How well do Eclipse and Netbeans coexist?

Question

I would like to have both Eclipse and Netbeans (with JUnit) installed on one system, so I can be somewhat familiar with both.

Besides GUI development (see "Using both Eclipse and Netbeans"), are there any other issues with using both IDEs on the same system, or even the same project?

Answer 1

We regularly use both Netbeans and Eclipse. We switch back and forth, between Vista, WinXP, and multiple versions of Fedora of the 32- and 64-bit variety, with no problems. Keeping the project files in version control makes keeping them in sync much easier. We even keep the launch files in the project directory as well. I posted a answer to another multiple IDEs question that describes what our project directory looks like.

Basically, I agree with Bill the Lizard about there being no issues, but disagree about the seamless nature and keeping the project files separate. The only thing we have to do is make sure that we update the build classpath in each project if a new library is added because Netbeans and Eclipse use different files to describe the classpath.

Using the IDE version control system integrations helps to encourage keeping the projects up to date for everyone else.