Its true - I no longer rely on Notepad for coding anymore. Truth is I’m finding Visual Studio and Eclipse more and more reliable and feature rich than ever before. Some cool new features in Eclipse include:

• Extract class refactoring
• Quick assists
• Editor breadcrumbs

Watch the screencast….

While on simple tutorials - an easy to follow JUnit 4 and Eclipse tutorial.’

Mmmmm — the above sentence contains the words simple and Eclipse. …. But its true now that I have more ram.

The latest version of Eclipse (Europa) just seems more pleasant to use!

• It’s been crashing less!
• I can now drag text around in the editor. (Yipee!!!!!)
• Offers great assistance for creating unit tests and refactoring code.
• Has wizards and extensions to create and consume web services (eg Eclipse SOA Tools Platform plug-in).

Now this could all be because I code only for pleasure (i.e. I’m a Business Analyst and not a developer anymore), my home computer has more RAM than the one at my previous workplace and I am not forced to code in a rush. Whatever the reason - I am happy I finally feel that I can leave Notepad behind.

Sit back, relax, and watch this video that covers testing, quick fixes, code completion and refactoring in Eclipse.