RE: Support of Visual Age...

["Joe Pluta" <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: Mike Silvers
>
> My boss is reviewing the IDE's out there to determine which one
> we are going
> to use company-wide.  Right now we are down to Builder and Visual.  I
> remember reading somewhere (I can't remember where it was) that
> IBM is going
> to discontinue support of Visual Age in the future....does anyone have any
> insight?

Yes, unfortunately.  IBM's stated direction is to move to an overall IDE
that supports everything.  It's supposedly based on the Eclipse product,
http://www.eclipse.org/.  Personally, I love VAJ, but if you're picking a
new standard, I don't think VAJ is the way to go.  Not that I recommend
JBuilder, either, but that's just my opinion.

I am a little discouraged by the constant changing of horses midstream with
the cross-platform development.  I spent years extolling the virtues of
WebSphere, only to have the rug pulled out from under me when IBM decided to
discontinue the free standard edition.  Next, I raved about the virtues of a
repository-based IDE (and believe me, there are many), and now they're
discontinuing that.

It's really quite sad.  Visual Age for Java is the best OO editor I have
ever used, and losing it for the sake of some "corporate vision" is very,
very troubling.  I can understand the desire to have a single tool with a
common interface from a fiscal standpoint, but at the same time, are they
willing to flush all the money they've invested in VAJ?  It's sad to think
that, yes, that's exactly what IBM is willing to do.

In any event, I'm taking a wait and see attitude on the new toolset.  Until
I'm either comfortable that it has the same functionality as VAJ, or else
I've lowered my standards of what an IDE should provide, I'm sticking with
my good old VAJ.

Joe Pluta
www.plutabrothers.com