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I am fairly new to Eclipse and have recently setup the IDE using the base installation. I am mostly working on java projects that use a Spring, Maven and of course all the files that come with a website. I installed several plugins to handle color coding for JS, CSS, JSP and tag files. My IDE now slows down quite a bit after about 2 hours of using it. It's really frustrating having to restart it or suffer slow load times when opening or switching files. I want to know what a good base installation of Eclipse that would include things like color coding for basic files used on the web like javascript, css, xml etc...

If these requirements can't be achieved with a default installation, what should I start with as my base and what plugins are some great stable ones to get for what I require?

Roman C
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ug_
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  • You may want to consider installing your IDE in a flash drive if upgrading your computer isn't an option. – DPM Jun 02 '13 at 19:38
  • May I recommend NetBeans..I use Eclipse since my first days in Java, but I must admit that NetBeans is much more user friendly and much more suitable tool for web developement. Everything you need is already preinstalled. – Branislav Lazic Jun 02 '13 at 19:38
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    @brano88 or if money isn't an issue, IntelliJ is another worthy contender. – DPM Jun 02 '13 at 19:40
  • @brano88 I started on NetBeans and I agree its an awesome IDE, however I cant seem to get alot of my projects class paths resolved on it. I am working on alot of legacy projects that have some strange tomcat setups. – ug_ Jun 02 '13 at 19:41
  • @brano88 IMO I tried Eclipse and Netbeans and Netbeans turned to be better on performance but Eclipse was better for my text editor needs (probably the fact that I hate visual editors for the view and prefer a plane text editor with a decent auto complete feature have impacted my decision). Also, I hated the fact that in my web applications I had to manually create *WEB-INF/lib* and manually add the jars there and add them in the build path manually (three steps). – Luiggi Mendoza Jun 02 '13 at 19:41
  • @brano88 I can assure you my computer is not the culprit. But that is a great suggestion for someone else who may be seeing this in the future :) – ug_ Jun 02 '13 at 19:42
  • +1 for IntelliJ. I have seen many open source committers using IntelliJIdea. But because I'm addicted to Eclipse and the money thing, I haven't switched to IntelliJIdea. :) – Arham Jun 02 '13 at 19:43

2 Answers2

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Less of an answer, more of a comment.

Eclipse has some performance issues, especially with a lot of plugins running. The web tools project in particular has issues where it appears to re-parse XML files on a ridiculous frequency which causes some serious slowdown.

However, it is still my IDE of choice for Java Web/EE applications. Some quick fixes are:

  • Upgrade to Eclipse 4--there's no reason not to if you're starting out, it is much faster.
  • Turn off "Automatic building"
  • Install it on a RAM drive/SSD so your file-hits move more quickly (the RAM drive, as a bonus, starts clean)
  • Run it with -clean every once in a while and ditch your local file history
  • Keep a minimum set of files open.

My general problems are when editing JSF/XML files due to the validation running constantly. Turning off automatic building minimized this.

As to Netbeans... Netbeans I find to be very sluggish when dealing with EE projects and less intuitive. This might just be personal preference, but in my experience Eclipse makes building and dealing with web projects less of a headache. Additionally the UI feels far more sluggish than Eclipse when dealing with anything substantial. It is faster in some areas and slower in others--basically a wash in productivity in my books (the last time I seriously used it was late 2011 so there might be some improvements I'm unaware of).

Also, make sure you're setting up your servers so that you're not rebuilding from scratch and you're taking advantage of native "hot-code replacement" while debugging or JRebel if you want to spend a bit of cash. It really makes a difference. Additionally "JBoss tools" off the marketplace might be of interest. Some of those plugins are rather helpful.

Lastly I reboot at my coffee breaks--it really isn't that big a deal in my workflow. It might be a bigger deal in yours.

Daniel B. Chapman
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  • Thanks for the tips, expecially about the JSF/XML validation stuff. It appears that this is my problem. I will definitely be trying out your suggestions this afternoon. – ug_ Jun 02 '13 at 20:35
  • if you find it let post back here, I'm hoping to have some time to look at the source this Summer. – Daniel B. Chapman Jun 02 '13 at 20:38
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Few suggestions:

  • disable "automatically build" in "project"'s menu.
  • use the latest Eclipse
  • use the latest JDK for launching eclipse (edit eclispe.ini)
  • configuring the eclipse.ini (see this question for a complete eclipse.ini). Increase the heap values over there.
Community
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Tejas Patil
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  • I have done the last 3 on your list and it did make my IDE stay up longer but it merely pushed the lag time back about an hour. Does automatically building cause a good chunk of memory? – ug_ Jun 02 '13 at 19:33
  • Automatic building compiles when you change a file. It eats up a lot of processing power if you start running thin. Eclipse is a pretty hungry IDE. I'm quite a fan though. Eclipse also hits the hard-drive a lot to keep a local history--that's where I see the problems on my end. – Daniel B. Chapman Jun 02 '13 at 20:22