Borland JBuilder Pro 4.0

The pleasant surprises that await you extend farther than the familiar feel of the Borland development interface. Right off the bat you'll find that installation is easy and includes several applications in one sitting. Unlike many other applications, Borland's JBuilder Pro 4.0 offers a tip of the day that is actually useful, offering hints, shortcuts, and development-related advice (rather than warning you that plaids and stripes don't match). The programmer's documentation is thorough--examples and tutorials will lead you toward a higher understanding of common tasks like database work and graphical interface design. And to top it all off, JBuilder Pro 4.0 has the uncommon feature of letting the developer switch easily between different versions of the Java Developer's Kit (JDK).

But the most impressive feature award must go to Swing Integration--the latest thing for GUI design in Java. This feature has lots of built-in goodies for customizing the look and feel of your application and makes it easier overall to connect to the database. Take the wizards for a spin and see how easy and simple this can be.

And you won't be able to overlook the Enterprise Java Bean (EJB) Builder, which also offers good integration with the database and makes things a lot easier to handle. You'll also find wizards in this area that streamline some of the more common tasks.

The getting started guide will give you a great introduction to the application and to Java. And if you're coming in with experience from a different application, this guide will have you off and running with a good array of sample code. Between this tutorial, the documentation, and the wizards, you'll find 90 percent of the developer's basic tasks covered. And for those intermediate-level users, you'll probably be more impressed with what's not missing rather than the flashy bells and whistles: the hot keys are all in the right places, the buttons are where you'd expect to find them, and you won't be forced to learn a dramatically different set of commands or menus.

And when you're ready, printing in JBuilder is unusually nice. If you're someone who cringes at the thought of code in printed form, you'll be delighted to find plenty of features that let you pick how you want your work to look. Options like color-coded text and optional line numbering are definite plusses and make peer code reviews easy. --Emilie Dirks

Amazon.com Product Description
JBuilder 4 Professional provides a set of visual development tools for creating Pure Java 2, platform-independent databases, and Internet business applications. Combining RAD Java 2, JFC/Swing, applets, JSPs, servlets, and InternetBeans Express development with the productivity of 300-plus reusable JavaBeans with source, advanced debugging, and scalable database and Internet tools, JBuilder's open, scalable, and standards-based development environment shortens your time to market for Java applications.

JBuilder 4 allows you to create Pure Java applications for the Java 2 platform without proprietary code or markers and with support for the newest Java standards, including: Java 2, Swing/JFC, XML, Java2D, Java Collections, JDK 1.1, JavaBeans, JDBC, JSP/Servlets, Serialization, Inner Classes, RMI, JNI, Java Archives, and more. This title also includes Referentia interactive multimedia training.