Re: Commercial Eclipse plugin

Do you mean that it would have all those features in 6 months?

-------------------------------------
Jan Kotek wrote:

Hi,

I recently discovered Scala and I was impressed. But it is really
missing good IDE support.

I have some experience with Eclipse plugin development. Scala plugin
comparable to JDT would take me around 6 months to write. It would
have all bells and whistles:

* full Scala support (syntax, auto complete, wizards, hierarchy
views, searches etc)
* implicit conversions aware code assistant
* refactoring across java and scala code
* java to scala conversion wizards
* Lift support
* ScalaTest support
* XML and parsers support
* code generation wizards
* etc...

Question is: if this plug-in would be stable, bugless and fast, would
you pay for it? Price around 40 euro per developer, free for
non-commercial use. Plug-in will be closed source, but possible became
open-source after around 3 years.

I know there is already one Eclipse plugin, but I would rather start
from scratch.

Thanks for comments and ideas.

Jan

On Thursday November 19 2009, Philip Köster wrote:
> > What IDE functionality constitutes the minimum set you require to
> > make Scala development feasible in your organization?
>
> May I answer? I need to `F3' in every declaration to see what is
> going on. (In Eclipse. `F3' is `Open Declaration.) I need to be able
> to refactor, that is, rename methods, rename packages. I need
> `Organize Imports', I need a working Scaladoc view (it's the Scaladoc
> tool that needs improving, that's not Miles's fault), stuff that like
> that, some things I desperately need but don't come to my mind right
> now. And of course Eclipse shouldn't hang or eat all of my CPU and
> RAM.)

I think you'll find everythin you need is available in IDEA. And as you
probably know, they now have a free and open-source Community Edition
that includes the Scala plug-in.

> ...
>
> Best
> ---Ph.

Randall Schulz

> I think you'll find everythin you need is available in IDEA.

Oh, and I forgot: It would have to work in Eclipse. :) I gave IDEA a
couple of tries but never liked it. This whole concept of projects just
doesn't convince me and never fits my needs. IDEA always compiles to
/out, but I want it to compile to
//target/{,test-}classes. This is not to say that
IDEA was bad---competition is good---, but I just don't like IDEA. Just
as I don't like NetBeans for various reasons. One of the first reasons
is that both IDEA and NetBeans use Swing. And Swing is anything but
sexy. SWT is the future. In fact I don't understand why others are
willing to pay money for IDEA. Now that IDEA opens itself to the
community, I think it could become a hard competitor, but for me Eclipse
is still state of the art.

---Ph.

I've used Eclipse and IDEA a lot and can't tell a difference between
how they handle projects. Where you would have multiple projects in a
workspace in Eclipse, you would have multiple modules in a project in
IDEA, and that appears to work the same way.

IDEA can compile to wherever you like, and in a maven project, it
picks up the directory to compile to from your pom. Whereas Eclipse
just gets confused and deletes target/resources at random, causing one
to have to run mvn resources:resources.

Regarding money, I pay for IDEA because I am more productive when
using IDEA than when using Eclipse. As an example; I am more
comfortable with editing XML files in vim, so I edit my pom.xmls there
quite often. I noticed IDEA highlighting a method as non-existent,
realised that my pom was pointing at a version of a library in which
it was non-existent, dropped to vim to edit the pom, switched back to
IDEA, and IDEA stopped highlighting the method. It took me a few
seconds to realise what had happened; that there was no reimporting to
do, no mvn eclipse:eclipse, no cleaning the project.

My boss recently tried IDEA out after it became free. Here's his
experience, though he was going from NB rather than Eclipse (he's used
Eclipse a lot, just not in the last year or two):
http://codingbynumbers.com/2009/11/a-week-with-idea/

A comment he made verbally is that our codebase would be a hell of a
lot better had IDEA been used from the start, because the code
inspections are excellent. It does have its bugs, but whereas in
Eclipse[*] bugs tend to remain for years, IntelliJ fixes them (and
adds new bugs, but typically minor ones if you stay away from EAPs).

As to SWT being the future.. how about the native look and feels for
Swing? UIManager.setLookAndFeel(UIManager.getLookAndFeelClassName());
On Windows at least I honestly don't notice that IDEA uses Swing. On
Linux the supplied look and feels seem a bit crappy, especially
straight out of git.

* None of this was about the Eclipse IDE for Scala; I last used that
almost a year ago and I gather a lot has changed.

2009/11/19 Philip Köster :
>> I think you'll find everythin you need is available in IDEA.
>
> Oh, and I forgot: It would have to work in Eclipse. :) I gave IDEA a couple
> of tries but never liked it. This whole concept of projects just doesn't
> convince me and never fits my needs. IDEA always compiles to
> /out, but I want it to compile to
> //target/{,test-}classes. This is not to say that IDEA
> was bad---competition is good---, but I just don't like IDEA. Just as I
> don't like NetBeans for various reasons. One of the first reasons is that
> both IDEA and NetBeans use Swing. And Swing is anything but sexy. SWT is the
> future. In fact I don't understand why others are willing to pay money for
> IDEA. Now that IDEA opens itself to the community, I think it could become a
> hard competitor, but for me Eclipse is still state of the art.
>
> ---Ph.
>
>

I edit POMs directly in eclipse and updates itself automatically.

-------------------------------------
Ricky Clarkson wrote:

I've used Eclipse and IDEA a lot and can't tell a difference between
how they handle projects. Where you would have multiple projects in a
workspace in Eclipse, you would have multiple modules in a project in
IDEA, and that appears to work the same way.

IDEA can compile to wherever you like, and in a maven project, it
picks up the directory to compile to from your pom. Whereas Eclipse
just gets confused and deletes target/resources at random, causing one
to have to run mvn resources:resources.

Regarding money, I pay for IDEA because I am more productive when
using IDEA than when using Eclipse. As an example; I am more
comfortable with editing XML files in vim, so I edit my pom.xmls there
quite often. I noticed IDEA highlighting a method as non-existent,
realised that my pom was pointing at a version of a library in which
it was non-existent, dropped to vim to edit the pom, switched back to
IDEA, and IDEA stopped highlighting the method. It took me a few
seconds to realise what had happened; that there was no reimporting to
do, no mvn eclipse:eclipse, no cleaning the project.

My boss recently tried IDEA out after it became free. Here's his
experience, though he was going from NB rather than Eclipse (he's used
Eclipse a lot, just not in the last year or two):
http://codingbynumbers.com/2009/11/a-week-with-idea/

A comment he made verbally is that our codebase would be a hell of a
lot better had IDEA been used from the start, because the code
inspections are excellent. It does have its bugs, but whereas in
Eclipse[*] bugs tend to remain for years, IntelliJ fixes them (and
adds new bugs, but typically minor ones if you stay away from EAPs).

As to SWT being the future.. how about the native look and feels for
Swing? UIManager.setLookAndFeel(UIManager.getLookAndFeelClassName());
On Windows at least I honestly don't notice that IDEA uses Swing. On
Linux the supplied look and feels seem a bit crappy, especially
straight out of git.

* None of this was about the Eclipse IDE for Scala; I last used that
almost a year ago and I gather a lot has changed.

2009/11/19 Philip Köster :
>> I think you'll find everythin you need is available in IDEA.
>
> Oh, and I forgot: It would have to work in Eclipse. :) I gave IDEA a couple
> of tries but never liked it. This whole concept of projects just doesn't
> convince me and never fits my needs. IDEA always compiles to
> /out, but I want it to compile to
> //target/{,test-}classes. This is not to say that IDEA
> was bad---competition is good---, but I just don't like IDEA. Just as I
> don't like NetBeans for various reasons. One of the first reasons is that
> both IDEA and NetBeans use Swing. And Swing is anything but sexy. SWT is the
> future. In fact I don't understand why others are willing to pay money for
> IDEA. Now that IDEA opens itself to the community, I think it could become a
> hard competitor, but for me Eclipse is still state of the art.
>
> ---Ph.
>
>

That's great. Did it really need a new thread? :)

2009/11/19 Naftoli Gugenheim :
> I edit POMs directly in eclipse and updates itself automatically.
>
> -------------------------------------
> Ricky Clarkson wrote:
>
> I've used Eclipse and IDEA a lot and can't tell a difference between
> how they handle projects.  Where you would have multiple projects in a
> workspace in Eclipse, you would have multiple modules in a project in
> IDEA, and that appears to work the same way.
>
> IDEA can compile to wherever you like, and in a maven project, it
> picks up the directory to compile to from your pom.  Whereas Eclipse
> just gets confused and deletes target/resources at random, causing one
> to have to run mvn resources:resources.
>
> Regarding money, I pay for IDEA because I am more productive when
> using IDEA than when using Eclipse.  As an example; I am more
> comfortable with editing XML files in vim, so I edit my pom.xmls there
> quite often.  I noticed IDEA highlighting a method as non-existent,
> realised that my pom was pointing at a version of a library in which
> it was non-existent, dropped to vim to edit the pom, switched back to
> IDEA, and IDEA stopped highlighting the method.  It took me a few
> seconds to realise what had happened; that there was no reimporting to
> do, no mvn eclipse:eclipse, no cleaning the project.
>
> My boss recently tried IDEA out after it became free.  Here's his
> experience, though he was going from NB rather than Eclipse (he's used
> Eclipse a lot, just not in the last year or two):
> http://codingbynumbers.com/2009/11/a-week-with-idea/
>
> A comment he made verbally is that our codebase would be a hell of a
> lot better had IDEA been used from the start, because the code
> inspections are excellent.  It does have its bugs, but whereas in
> Eclipse[*] bugs tend to remain for years, IntelliJ fixes them (and
> adds new bugs, but typically minor ones if you stay away from EAPs).
>
> As to SWT being the future.. how about the native look and feels for
> Swing?  UIManager.setLookAndFeel(UIManager.getLookAndFeelClassName());
>  On Windows at least I honestly don't notice that IDEA uses Swing.  On
> Linux the supplied look and feels seem a bit crappy, especially
> straight out of git.
>
> * None of this was about the Eclipse IDE for Scala; I last used that
> almost a year ago and I gather a lot has changed.
>
> 2009/11/19 Philip Köster :
>>> I think you'll find everythin you need is available in IDEA.
>>
>> Oh, and I forgot: It would have to work in Eclipse. :) I gave IDEA a couple
>> of tries but never liked it. This whole concept of projects just doesn't
>> convince me and never fits my needs. IDEA always compiles to
>> /out, but I want it to compile to
>> //target/{,test-}classes. This is not to say that IDEA
>> was bad---competition is good---, but I just don't like IDEA. Just as I
>> don't like NetBeans for various reasons. One of the first reasons is that
>> both IDEA and NetBeans use Swing. And Swing is anything but sexy. SWT is the
>> future. In fact I don't understand why others are willing to pay money for
>> IDEA. Now that IDEA opens itself to the community, I think it could become a
>> hard competitor, but for me Eclipse is still state of the art.
>>
>> ---Ph.
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Ricky Clarkson
> Java and Scala Programmer, AD Holdings
> +44 1565 770804
> Skype: ricky_clarkson
> Google Talk: ricky.clarkson@gmail.com
> Google Wave: ricky.clarkson@googlewave.com
>

> They all look awful. They are all half a decade behind. And they all just
> mimic what could be going on but never are the ``real thing." On the
> opposite, if you use SWT, you gain all the benefits from every
> Windowing-Subsystem release without further efforts. So the IBM folks really
> just did what the Sun folks were too lazy to do. SWT fulfills the promise,
> ``write once, run anywhere," where the AWT fails to do so.

Are you aware that Swing uses the native components in many cases with
the native look and feel enabled? If Sun were any good at desktop
software, I expect using the native look and feel would be
near-indistinguishable from using SWT, in terms of look, feel and what
goes on under the covers.

I used to wish Sun had kept maintaining AWT. Later that changed to
wishing IBM had written SWT as a look-and-feel for Swing.

> IDEA can compile to wherever you like, and in a maven project, it
> picks up the directory to compile to from your pom.

Then maybe I just haven't found that magic switch yet. Need an incubator! :)

> As to SWT being the future.. how about the native look and feels for
> Swing?

They all look awful. They are all half a decade behind. And they all
just mimic what could be going on but never are the ``real thing." On
the opposite, if you use SWT, you gain all the benefits from every
Windowing-Subsystem release without further efforts. So the IBM folks
really just did what the Sun folks were too lazy to do. SWT fulfills the
promise, ``write once, run anywhere," where the AWT fails to do so.

> * None of this was about the Eclipse IDE for Scala; I last used that
> almost a year ago and I gather a lot has changed.

It's not stable yet, but yes, a lot has changed.

> Are you aware that Swing uses the native components in many cases with
> the native look and feel enabled?

To the best of my knowlege, AWT uses heavyweight peers, and this path
has been abolished. And to the best of my knowledge, Swing uses
lightweight components only, drawing everything on their own behalves.
Both results were ridiculous. SWT uses heavyweight peers looking just
the way they should do.

SWT was the savior, the deus ex machina. But for some reason Java never
quite did it to the desktop. It prevailed on the server side but never
on the client site. This wasn't Goshling's original intention, but the
AWT was so screwed up there wasn't any other way. :) I think there were
two obstacles: a) its (Java's) allegedly poor performance, and b) its
ugly looks. Now there is JavaFX of course, which might give us a whole
new perspective. But, frankly, that lingo sux. It was designed to be a
competitor for Flex, but how would you write a, say, javaish Excel with
JavaFX? That's not exactly my challenge ...

On Thu, 2009-11-19 at 22:32 +0000, Ricky Clarkson wrote:
> Are you aware that Swing uses the native components in many cases with
> the native look and feel enabled? If Sun were any good at desktop
> software, I expect using the native look and feel would be
> near-indistinguishable from using SWT, in terms of look, feel and what
> goes on under the covers.

If Sun were any good at desktop software, they would not have designed
Swing. Sorry, couldn't resist. :)

The reality is that both SWT and Swing have advantages and
disadvantages. The Windows look and feel for Swing has improved a lot
and it even uses native font rendering. On Linux, the situation is not
as good, although OpenJDK uses Freetype (but not the proprietary
version).

Still, the abstraction is leaky (check the file-chooser on GTK) and the
approach used by SWT solves a lot of issues. Sometimes, it also breaks
down though. Try using any SWT-based application on Fedora 12 and you'll
see a lot of problems due the introduction of client-side windows in
GTK. Fortunately the workaround is easy (set the GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS
variable).

As a Linux user, I generally prefer SWT apps, but I suspect that Swing
will probably work OK by the time JDK7 is out.

Also, I don't think either SWT or Swing is the future. At least, not
their current incarnation.

Best,
Ismael

> Also, I don't think either SWT or Swing is the future. At least, not
> their current incarnation.

Okay, point made. Getting a Java-based run-anywhere native lib to run
(and it would mean to provide a lib for every platform) is not easy. I'm
keeping the faith that this is feasible. Given the choice: Do you
believe in a) AWT or b) SWT, I'd always gladly answer b). There's no new
GUI in modern apps that I couldn't model with SWT,
including---whoow!---the latest office revision.

---Ph.

PS: I don't like showing off, I feal really uncomfortable with stuff
like this. But no less than 20 yrs ago I was one of the designers of
StarOffice, now known as OpenOffice, so I'm not speaking out of the
blue. (But my credits then weren't too bold.)

PPS: I want to see Java prosper on the client side. The last two decades
concentrated on the server side, but I'm a client dude.

Let me just add; non-native font hinting is a big issue, especially for me.  The difference between the font rendering in IDEA and Eclipse is huge.  The latter always has better hinting.  
I've tried the OpenJDK build which is supposed to use Freetype but the difference between the two is noticeable.  Someone in the know should comment on this issue further.

On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 10:28 PM, Philip Köster <philip.koester@web.de> wrote:

IDEA can compile to wherever you like, and in a maven project, it
picks up the directory to compile to from your pom.

Then maybe I just haven't found that magic switch yet. Need an incubator! :)

As to SWT being the future.. how about the native look and feels for
Swing?

They all look awful. They are all half a decade behind. And they all just mimic what could be going on but never are the ``real thing." On the opposite, if you use SWT, you gain all the benefits from every Windowing-Subsystem release without further efforts. So the IBM folks really just did what the Sun folks were too lazy to do. SWT fulfills the promise, ``write once, run anywhere," where the AWT fails to do so.

* None of this was about the Eclipse IDE for Scala; I last used that
almost a year ago and I gather a lot has changed.

It's not stable yet, but yes, a lot has changed.

JFileChooser is a nightmare. On the subject of IDEA, I've found some
references to it in IDEA's source, but I don't recall IDEA ever
popping one up; it has its own variants that aren't as consistent, but
actually work.

2009/11/19 Ismael Juma :
> On Thu, 2009-11-19 at 22:32 +0000, Ricky Clarkson wrote:
>> Are you aware that Swing uses the native components in many cases with
>> the native look and feel enabled?  If Sun were any good at desktop
>> software, I expect using the native look and feel would be
>> near-indistinguishable from using SWT, in terms of look, feel and what
>> goes on under the covers.
>
> If Sun were any good at desktop software, they would not have designed
> Swing. Sorry, couldn't resist. :)
>
> The reality is that both SWT and Swing have advantages and
> disadvantages. The Windows look and feel for Swing has improved a lot
> and it even uses native font rendering. On Linux, the situation is not
> as good, although OpenJDK uses Freetype (but not the proprietary
> version).
>
> Still, the abstraction is leaky (check the file-chooser on GTK) and the
> approach used by SWT solves a lot of issues. Sometimes, it also breaks
> down though. Try using any SWT-based application on Fedora 12 and you'll
> see a lot of problems due the introduction of client-side windows in
> GTK. Fortunately the workaround is easy (set the GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS
> variable).
>
> As a Linux user, I generally prefer SWT apps, but I suspect that Swing
> will probably work OK by the time JDK7 is out.
>
> Also, I don't think either SWT or Swing is the future. At least, not
> their current incarnation.
>
> Best,
> Ismael
>
>

My boss actually cares about stuff like fonts, and claimed that he had
IDEA working on his Mac with as-good-as-native fonts. I stick with
the defaults, and I'm not very sensitive to it. Looking at IDEA
running on my wife's Vista-running laptop right now, I really can't
tell the difference between the fonts in Chrome and those in IDEA.

On Linux, I do notice a difference, but it doesn't bother me.

2009/11/19 Mohamed Bana :
> Let me just add; non-native font hinting is a big issue, especially for me.
>  The difference between the font rendering in IDEA and Eclipse is huge.  The
> latter always has better hinting.
> I've tried the OpenJDK build which is supposed to use Freetype but the
> difference between the two is noticeable.  Someone in the know should
> comment on this issue further.
>
> On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 10:28 PM, Philip Köster
> wrote:
>>>
>>> IDEA can compile to wherever you like, and in a maven project, it
>>> picks up the directory to compile to from your pom.
>>
>> Then maybe I just haven't found that magic switch yet. Need an incubator!
>> :)
>>
>>> As to SWT being the future.. how about the native look and feels for
>>> Swing?
>>
>> They all look awful. They are all half a decade behind. And they all just
>> mimic what could be going on but never are the ``real thing." On the
>> opposite, if you use SWT, you gain all the benefits from every
>> Windowing-Subsystem release without further efforts. So the IBM folks really
>> just did what the Sun folks were too lazy to do. SWT fulfills the promise,
>> ``write once, run anywhere," where the AWT fails to do so.
>>
>>> * None of this was about the Eclipse IDE for Scala; I last used that
>>> almost a year ago and I gather a lot has changed.
>>
>> It's not stable yet, but yes, a lot has changed.
>>
>
>

On Thu, 2009-11-19 at 23:30 +0000, Ricky Clarkson wrote:
> My boss actually cares about stuff like fonts, and claimed that he had
> IDEA working on his Mac with as-good-as-native fonts.

The Mac look and feel is done by Apple and probably uses native fonts.

> I stick with
> the defaults, and I'm not very sensitive to it. Looking at IDEA
> running on my wife's Vista-running laptop right now,

As I said in the other message, Swing uses native font rendering with
the Window look and feel now (since JDK6u10 one of the follow-ups).

> I really can't
> tell the difference between the fonts in Chrome and those in IDEA.

By the way, Chrome fonts on Linux are also bad, but I assume you're
talking about Windows there.

> On Linux, I do notice a difference, but it doesn't bother me.

You're lucky. :)

Ismael

Got the answer; Ismael Juma already mentioned
"On Linux, the situation is not
as good, although OpenJDK uses Freetype (but not the proprietary
version)."

On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 11:24 PM, Mohamed Bana <mohamed@bana.org.uk> wrote:

Let me just add; non-native font hinting is a big issue, especially for me.  The difference between the font rendering in IDEA and Eclipse is huge.  The latter always has better hinting.  
I've tried the OpenJDK build which is supposed to use Freetype but the difference between the two is noticeable.  Someone in the know should comment on this issue further.

On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 10:28 PM, Philip Köster <philip.koester@web.de> wrote:

IDEA can compile to wherever you like, and in a maven project, it
picks up the directory to compile to from your pom.

Then maybe I just haven't found that magic switch yet. Need an incubator! :)

As to SWT being the future.. how about the native look and feels for
Swing?

They all look awful. They are all half a decade behind. And they all just mimic what could be going on but never are the ``real thing." On the opposite, if you use SWT, you gain all the benefits from every Windowing-Subsystem release without further efforts. So the IBM folks really just did what the Sun folks were too lazy to do. SWT fulfills the promise, ``write once, run anywhere," where the AWT fails to do so.

* None of this was about the Eclipse IDE for Scala; I last used that
almost a year ago and I gather a lot has changed.

It's not stable yet, but yes, a lot has changed.

There are many issues; I was specifically thinking of the one in which
instantiation of a JFileChooser takes an amount of time almost
proportional to the number of.. zip files and jar files that are in
your home directory.

Also, right-clicking on a file never does the same as what the host OS
does, and the "two slow clicks to rename" is never what one wants.

2009/11/19 Philip Köster :
> Ricky Clarkson schrieb:
>>
>> JFileChooser is a nightmare.
>
> `JFileChooser' is a good example of a poor attempt to make an abstraction
> over cross-platform dlgs that completely failed. (Not the dlgs, but the
> abstraction.) But then again, ``Blair Witch Project" was an extraordinarily
> commercial success, just like ``Paranormal Activity" is ...
>
> ---Ph.
>

Ricky Clarkson schrieb:
> JFileChooser is a nightmare.

`JFileChooser' is a good example of a poor attempt to make an
abstraction over cross-platform dlgs that completely failed. (Not the
dlgs, but the abstraction.) But then again, ``Blair Witch Project" was
an extraordinarily commercial success, just like ``Paranormal Activity"
is ...

---Ph.

On Fri, 2009-11-20 at 00:08 +0100, Philip Köster wrote:
> > Also, I don't think either SWT or Swing is the future. At least, not
> > their current incarnation.
>
> Okay, point made. Getting a Java-based run-anywhere native lib to run
> (and it would mean to provide a lib for every platform) is not easy. I'm
> keeping the faith that this is feasible. Given the choice: Do you
> believe in a) AWT or b) SWT, I'd always gladly answer b).

Somehow you ended up with those 2 choices, but I don't think they are
the only ones. Not when talking about the future anyway. The future may
just be mostly web-based (and I am not a fan of web applications).

> There's no new
> GUI in modern apps that I couldn't model with SWT,
> including---whoow!---the latest office revision.

What office suite is designed in SWT? For Swing, there is:

www.thinkfree.com/

> ---Ph.
>
> PS: I don't like showing off, I feal really uncomfortable with stuff
> like this. But no less than 20 yrs ago I was one of the designers of
> StarOffice, now known as OpenOffice, so I'm not speaking out of the
> blue. (But my credits then weren't too bold.)

Well, it's not like StarOffice/OpenOffice are generally well-liked. ;)
The words bloated, slow and clunky are often used to describe the
application. I haven't heard a lot of good things about the programming
model either.

Still, it's probably the most complete alternative to Microsoft Office
and it must have been quite challenging to get it to that point.

> PPS: I want to see Java prosper on the client side. The last two decades
> concentrated on the server side, but I'm a client dude.

I wonder if it's too late, but we'll see.

Best,
Ismael

> Well, it's not like StarOffice/OpenOffice are generally well-liked. ;)
> The words bloated, slow and clunky are often used to describe theis
> application. I haven't heard a lot of good things about the programming
> model either.

Seeing OpenOffice blossom in Linux certainly gives me a sense of
confidence: Not everything we did could have been wrong. It's still the
best office packet around available for free, and it can compete with
Word! It's not that I like OpenOffice too much---now, looking backing at
it, I see all the mistakes we've made. But I guess the chief engineers
in Redmond look back to their own product the same way as I do.

There's only one thing I can say I am really proud of: At least we
challenged Microsoft: We were the only competitors in the early 90s, and
I'm pretty damn sure Bill Gates knows my name, so I have reached
everything I wanted to reach. He knows I'm a danger! :) You know,
everyone wanted to challenge and bust Microsoft, and we, as small little
unknown company from Northern Germany, were the only ones to take this
challenge. This really makes me proud and happy until today: We were so
close to beat Bill Gates in 1991, it was just a matter of millimeters!

So, it doesn't matter if you win. All what counts is that at one day you
can look back and tell your children: Well, at least we tried, and we
were so damn close to take over the world ...

Don't mean to get into an argument.  Although the Chrome font rendering on Linux seems bad it's (easily) fixable.  And it's no where near as bad as Swing.
Here's the relevant bug reports; 
  http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=13185  http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=26206
On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 11:36 PM, Ismael Juma <mlists@juma.me.uk> wrote:

On Thu, 2009-11-19 at 23:30 +0000, Ricky Clarkson wrote:
> My boss actually cares about stuff like fonts, and claimed that he had
> IDEA working on his Mac with as-good-as-native fonts.

The Mac look and feel is done by Apple and probably uses native fonts.

> I stick with
> the defaults, and I'm not very sensitive to it.  Looking at IDEA
> running on my wife's Vista-running laptop right now,

As I said in the other message, Swing uses native font rendering with
the Window look and feel now (since JDK6u10 one of the follow-ups).

> I really can't
> tell the difference between the fonts in Chrome and those in IDEA.

By the way, Chrome fonts on Linux are also bad, but I assume you're
talking about Windows there.

> On Linux, I do notice a difference, but it doesn't bother me.

You're lucky. :)

Ismael

On Fri, 2009-11-20 at 00:29 +0000, Mohamed Bana wrote:
> Don't mean to get into an argument. Although the Chrome font
> rendering on Linux seems bad it's (easily) fixable.

I wonder why it needs fixing in the first place.

> And it's no where near as bad as Swing.

It's worse if you don't use the patented FreeType bytecode interpreter
(it's great that some of the patents have expired or are due to expire
though).

> Here's the relevant bug reports;
> http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=13185
> http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=26206

Thanks.

Best,
Ismael