Capsule Reviews of JAVA tools

Last modified Jan 28, 2002.

These reviews are all based on brief examinations of the programs in question, running under windows NT 4.0. My objective was to select a set of tools to use for my own work. I'm publishing these capsule reviews to save you all some trouble.
 

Development Environments  Brewmaster (New May 1 1997)  Symantec Cafe (New March 11, 1997)  ED (updated November 26,1997)  IavaDraw (new March 23, 1997)  Java Workshop (updated May 2000)  Dick Chase's Java Editor (new March 23, 1997)  Javelin  JPad and JPad Pro (updated April 28, 1997)  Kawa (updated April 22, 1998)  Microsoft Visual J++ (Update March 6, 1997)  MJE  Mojo (update 3/29/97)  OEW(updated 3/29/97)  VisualAge (New May 1, 1997)  WingEditor 1.02(formerly JavaEditor) (new March 2, 1997)  Forte Tools, formerly Netbeans, formerly Xelfi, updated May 2000)  My current Pick of the litter among the simpler and cheaper IDEs is Kawa with JPad Pro nearly tied. Kawa wins because of it's GUI to JDB, but JPAD has a better editing environment. .

Java Decompilers  DeJaVu 1.0 (new April 2, 1997)  Mocha (update March 8, 1997)  WingDis 2.06(Update June 1, 1997)  (update June 15, 1997) Special in-depth JavaWorld story about these three decompilers  Other tools  ClassViewer (class file viewer)  HyperProfiler (new March 19, 1997)  ProfileViewer (new March 19, 1997)  JD, a Java Debugger (new Nov 26, 1997)  Assure , an indispensable thread debugging tool (new Aug 22 1998)

Bold links are for worthwhile tools, written in Java

Other reviews

The reviews

Assure, java edition

Not all the things Assure complains about are necessarily errors, and not all real errors can be found by this tool, and the problems it points out can be very subtle and hard to comprehend what the problem might be.  Nonetheless, I was shocked by the number of problems Assure found in  my "thoroughly debugged" code.  I don't plan to write any more major applications without it.

I wrote an extened review of Assure which appears in JavaWorld

Things that work

• Everything worked

Bugs, Misfeatures, and Gochas

• something of a resource hog
• it's analysis could be more specific to java

Brewmaster pre-release 1.0

Brewmaster is a repository based system. The process of importing my projects was smooth, except for one glitch in the parser which is "already fixed".

The GUI has lots of little panes and tiny little icons, which do not have pop-up identification or other self documentation, which makes it something of a puzzle to learn to use.

The class browser/editor combination itself seems pretty solid, and once you get used to the paradigm for navigating, pretty usable. Changes are parsed when you save them, so it is impossible to store a syntactically incorrect program in the repository.

The biggest problem with brewmaster is that it's support for compiling, debugging and running programs is tedious and very limited.

Things that work

• Import, browsing, and editing work.

Bugs, Misfeatures, and Gochas

• Glitches in importing can't be fixed within the brewmaster interface, so you have to resort to an external editor.
• Compiling, and interactions with JDK in general, occur in shell windows which disappear immediately. In one case, compilation clearly got a bunch of errors, but the window with the errors disappeared, and brewmaster seemed to think everything was fine.
• In one case, the repository became corrupted.
• Error messages from the parser are inserted into the text itself, which creates even more errors. You have to not only fix your syntax errors, but remove the error messages.
• Export rearranges the order of methods in the output file, which makes them hard to compare with the original version.

Symantec Cafe

In view of their generally good reputation and many apparently satisfied customers, I've decided not to write a review based on my unsatisfactory experiences. Your mileage may vary. I finally added this note so I could stop answering "Why No Cafe" messages.

ED for windows version 3.72

Things that work

• The editor, and the IDE generally, are very featureful, and very customizable.

Bugs, Misfeatures, and Gochas

•  None noted. ED's main problem as a Java environment is that it lacks specialization for Java.

IavaDraw version 3.0

IavaDraw is a conventional IDE with some useful extras. The two most useful that I noticed are an integrated C-like preprocessor, and the option of changing its menu structure to the German language. Actually, since IavaDraw's authors are in Germany, it's probably the option to change the menus to English. In any case, if Deutsch is your first language, this would be a significant feature.

Unfortunately, the product is pretty buggy. At first I was unable to get the compiler to run; apparently it Iavadraw works only with JDK 1.1 final. Even with that problem resolved, I never got a satisfactory project built from my existing sources.

At one point Iavadraw's internal state got so confused that it couldn't be restarted successfully. A day later that problem seemed to have fixed itself - generally, Iavadraw had a marked propensity to hang up (and have to be terminated from the task manager) or to spontaneously crash with some sort of access violation. And, whenever there was trouble with any of the Java tools it tried to invoke, there was no useful feedback about the nature of the problem.

Things that work

• Basic editing and project construction limps along

Bugs, Misfeatures, and Gochas

• There is no useful feedback about the nature of any problems the tools encounter. For example, if "run" does apparently nothing, that's what information you get about what happened; nothing.
• The editor is somewhat flaky - sometimes doesn't cut, paste, or position the cursor reliably. It also uses a really ugly mono space font (with gaps between letters) to highlight.
• Project construction (from existing files) has to be done one-file-at-a-time, and you have to add a dummy top level. There seems to be no provision for absorbing a pre-existing project structure.
• recompiles much more than necessary (every file every time, or close to it)
• is confused about the relationship between directory structure, classpath, and java packages. I couldn't get it to put my project's output in its proper directory. At some point it made copies of my sources in a parent directory of their original home. It put output class files in c:\temp rather than the output directory I specified.

Java Workshop

Dick Chase's Java Editor (version 2.07)

(note: current version is 2.08a)

Dick Chase's Java Editor is a very rudimentary, no-frills java editor based on a multiple document frame and JDK. Its principle virtue is that it is completely free, and the author even offers to provide source code. It is also very small and light on resource consumption, which may make it useful for those with extreme low-end configurations.

Things that work

• Basic compile/edit cycle works.

Bugs, Misfeatures, and Gochas

• No interface to debugger
• "run" windows disappear instantly if there was any problem, so you can't see what was wrong.

Javelin 5.02

Javelin is a radical graphical environment, which generates text files only as an artifact for the compiler. The concept sounds good, and the GUI looks pretty spiffy, but the entire interface to the outside world is obviously ad-hoc; In other words, there are bugs lurking around every unexplored corner. In the process of my evaluation, the import/export/compile process broke in many different ways; and the internal database became corrupted at least three times. The worst of these problems have been fixed in release 5.02, but there is every reason to believe that each new project will uncover new ones, at least for some time. Generally speaking, Javelin shows the classic signs of an immature, poorly tested product, rushed to market to catch the wave. A lot of things work, but behind every working feature are a gaggle of bugs with the potential to stop useful work cold.

Things that work

• The graphical part of the interface works. Your classes are presented as boxes connected by lines representing inheritance. The contents of the boxes are data and methods of the class; you can define and edit elements in a style that hand-holds you through the niceties of the declarations.

Bugs, Misfeatures, and Gochas

• Integration with windows-nt is marginal. Javelin doesn't fully believe in long file names. Javelin doesn't create the directories you tell it to use (and doesn't complain intelligibly about it's inability to create files in nonexistent directories). Output from Java applications appears in a window that disappears instantly (so read fast). Error messages from the "import files" process are delivered by  dialog boxes, and are not permanently recorded anywhere, so take notes.
• There is no meaningful correspondence between error messages from the compiler ("i.e.; error at line nnn") and anything else. You just have to know where to find stuff. You cannot click on an error message to get to the error.
• There are no class navigation tools, other than the graphical interface. There is no way to find a class or a method by name.
• There is no support at all for JDB or any other debugging tool.

JPad Pro 3.1.1

JPad Pro is bigger, better, and slightly more expensive version of Jpad. The downloadable demo version will only let you edit tiny files - enough to let you get the flavor, but not enough for any serious work. The principle improvements of JPad Pro over Jpad are

• Projects
• Class Browser
• Additional capabilities editing HTML and JavaScript files.

JPad supports both JDK and Microsoft SDK.

Jpad is based on an internal scripting language; the entire IDE is composed of a set of script driven commands. Consequently, it's potentially very customizable, and with enough effort, it's possible for you to diagnose and fix any glitches in its interaction with your environment, add your own commands, etc.

Things that work

• JPad Pro is pretty solid and reliable. Except for some minor glitches, everything there works, and is reliable.
• Online help via portafiler

Bugs, Misfeatures, and Gochas

• Interaction with JDB is rudimentary
• Interaction with microsoft GUI debugger didn't work for me.
• There are many customizable features, but not particularly well organized and presented. Getting JPAD to behave as you want it to can be frustrating.

JPad 3.1.1

Kawa 3.0 (released)

Kawa is is based on a multiple document editor frame. Light on the frills, but what is there is solid.

Things that work

• The editor is simple, but functional. Includes syntax coloring.
• There is a fair "project" capability, and files in the project browser expands into a class browser for the file.
• Full support for JDK 1.1, some support for beans.
• Online help linked to JDK 1.1's HTML documentation, with some support for user's javadoc.
• Class browser
• native debugger.  That is, a debugger based directly on java's debug APIs rather than JDB.

Bugs, Misfeatures, and Gochas

• The debugger GUI is a little light on features, and sometimes can't inspect objects (those locked by synchronization?)
• Editor crashes if presented with excessively long lines.

Microsoft Visual J++ (1.1 preview)

Visual J++ is a java environment embedded in the same framework as Microsoft Visual C++. Version 1.1 is based on a newly revamped, very clean looking, revision. Consequently, the development environment is very mature, featureful, and familiar. Unfortunately, the Java specific elements of the environment are still buggy. Considering that if any company in the world has the resources to make such an environment work, it is Microsoft: The other vendors of Java products had better watch their backs.

Things that work

• The basic code writing environment is solid.
• The compiler is very fast
• Compiler/Debugger integration is first rate - just like visual C++.

Bugs, Misfeatures, and Gochas

• Compiler produces buggy code in some circumstances.
• Compiler complains about language constructs where JDK does not.
• Compiler fails to complain about language constructs where JDK does.
• J++ extensions and "improvements" to the Java language threaten to corrupt Java.

MJE 0.98

Things that work

• There is a simple project capability
• The editor is rudimentary but functional
• Interaction with the compiler is good

Bugs, Misfeatures, and Gochas

• MJE supports edit/compile only. No run command
• Doesn't offer to save files before exiting

Mojo (version 2.0)

As it turns out, they still cannot import flat files in any meaningful way. Their customer support told me to create a new class in the "Coder" and use cut/paste to import my text from an external editor. What a joke!

Still, I was in a mood to humor them, so I tried cutting/pasting my simplest class, with an eye to adding my standard class libraries to their class library. I didn't succeed. Though I'm sure there is a way, Mojo is definitely not a general purpose programmer's tool.

Things that work

• the GUI building demo looks good

Bugs, Misfeatures, and Gochas

• Mojo has no meaningful provision for importing existing code. As such, it is severely handicapped; nothing but toys ever start from a blank piece of paper.

OEW 2.0

OEW is a repository based class editor. Unlike some of the other repository based editors reviewed here, it seems to basically work, but there are a few killer bugs which reduced it's usability factor to nil.

I imported a large collection of source files, and OEW converted all the file names to lower case. For example, one of my classes is "BaseOBject.java" which generates "BaseObject.class". In the explorer/modules menu it shows up as "baseobject.java", and building complains that BaseObject.class must be defined in a file named "BaseObject.java"

Since most of my class names use mixed case, this was a pretty severe problem; but I decided to treat it as a challenge and use OEW to convert a self consistent group of files to lower case names. The rest of the bugs noted below ensued. I never did get the project converted.

Things that work

• The importing and exporting source files works (with bugs)
• Can draw pretty diagrams of class connectivity.

Bugs, Misfeatures, and Gochas

• Can't handle mixed case class names in imported files.
• There seems to be no way to interrupt a build in progress.
• after some usage, some menus stop working. For example, the "Make/Options" item works a in a perfectly clean environment, but does nothing at some later point.
• code generation sometimes changed "package" declaration to a different package, then complained about it!. Also, sometimes added extra "package" declarations in strange places, which the compiler complained about.
• class foo implements Runnable became class foo extends Runnable, a very significant difference!
• OEW crashed trying to add a new module, trying to delete a class, etc. This, combined with the extreme flakiness of adding extra "package" and changing "implements" to "extends" declarations in the middle of the file make me suspect OEW has some internal memory corruption problems, which make the whole thing unreliable.
• cut and paste in the editor is unreliable.
• imported system classes (Frame, Enumeration) as though they were local.

IBM VisualAge for Java 1.0 beta 1

You can run any class, or execute bits of code in the "scrapbook" window. There is no distinction between running, debugging, and editing code while debugging - it's all part of the same integrated process.

When the IDE's Java runtime bugs are fixed, this is going to be a blow-them-away better development environment.

Things that work

• Import/edit/run work.

Bugs, Misfeatures, and Gochas

• navigation in a complex program is hard, unless you know exactly where you want to go in the project/class/method hierarchy. There are no text based tools for searching a project, and no database-like "show me who uses this" functionality.
• The IDE runtime environment seems to have trouble with synchronization among threads - my well-debugged project kept locking in states where threads were waiting for each other, but shouldn't have been. The standalone runtime environment doesn't have any problem.
• exported text files are too different from the originals to compare.

WingEditor 1.02

WingEditor was formerly known as JavaEditor

WingEditor is an embryonic IDE written entirely in java. It piggy backs on JDK, as most IDEs seem to do. While promising in concept, its not ready for prime time.

Things that work

• Basic editor/compiler/debugger connectivity works.
• Rudimentary project capability
• GUI interface to JDB

Bugs, Misfeatures, and Gochas

• Contrary to claims, the version I downloaded seemed to require JDK 1.1 to run.
• JDB isn't passed the classpath of the project being debugged, so it must be included in the classpath that javaedit itself is running under.
• lots of display glitches,
• the graphical interface to JDB is confusing and easily confused.

Forte Tools for Java (community edition)

I haven't yet used Forte tools, but their predecessor, Netbeans was promising.
Netbeans is pure java!, and the best pure java IDE I've seen - Definitely worth a look, even if not ready for prime time yet.

ClassViewer (no version)

Things that work

• It works

Bugs, Misfeatures, and Gochas

• Probably is JDK's problem, but classviewer has trouble finding all it's component classes unless they classes are in the default classpath.

HyperProfiler (version 1.3)

There are obviously a lot more features to be added, but what is there is solid and extremely useful.

Things that work

• It works.
• Basic 3-pane layout is well labeled and easy to work with

Bugs, Misfeatures, and Gochas

• Resorting displays is slow and ugly.

Profileviewer (version of Aug 12, 1996)

Things that work

• It works.
• It has more and better finding and sort options than hyperprofiler, and redisplay is clean.

Bugs, Misfeatures, and Gochas

• Uses a tiny, hard to read font
• displays count of calls as a percentage of all calls. Lots of 0.0% entries, not too useful even when the numbers aren't zero.

DeJaVu (version 1.0)

Things that work

• DejaVu produces output that is very close to ready to compile
• does not share mocha's disturbing penchant for crashing JDK.

Bugs, Misfeatures, and Gochas

• DeJaVu's flow analysis fails often, and in those cases it produces code that is correct but almost impossible to understand.

High Performance Compiler for Java (version of Oct 1, 1997)

HPJC is a compiler which produces directly executable files from Java 1.1 source. There are some limitations, but it seems to work, and the output runs fast! I tested the Windows-NT version.
 

JD, a Java Debugger (version of Oct 24, 1997)

JD is a 100% pure Java debugger for Java 1.1. The UI and feature set are crude, but it all seems to work. Sure beats the hell out of JDB!

Mocha (Beta 1)

News:The author of Mocha is deceased, and Mocha has disappeared from it's original distribution point. The link above is an alternate, and seems to be within the intent of its original distribution.

Things that work

• When it works, It works

Bugs, Misfeatures, and Gochas

• Some classes confuse it so badly that JDK blows up.

WingDis 2.06

WingDis was formerly known as JavaDis

WingDis is another java disassembler, like Mocha; but with the advantage of having living authors. There is a demo version, but the demo is too crippled to do a realistic analysis of its capabilities and faults. Wingsoft gave me a 30-day non-crippled version to test.

In general, javadis is worthwhile to use to look at a class hoping to glean some insight into it; but I would definitely not trust it to disassemble a class to be recompiled.

Things that work

• Seems to be structurally sound. Installs and runs cleanly.
• does not share mocha's disturbing penchant for crashing JDK.

Bugs, Misfeatures, and Gochas

• misses some easy conversions; x=x+1 not converted to x++, instead published as x=this.x+1. Worse, then a construction such as x++ was used in the original for value as well as for the side effect, the wrong value is sometimes used.
• frequently produces code that compiles but is not functionally equivalent to the original, particularly involving misuse of "super."

 If you think your software is treated unfairly, fix your bugs or convince me they're features. If you want your software reviewed, be patient, (or send me free software :-)

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