a definition (there may be a shortcut key in Eclipse as well to avoid having to use the mouse – I’m not sure).
VS 2005 also has the Code Definition window which is pretty much identical to the Declaration view. (Thanks for the tips, guys :)

Better SourceSafe integration

The source control integration in Eclipse is generally pretty well thought through, but what often amuses me is that it’s easier to use Visual SourceSafe (if you really have to – if you have a choice, avoid it) through Eclipse (using the free plug-in) than through Visual Studio. The whole binding business is much more easily set up. It’s a bit more
manual, but much harder to get wrong.

Structural differences

IDEs understand code – so why do most of them not allow you to see differences in code terms? Eclipse does. I can ask it to compare two files, or compare my workspace version with the previous (or any other) version in source control, and it shows me not just the textual
differences but the differences in terms of code – which methods have been changed, which have been added, which have been removed. Also, when going through the differences, it shows blocks at a time and then what’s changed within the block – i.e. down to individual words, not just lines. This is very handy when comparing resources in foreign languages!

Compile on save

The incremental Java compiler in Eclipse is fast. Very, very fast. And it compiles in the background now, too – but even when it didn’t, it rarely caused any bother. That’s why it’s perfectly acceptable for it to compile (by default – you can change it of course) whenever you save. C# compiles a lot faster than C/C++, but I still have to wait a little while for a build to finish, which means that I don’t do it as often as I save in Eclipse. That in turn means I see some problems later than I would otherwise.

Combined file and class browser

The package explorer in Eclipse is aware that Java files contain classes. So it makes sense to allow you to expand a file to see the types within it:

That’s it – for now…

There are plenty of other features I’d like to mention, but I’ll leave it there just for now. Expect this blog entry to grow over time…

81 thoughts on “Visual Studio vs Eclipse”

  2. ThatPerson> That’s a pretty significant accusation. I don’t see Bahar’s comment as being any more biased than many of the other comments to this post which show a clear preference for one platform over another.

    Jon

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  4. A fanatic? Hardly. The “fanatics” are the ones who claim that one development platform is the best without having experienced any others.

    Which of my points do you actually dispute?

    (It’s nice to see that VS2008 improves on some of these things, btw – although “VS2005+ReSharper” still beats “VS2008 on its own” from my experience so far. Fortunately ReSharper works with VS2008 too…)

    Jon

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  5. I have the following Installed:

    Visual Studio 6
    Visual Studio .NET 2003 (Lots of Add-Ins)
    Visual Studio 5 (Lots of Add-Ins)
    Eclipse Europa 3.3 (J2EE Package + CDT + TPTP)
    NetBeast 5.5 (+Profiler + CDT + Ent. Pack + UML)
    Delphi 7 (LOTS of Add-Ins)

    My JVM is the latest Java 6 version (all updates). I believe everything on my machine has every update installed that is available for it (unless I missed something a couple of days ago).

    Eclipse is slower than all of them. I think it has something to do with the way it loads plugins, and the way the plugins tie to the IDE – but I’m unsure because I’m not an Eclipse developer (or any RCP developer at that). I think my projects are big enough for a good comparison.

    Also, My experience has been that Visual Studio .NET 2003 is faster than Visual Studio 2005 (P4 HT 2.8GHz, 1GB RAM, 160GB 7200RPM HD, XP Pro). Eclipse is slower than even NetBeans.

    Fruitless arguments of what is faster than what won’t accomplish nothing. There are so many factors that aspect speed (especially start-up/shut-down and you never know when the Framework/Platform decides to Garbage collect unless you force it to [I wrote little apps to do that for me :P]).

    It’s just dumb and very unintelligent to argue about it IMO.

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  7. I used for the last 4 years VS, and Eclipse for two years now… the two are not even comparable in my book.

    I love .Net, for the web its better than Java, but for Application development ill still take Java. VS is exclusively for .Net whilst Eclipse is for almost anything you want, it is so extensible that the sky is the limit. Eclipse way way outperforms VS in almost every feature including performance, debugging, profiling. The refactoring tools are so incredible I have seen nothing to match.

    Features like the test and performance tools platform and the web tools platform allow you to running and debugging Servlet containers like Tomcat within eclipse. The perspectives available in eclipse including extensions for CVS, SVN, resource and package views, a web view, and so many more… there is just so much in eclipse feature wise it makes VS look pale!! Eclipse is a platform, VS is an IDE, why compare them?

    Peter

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  8. The only Java IDE that can compare to Visual Studio is NetBeans ATM. Eclipse lags horribly behind NetBeans when it comes to out of the box functionality and “personality” integration. NetBeans looks like it’s on its way to becomming a better multi-language developer’s tool than Eclipse ATM.

    NetBeans is the Visual Studio of the Java world. A role it acquired when Borland/CodeGear bastardized their JBuilder into another Eclipse abomination…

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  10. I disagree with Hrm… (who should use his real name instead of hiding behind a fake one).

    I’m a C++ developer for a large company and Eclipse is a better solution due to space constraints I’ve put on VMs. Here’s a small overlook.

    Netbeans + JDK (required) (not including CPP Plugin or compiler) = 351 MB

    Eclipse + CDT + JRE (required) + Compiler (MinGW + msys) = 232.9 MB

    If you want a compiler with netbeans then it is going to cost you more disk space. So I’d say that netbeans is harsher on the resources than Eclipse.

    AND – I can simply download an empty shell of eclipse and then add in the C++ compatibility. When I was trying netbeans (after that comment you posted) I uninstalled it immediately (almost) after installing it because of the resources it took to run it; I didn’t even bother to install the CPP plugin because that means even more resources gone. Not only that but you have to install the whole Java Programming IDE and then install the CPP plugin for programming in C++. With Eclipse you don’t have to install the Java programming IDE, just the platform that can run it. And then the CDT (C Dev Tools) plugin and compiler. Which instructions are easy enough to follow.

    My final ratings for you after that comment…

    Eclipse – A+ for being small and a good solution for most constraints
    NetBeans – A- for taking up so many resources but it is still a great IDE for those who want to use it.

    I’ll stick with Eclipse.
    SAM

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  11. Sorry I did a size miscalculation.

    Netbeans + JDK (required) (not including CPP Plugin or compiler) = 480 MB

    Eclipse + CDT + JRE (required) + Compiler (MinGW + msys) = 232.9 MB

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  12. You use Eclipse as your primary C++ Development Environment? Lol.

    I don’t see why my name has anything to do with it. Obviously you missed the point of my post, and you think Disk Space is a resource worth worrying about on desktop developer systems…

    In a thread comparing VS to Eclipse where VS has an install size of 2-4.5 GB…

    Yea, you got me there… Refactor much C++ code in that Eclipse IDE? Lol…

    Don’t be so religious, it’s only a program :P

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  13. And with NetBeans 6.0 (you should have known this if you have ever heard of the betas/RCs) you can have a base NetBeans with just the bits that you want. The IDE was totally modularized like that, yo!

    So the install size won’t be anything near what you stated. Not even close.

    Doesn’t change my opinion that Eclipse is a Gorilla, I just finished trying to use it again and had to delete the directory because I cannot dedicate 50% of my computer’s resources to an IDE.

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  14. Eclipse’s argument autocompletion is smarter than VS’s, from what I’ve seen – if you’ve got local variables “name” and “town” (both strings) and you call a method with parameters called “name” and “town” it will intelligently guess which should be which. It can be incredibly fast.

    Not at all true. If you use a method with parameters, bob and john it will put them in the autocompleted line. It doesn’t matter what local variables you have. It just so happens that often it coincides with variables that you’re using in your method.

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  15. Um, no. All you’ve got to do is check “Guess Filled Method Arguments” in the preferences, and it works. For instance, with this code:

    public class Test
    {
    public void check()
    {
    String theTown = “Reading”;
    String theName = “Jon”;
    String theCountry = “UK”;

    }

    public void firstMethod(String town, String name)
    {
    }

    public void secondMethod(String name, String town)
    {
    }

    public void thirdMethod(String name, String country)
    {
    }
    }

    If within check() you type first-(CTRL+SPACE) it fills in:

    firstMethod(theTown, theName)

    If you type second-(CTRL+SPACE) it fills in:
    secondMethod(theName, theTown)

    If you type third-(CTRL+SPACE) it fills in:
    thirdMethod(theName, theCountry)

    Try it!

    Jon

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  16. @Memi – Please don’t take WSAD as indicative of anything. WSAD is nothing like the regular Eclipse – it has many badly written plugins and is very far behind Eclispe (last I say ESAD used Eclispe 2.0 when Eclispe was on 3.0). I have colleagues who were forced to use WSAD at a client’s and who eventually moved to Eclipse because WSAD demanded 2GB of RAM back in 2005.

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  17. I’ve used Eclipse for years now. I just downloaded the trial version of VS 2008 Pro. I wanted to try VS since we’ve pretty much migrated to Windows and SQL Server as the basis of our software development (I hope for tighter integration and better performance in the deployed app).

    I found this blog, because I was searching for a way to do some of the tasks in VS that I’m familiar with in Eclipse. Is it true that there’s no Quick Fix in VS? I also noticed that the VS editor didn’t seem to highlight compiler errors as I type. Is there an option for this?

    I’m going to stick with VS for the trial period and see how much of my current distaste is just lack of familiarity — not knowing how to accomplish the same task in VS — rather than missing features.

    I may end up using VS because of .Net integration with Windows, but I suspect I’ll be pining for the development features of Eclipse.

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  18. Eclipse is nice but VS2005 is better I try Eclipse for tester and at the beginning I found many good things but is slow and very heavy and pay atention over .net mono, dotgnu (linux)

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  19. I think comparing features of Eclipse to VisualStudio2K5 can only be fairly done when comparing the same languages.

    For my work (C++ on Windows), I find VS2K5 to do everything I expect of a Windows IDE. The look and feel, shortcuts, drag and drop code, responsiveness, and finally GUI development are all in line with what I expect.

    Not long ago, I was doing technology research for a large project and was tasked with deciding the IDE/Language we would work in. I was able to try virtually every professional IDE (great fun!) on the market. In addition I had to get a feel for what the team liked.

    The most prominent were: VS2K5/NetBeans/SunStudio/Eclipse/VSExpressEditions

    It was my experience that the Windows developers (C++) prefered VS2K5 hands down, followed by NetBeans and Sun Studio. My guess is that all of those IDEs had a similiar look and feel to other MS products. My personal favorite was the ExpressEditions since they seem to run very fast and light but were lacking heavy features that perhaps “real” software engineers demand. My second was VS2K5 followed by NetBeans. Reason?

    Well, I took a bit to reopen Eclipse right now and really focus on what turns me away from it.

    First, the startup time. This seems to be VERY different depending on platform/configuration. On my laptop, VS2K5 takes 15s. Desktop it takes 4s. On my alternate box it takes 10s. All are minimum 3.0Ghz Machines with at least 1GB-2GBRam. Eclipse by comparison takes upwards of 45 seconds on my laptop, upwards of 45 on another XP box and 20 seconds on the last. I find this performance strange and perhaps to blame for the perception amongst some devs that Eclipse is slow. Although, I do not believe Eclipse could ever get much faster then VS2K5 when configured similiarly as one is C++MFC and the other is Java.

    Second, look and feel. First off, I’ve always hated the Eclipse start page, of course you can change/disable it. I find the colors/layout of VS2K5 to be more what I expect from an windows/IDE. Windows in eclipse seem fat and bloated. I tend to have to shrink everything right away to get viewing room. On my original 17inch. I had about 4 inches of ‘coding’ room when Eclipse launched by default. By comparison, VS2K5 in C++ gives you about a bit over 1/3 of your screen by default. Now, on a 22′, this isn’t as much of a problem but I always feel like space is being wasted. This is the same with the intellisense. I don’t want 20 lines in my face, I want 1 line and I can decide if I want to ‘turn the page’ or not. I actually prefer the VS2K5 method. Intellisense also seems to be timed better in VS2K5 in that the popups appear quicker.

    Third GUI development, I really and truly thing that C# GUI development is as perfect as it gets in GUI development. As one user above put it, “it’s actually relaxing to develop in C#”. Even tiny things like the layout tools do wonder for producing a stunning application.

    Fourth, 3D/Game/visualization development. One of our projects here was to introduce the capability to view data in a 3D visualization (it gives the client a way to correlate data which wouldn’t immediately be apparent). Using DirectX or OpenGL with VS2K5 is the easiest thing since slice bread. Configuration is a breeze and this can be expected from MS to MS products (Direct3D). I would not even want to attempt doing hardcore 3D development in anything else. Perhaps this is why virtually every game in existence was developed using VC++6.0. But, let’s not get too off topic.

    As you can see, the majority of my points have to do with usability of the IDE and how it affects your coding experience. I like something lightweight, with intellisense, and a fast compiler, nothing more, nothing less. This is why at home I use Express Versions!

    Ultimately, it all depends on the developers background, objectives, experience level and how often they use the common and more obscure tools in the IDE. Very subjective indeed.

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  20. no matter how good is my IDE i can’t even code a single beautiful code, i guess i need an IDE that can do the programming for me (i just think what i want the program to do and the code with be made for me) (hahaha) THAT’S THE BEST IDE THAT I WANT TO SEE!

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  22. Many of the points made above are only valid in the context of VS being used with C#. When VS is being used with VB for example, talk of add-ins like Resharper are irrelevent. This discussion is not comparing IDE’s at all, it is comparing “IDE plus my favourite language”.

    I code in VB – I dont even know what refactoring is, it’s just an alien term to me :-)

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  23. Why is talk of ReSharper irrelevant when VS is being used with VB? ReSharper is certainly available to help VB.NET developers as well as C# developers. It doesn’t have quite as many features for VB.NET developers, but certainly plenty to recommend it.

    Likewise, although you may not be familiar with refactoring, that doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t help you, and the better the refactoring support is, the more potential help it will be to you. It’s quite possible that you’re using some features I would deem to be part of refactoring support, but just don’t apply the term to it. Things like intelligent renaming of a class (with that change being reflected in all the code which uses it).

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  24. Jon,

    Thanks for clearing up the auto complete thing for me. Really helps a lot.

    Another big thank you is for bringing up DPack. I didn’t notice it first time I read through this article. The only thing that is driving me to pull my hair out in VS is lack of ^O. The lack of outline view and refactoring (although resharper solves this) is annoying but not essential. ^O is essential. Maybe you should put around DPack. *ducks*

    I am of the opinion that the speed of startup and shutdown shouldn’t be taken into consideration for using an IDE. Both VS2k8 and Eclipse stay open for days at a time so a 1 minute startup time is irrelevant. What is relevant is if the intellisense drop down takes longer than it would for me to type the class name. In other words, for short classes it’s got about half a second to appear. On my laptop (P4 1.8 + 1gig doing far more than it should) both IDE’s have reasonable response times when you’re working in them.

    A big bug bear when it comes to VS is that it seems MS have deliberately kept functionality *OUT* of the IDE, allowing plugin developers to sell their stuff to you. ReSharper is something that should be baked into the IDE but isn’t. Why?

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  25. I run a MacBook with a 2.0 Intel Core Duo Processor and 2 gbs of ram…and eclipse CRAWLS at times. not just loading, which is a painful minute long ordeal, or closing, which i can’t even measure because it crashes so often i find mself force quitting, but even while coding. Opening a source file causes my ENTIRE computer to hang, not just the program itself. Maybe it’s just the mac version since my colleagues do not have this problem, but I end up seeing most people with Macs prefer VIM over eclipse.

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  26. I completely agree I recently transfer my platfor from MS to Java. And I can already see how facinating the Eclipse is. Free IDE that is far more superior than the paid one

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  28. @Hrm:

    Yes, clearly being the author of C# book and a C# MVP, I’m *obviously* biased towards Java…

    Care to make any *technical* comments which make your point, instead of just ad hominem attacks?

    Jon

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  29. Hi
    while debugging (C program in my case) I found VS has a better feature. for example when I place the mouse on a structure variable var1 of a struct temp, Visual studio fetches the value of temp.var1 and displays it, while eclipse just says ‘No symbol “var1” in current context’, If posted this at http://www.eclipse.org/newsportal/article.php?id=18497&group=eclipse.tools.cdt#18497 but no one seemed to be there to respond. If I am wrong or if there is a solution, please let me know (ramprasad85@gmail.com) Thank you

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  31. I would go with Visual Studio since it will probably have better built-in support. Visual Studio and Eclipse are both excellent IDEs with a wealth of features.For one, Eclipse is cross-platform whereas Visual Studio only runs on Windows.

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