Eclipse vs Netbeans Web Service Tooling

Question

Some time ago (~4-5months ago) I attented a lecture about Java EE and at some point the lecturer started talking about webservices and how hard it is to create a good one because all the IDEs make them in a bit different way (or something like that) and that in general it's better to use Netbeans to create them as Eclipse has some issues, the thing is he didn't really say why Eclipse is bad. Now I'm wondering is what he said true and why, is it really better to use Netbeans for webservices and why?

Answer 1

Well, if you want to generate a client based on the totally outdated Axis stack or to use the not so much better Axis 2, Eclipse helps a bit. But if you want to use JAX-WS and advanced standards from WSIT for Reliable Messaging, Security, Policy, etc, there is just no competition. NetBeans has very good support (understand must have wizards), lots of tutorials, documentation, samples, etc while Eclipse has nothing.

The problem is that Eclipse is supporting and promoting Axis for too long (mostly for badpolitical reasons IMO). Things may change in the future with the support of Apache CXF in Eclipse but for now, NetBeans is better for web services development.

Don't misinterpret me, I like Eclipse, but when it comes to JAX-WS web services development, NetBeans is the right tool for now.

Answer 2

We have an enterprise application that uses webservice (WS), and most of our colleagues use eclipse (I use Intellij, but that has nothing to do with WS).

Anyways, we have no problems, and the reason is we don't use IDE for anything that is specific to WS. We use tools like JBossWS, SOAP-UI etc. to handle what could be thought of WS specific tasks.

I believe THIS is an altogether better approach; To use whatever third party tools that is good, and to not depend too much of Eclipse/Netbeans specific functions.

We also use maven for dependency management instead of the eclipse's build-in one, and it was a very good idea. We don't need eclipse to build stuff, we can integrate the project without hassle into a CI (Continuous Integration) server, and I get to use my favorite IDE Intellij.

If we want to out-source something, this is very handy because we don't have to care what plugins they are using. Just say that it is a maven project, give them the source, and they are good to go.

To summarize, my advice is to make it so that you get to choose whatever IDE you want to use.