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JSP tools for a Ruby/Rails developer?

I am a full time rubyist, really enjoying rails, Sinatra, etc. Currently, however, I find myself working on a Java/TomCat/JSP project.
I was hoping someone could help me find tools, articles, books, and any other resources that will make me more comfortable?
I'm aware that Java is very different from Ruby, and the communities, likewise, are very different. That being said, all of the documentation around Java (that I have found) is a mess, and discovery is very difficult in this community.
Things I'm specifically looking for:
development environment setup tips
logger, logging, colorful output, best practice, etc
library resources and documentation
easy to navigate documentation for Java SE 6
anything you have found that makes your daily life better
Thanks!

If you are joining an existing Java project then you probably want to take a look at the tools already in use and get an existing developer / co-worker to bring you up to speed with them as a first port of call.
Having said that, here are my top tips:
Get comfortable with one of the main Java IDEs. Eclipse (my personal choice), Netbeans or IntelliJ are all excellent and very powerful tools once you get to know them. The refactoring / code navigation tools are probably better than anything you are used to in the Ruby world, they will help you a lot. Java is a lot less painful with a good IDE setup.
Learn Maven - this will take some time investment but it is extremely powerful for automating your dependency management and build process. Once you get it working you will save a huge amount of time on project / build management. Maven also provides automated access to the equivalent of Ruby gems through the various public Maven repositories.
And here are some particularly useful resources:
Java tutorials - good to get an introductory feel for the core Java libraries.
Java 6 API - useful as a reference resource for all the classes and functionality available in core Java (a lot of this is also provided via the IDEs)
JSP Documentation - for the JSP / Java EE aspects

As a little side note don't forget to learn about JSTL and Expression Language.

first of all you are on the right road to discover how elegant Java EE is. since you adressed various topics i will divide my answer into different parts :
Development environment:
Without further talk i will advise you to directly go and pick your eclipse Java EE Juno (last release) version, however if you'd like to have a look at other IDEs you can either check NetBeans 7.2 (last release) or IntelliJIDEA 11.2 Ultimate (last release i know of and that I have). Basically Eclipse has tons of plugins and features and backed up by a very great, large and passionate community.
[ i personally tried NetBeans, and IntellijIDEA, but felt more comfortable with Eclipse because of its look, features, cool color theme etc]
For JSP and HTML, CSS ,JS stuff, i however recommend the great IDE of Jetbrains Webstorm it has zen coding as well as many many other things like fast auto completion and support for many frameworks.
Lastly, pick up Sublime Text 2 as a text editor for quick edits or to just check a source file, it has a very beautiful layout and support for many languages as well as tons of plugins.
Ressources and documentations :
All the Java API specifications are available for offline viewing for free in Oracle's website and come packaged with the various SDK that are available there.
The easy to navigate documentation :
Eclipse IDE makes it very easy to attach JavaDoc and Source to the different jar files that make up a JDK, that said, your learning and coding experience will be greatly increased once you've set that up.So when you type Connection for example in IDE, you can simple hold Ctrl command then right click on it and the source code of the class implementation would be opened in a different tab. yes yes it's the power of the open source world :)
Concerning tips and tricks :
I'll recommend you use //TODO comments as Eclipse has support for them and you can setup your own TODO comments in settings, also you can use TASK comments, you've Mylyn too to manage your bugs, tasks either locally or connect to your favorite bug and issue tracker through a connector since many connectors are available for such purpose. Add to this list the possibility to configure bookmarks to help you manage your source files when they become full of lines.
About Tomcat:
Well if your goal is to make Java EE applications that do not require the advanced features of the Java EE specification, then you can use the sweet Tomcat, it's easy to use and configure and a well known web container.
However if that's not the case, and you wanna specialize in Java and spend lots of time to try to understand the ins and outs of this huge specification, you are likely to need a certified Application Server that supports all Java EE components. There are lot of them available, but since you asked for advise and I am here giving my modest suggestions I would advise you to pick the GlassFish Application Server, it's Open Source, and once you install it on Eclipse IDE for example, it will be bundled with both Java EE 5 and Java EE 6 API doc. This means no time to be wasted on browsing different tools and tabs, you will have everything grouped inside your Eclipse IDE so that you are 100% on the tasks at hand.
p.s: if you've any more questions please feel free to ping me.
Any good tip or trick :
Have fun with Java, because you will be learning everyday something new :)
p.s: i didn't mention any framework, because by the time you get used to Java EE you will be in position to pick the one that suits your needs. Also forgot to mention JUnit (Testing Framework) and a great eclipse plugin EClemma for code coverage (much better than Cobertura/eCobertura and easier to use), and of course you can try Maven as the other post mentioned, or try Apache Ant as build tool.

If you're coming from a Rails background, I'd be prepared for some initial frustration. Setting up projects in an IDE can be time consuming, and generally it's going to be more painful to get things like a basic web+app server up and running using Tomcat than using Ruby.
For a REPL, I would recommend Groovy (and indeed it comes pre-installed on Intellij) but you can also use BeanShell. Grails, or groovy on rails, is probably the closest thing we have to a Rails-like environment.
As others have said, with Java, using an IDE is really best. I like Intellij IDEA, but eclipse and NetBeans are also good.
For build and dependency management, Maven is probably as close as we have to standard, although I have heard nice things about Gradle.
There are entirely too many logging frameworks in java, use whatever your project currently uses, probably log4j or SLF4J. learn how to change log levels across the board, and also at a package level.
In terms of libraries, Google's Guava makes my life better on a daily basis.
The best "tips, tricks and general best practices" book on java is Josh Bloch's Effective Java. For documentation, the Javadoc is the authoritative source. Learn to read and write good javadocs.
For Test Driven Development, jUnit is probably the most widely used library, a very popular library is mockito, which also happens to be my favorite.

How to use Subclipse in Eclipse Helios (Android)

I am a Android Developer and I want to establish the Subverson
Now I have configure my eclipse with the plugin Subclipse properly and SVN is also properly configured by checking in perspective .Now I am not getting any idea how to use it ,how to create svn server, the local repository to svn and how can I share a project in LAN so my team can work on same project.I have surf lot on net but I am not getting any proper way ....

Subversion requires that there be a central repository/server on which to store all your data. So, you should decide whether you want to host this in-house, or whether you wish to outsource the repository hosting:
In-house Repository
An SVN server does not require a lot of resources, thus does not require the fastest hardware available, just make sure you have a reasonable amount of disk space available - depending on the types of items you are storing (multimedia files, Jars, images, etc).
Without going into the details on installing and configuring the server, just head to Apache to download a suitable binary, and follow their installation instructions. While you can get away with creating just a single user in the server, I would recommend creating one for each team member as this makes it easier to see who last checked-in a file.
Outsourced Repository
There are several organisations that are able to host your project(s), and the choices are determined by whether your project is open or closed source.
Open source projects have several FREE options, such as Google Code or the old favourite SourceForge.
For Commercial closed-source projects, if you have the budget you could opt for a paid service, such as JIRA Studio from Atlassian, who offer SVN hosting, plus their suite of tools - however this is not free. There are probably many other such commercial offerings, however I've not used them personally, so cannot comment on them.
Using Subversion
With most of the setup information out of the way, you'll need to know how to use subversion itself.
Basically, once you have linked your project to SVN, your day-to-day use of SVN will probably consist of the following steps:
Edit Source code
Update from HEAD (to incorporate other changes)
Resolve any conflicts that occurred from other users updating the same line of source code as yourself
Commit your changes to the repository
Repeat
When it comes to releasing your software product, it is common to use the Tagging functionality of SVN, which tags the current revision of each item in your repo with a given name (such as "MyProduct-1.0.0"), allowing you to continue development on the HEAD branch, but still recreate this version at any point in the future.
You will probably find this ebook to be of particular help when it comes to using SVN.
HTH

Subversion uses a client-server model unlike tools like Git that consist of clients. It appears that you are trying to use subversion without a server. I would recommend installing subversion and then following a tutorial such as this one to set up a repository for your team to use.

What are good InstallAnywhere replacements for installing a Java EE application?

Which (commercial or free) installer tool would you recommend to replace InstallAnywhere as the installer for a Java EE application? What do you specifically like about it, and what are its downsides?
Some requirements:
Must support running custom Java code as part of installation procedure
Must support Windows, including latest 64-bit versions like Windows Server 2008; support for other target operating systems is a plus
Must be able to install a bundled application server (such as Resin or Tomcat) as a service on Windows
Must support basic stuff like copying and moving files around, editing configuration files, extracting ZIPs, etc.
(Must support bundling a specific version of JRE; at the very least by including a ZIP to be extracted)
Edit: a few more points:
Preferably does not depend on a preinstalled JRE (or any other 3rd party runtime environment or library) on target machine; in other words, can produce an independent Windows .exe (or .msi)
The tool should preferably be cross-platform so that installer development can be done on Linux, Windows, or Mac.
Should preferably have a decent GUI for putting the installer together. Once that is done, however, it must be possible to skip the GUI and make installer building part of automated build process.

In this case, unfortunately, SO didn't tell us much that we didn't know already (and indeed the tool we ultimately chose was not mentioned in any answer). However, I'm posting our experiences here, as they might be helpful to others later on.
We (quickly) evaluated the following installer tools, mostly by looking at their websites and browsing for other information on the web: Actual Installer, Advanced Installer, BitRock InstallBuilder, Inno Setup, Install Creator, Installer VISE for Windows, InstallShield, install4j, IzPack, NSIS, openInstaller, Scriptlogic MSI Studio, Smart Install Maker, Symantec Wise Installation Studio, and WiX.
We screened out most of them early on, and ended up shortlisting two options for closer evaluation: BitRock InstallBuilder and install4j. For these tools, we downloaded evaluation versions and did some prototyping, to see if the things that are most important to us are really supported, and how easy or hard it is to get things working.
Both of the options were good in many things (and both seemed good alternatives to InstallAnywhere):
They produce completely native and pretty Windows .exe installers that are
easy to customise with your own graphics etc.
Both tools could easily be automated so that installer building is triggered from Ant. (With install4j it literally took me just five minutes to learn it and then implement it.)
Both companies seem to have good support (well, at least for prospects evaluating their products ;-) Especially from BitRock we got very quick replies.
In the following things install4j seemed better than BitRock for our needs (many of these are subjective, of course, so YMMV):
install4j definitely has better support for running custom Java code - it can be done at any point during the installation, and regardless of whether there's any preinstalled JRE on the system.
BitRock uses a more hard-coded sequence of installation steps while install4j is more flexible. In install4j, adding custom screens and forms (with or without custom Java code), asking user for input, etc., can be done at any point, before or after installing any files.
Also some basic things like defining the filesets that are to be copied to the target system, and adding an installation step to replace certain strings in configuration files seemed somewhat easier in install4j.
install4j has better support for JRE bundling
When creating installers on Linux, the look & feel of install4j IDE was nicer (more "native") than that of BitRock
(install4j's licensing options were better for us - we strongly preferred a couple of floating licenses to named licenses for all developers or an expensive "site license")
So ultimately we went with install4j. Here are some more details on why it was impressive:
Its IDE, where you put the installer together, is very simple and easy to use - I could figure out how to do most things I wanted quickly, even without looking at documentation. And when I did have to check something in the documentation (e.g. how to refer to installer variables; how to get started writing custom Java code against the install4j API), it didn't take long to find what I needed.
You can completely customise the screens and actions during the installation procedure, and also add custom screens and actions (coded against their Java API) at any point. This was important to us because we need to reuse existing custom Java code from the old InstallAnywhere installer.
In some small details, install4j seems ideal for Java developers. For example, if you want to add a validation script to check some user input, you can code that very quickly in the install4j IDE itself, using plain old Java, with coding assistance resembling that of IntelliJ IDEA.
We deemed the cost of install4j floating licenses reasonable, considering how good the tool is (and downright bargain compared to the inflated pricing of InstallAnywhere...)
In short, it seemed like the best installer tool available for deploying Java applications.

We created BitRock InstallBuilder, a crossplatform installation tool after some frustrating experiences with InstallAnywhere and specially its cousin (now defunct) InstallShield MP. More than half of our clients use our tool to package Java-based software but the tool is native, not Java-based. That means we have a number of advantages such as native look and feel (incl. Vista, GTK, Qt, etc.) and no need to do self-extraction previous to installation (faster startup, less space requirements) to mention a couple. To answer your specific questions:
Supports calling Java code as part of the installation at multiple points in time (such as when a certain page is displayed, files being copied, at uninstall time, etc.). The code is not compiled in the installer, but it can be called externally and the result used in the installer. If you are more specific about which kind of code that you need I can provide specific sample code. We have a lot of built-in actions for functionality that needs to be manually added to other installers, so you may not need to write that code in the first place!
We support all versions of Windows, including 64bit and Windows 2008 (multiple customers have certified on those platforms using our installers)
We support bundled applications servers, including Tomcat, Resin, JBoss and others. Take a look at BitNami for examples of such stacks that we have created.
We support copying and moving files, substituting values in config files, unpacking files and most other common installation functionality. One of our principles is that the installer should provide built-in support for common installation actions and have an easy, clean interface for invoking external code that is specific to a client's product.
We support bundling JREs, as you mention is often enough just to bundle the JRE directory and setting the appropriate value for JAVA_HOME in the launching scripts
You can take a look at some of our customers such as MySQL, Samsung, Motorola, GitHub, etc. InstallBuilder is a commercial product, but we offer free licenses for open source projects and discounts for small business and microISVs.

Just want to add that my company has used InstallAnywhere for about 6 years but we have decided to move on. The reason is two fold.
First of all their pricing is absolute highway robbery and the licensing is severely restrictive compared to direct competitors like INstall4J and BitRock.
My other problem with InstallAnywhere is the product is only minimally maintained. I have been using the product for 6-7 years through many different versions and bugs are rarely fixed and you surely can't expect new features. Essentially all you can expect is that they will add support for the new version of windows/mac as it comes out. Their support charges are quite pricey, but I have never had a support request actually implemented. When I first bought the product I believe it was from a company called ZeroG who were focused solely on this product. They actually maintained and improved the product. Back then it was the only real ticket and they were leaps and bounds above the competition.
Then it was acquired by Macrovision and then Flexera. Ever since ZeroG sold the product it has been an ancillary product for the owning company and the focus on it has been poor. It seems like it was bought more to complete a suite of products rather than because the company actually wanted to maintain the product.
Word of caution, evaluate these products carefully because you can become tied to them. We would have left the product sooner, but we put so much effort into not just the installer, but setting up an automatic update scheme based on the features/limitation of the product that it is expensive to leave the product because of the labor investment to reproduce this in a new product.
Just my take, but I wouldn't recommend InstallAnywhere.

I can vouch for izPack. It's Ant-based so you can package up an Ant install in it, and that Ant install can contain custom tasks, and/or scripts written within your Ant build.xml (e.g. using Groovy, Beanshell or any BSF-enabled scripting language). So it'll cover your customisable requirement.
I've used it in the past for all the above - unzipping/services/custom code. It's multi-platform, although I can't vouch for that specific instance above (64bit Windows). But if it runs Java, you should be fine.
The one headache is the JRE. You'd obviously require some JRE to run this. However I think you should be able to pack up and execute a specific JRE installation within izPack.

Currently we are using GetDown to handle distribution of our swing applications. We use Tomcat to distribute updates and GetDown to download those updates. It's really flexible and powerful, and much better than java WebStart and because it produces check sum for changes it saves bandwith and downloads just changed files.
A good tutorial : http://www.hascode.com/2012/05/creating-updatable-java-applications-using-getdown-and-the-getdown-maven-plugin/
Project website : https://github.com/threerings/getdown

Deployment in an multi-platform environment is always a big source of troubles. It think that the optimum solution would target the creation of native packages for all platforms, like RPM, DEB or MSI ... the ones that could be installed unattended also.
Developers should work on making the application self-healing and run without installation.
Doing so will payoff in minimize the deployment efforts.
I know this is not quite a solution as you where asking but sometimes you may get better results this way.
Remember that you'll get free updating service on Linux if you follow these.
I still hope Microsoft will add something similar to MSI (and that would not require you to register at them). Meanwhile for Windows you can take a look at Google Updater just released as open source - http://code.google.com/p/omaha/
They released a similar product for Mac OS http://code.google.com/p/update-engine/ but sad that they didn't think about creating one product from these two.

You can try the SetupBuilder Gradle Plugin to create a native *.msi installer with a simple Gradle build script.
It is free.
Supports 32 bit and 64 bit Windows. Also Linux and OSX.
Bundle the Java VM under Windows and OSX, does not required a preinstalled Java VM.
Can run Java Code before or after the installation.
Can create a windows service/daemon.
Has not a GUI but use Gradle. If you already use Gradle as build script language then it is very easy.

you may be interested in launch4j

Jonik, thanks for posting such detailed feedback of your experience. I wanted to write a follow up answer, since you raise some good points.
After certain base requirements are met (which unfortunately InstallAnywhere does not any more) there are not really 'bad' or 'good' tools, but rather tools that are better suited for some projects. It seems you studied carefully all options and install4j will work better for your project. This is probably a good choice, since you have an existing Java codebase from your previous installer that you want to reuse (though I would like to think some of that code would not be necessary with InstallBuilder :)
Regarding InstallBuilder, we support customizing the screen sequence using the <insertBefore> tag (we probably should better document this). It is also straightforward to bundle a JRE (just including the java/ folder in most cases) but I think your criticism is valid: since this is a common task we should do a better job at documenting / making it accessible though the GUI, including drag-and-drop in all supported platforms. We already have in our roadmap improving the GUI in the areas you mention. The funny thing is that a lot of our customers find the XML format so easy to use that they prefer editing it using their programming editors (as if they were editing HTML)
Finally, regarding licensing, our current model does not require purchasing additional licenses if those extra programmers will just be building the installers (not designing them) or purchasing extra licenses for build or continuous integration machines. In any case, a couple of floating licenses for install4j are more expensive than a full Enterprise Site license for BitRock:)
Thanks again for the feedback

I recommend having a look at cmInstall, which can be found at
http://sourceforge.net/projects/cminstall/
It meets almost all your requirements and it's open source. Plus I'm one its developers :).
[yes] Must support running custom Java code as part of installation procedure
[yes] Must support Windows, including latest 64-bit versions like Windows Server 2008; support for other target operating systems is a plus
[can be easily done by using 3rd party libs- e.g.:Tanuki Software] Must be able to install a bundled application server (such as Resin or Tomcat) as a service on Windows
[yes]Must support basic stuff like copying and moving files around, editing configuration files, extracting ZIPs, etc.
[yes - or you can programatically download & unzip it ]Must support bundling a specific version of JRE; at the very least by including a ZIP to be extracted
6.[no - it needs jdk 1.6 installed, support for .exe or .msi is planned for future]Preferably does not depend on a preinstalled JRE (or any other 3rd party runtime environment or library) on target machine; in other words, can produce an independent Windows .exe (or .msi)
[yes] The tool should preferably be cross-platform so that installer development can be done on Linux, Windows, or Mac.
7.[no - the cminstall framework is "developer based" - but easy to use.Just read the tutorials from http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=250019&package_id=305489 and see how easy it is to build an installer!] Should preferably have a decent GUI for putting the installer together. Once that is done, however, it must be possible to skip the GUI and make installer building part of automated build process.

I have also reveiwed few of the open source multi platform installers. Here is my comment:
BitRock InstallBuilder: Only Great for free and open source developers as it gives free license for use in open source projects.
InstallJammer: Good free and open source multi platform installer. Only one concern that as soon as one downloads the executable build from InstallJammer, the anti-virus program will immediately delete it. Somehow files built from InstallJammer are being caught as False Positives. You will have to work a bit more security certificate before publishing.
Izpack: Good free and open source multi platform installer. It may be a bit cumbersome for people not used to with ant. May be great when used with GUI front-ends like PackJacket.

I've seen several people recommend IzPack, but I honestly don't know if it meets your requirements. It's at least free :)

Sun offers an open source installer:
OpenInstaller
I'm sure that all your requested features are supported.
But it seems for me a little too hard to configure.
But guess what: It has not only a GUI but also a (pseudo-graphic) CLI.
Nice screenshots and info here.

Java Development on a Mac - Xcode, Eclipse, or Netbeans [closed]

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I've been using Xcode for the usual C/C++/ObjC development. I'm wondering what are practical considerations, opinions of Xcode, Eclipse or NetBeans usage on a Mac for Java development?
Please don't include my current usage of Xcode in your analysis.

You missed the Rolls Royce of all IDEs. IntelliJ Idea.
If you can afford to buy a personal license, go for it. Edit: There’s a free Community Edition which is a superb way to get started with Java, Scala or Kotlin.

I like NetBeans on OS X for Java.
It seems like I spend more time configuring eclipse to get a decent java programming environment. With NetBeans the setup time is less and I can get down to programming quicker...

I would advocate Eclipse on the Mac for Java, mosly because I had a very good experience. I'm not going to bang on about its merits as an IDE, but here are some unexpected advantages I found:
When my employer switched IDE's to Eclipse I was way ahead.
Pretty much any language I fancied trying out had a free IDE somewhere as an Eclipse plug-in, so I have a very consistent multi-language development environment.
When I eventually went over to the Windows dark side I could use the same development environment, which was a huge relief.
But this is a bit of a religious topic, so expect to get a whole bunch of different opinions

Just to be sure you give them fair consideration, Eclipse and Netbeans have gone back and forth for a while. Eclipse used to be a good deal quicker because they didn't use Swing.
Now Netbeans has caught up (perhaps surpassed) and has a lot of momentum.
You will get more votes for Eclipse. Period. This is because it was better and more people use it--and it's just human nature to feel what you are using is the best and everyone should use it.
Because it was better does not mean it's better now. Netbeans has more languages supported and more all-around support--so it's growing faster.
Currently I use Eclipse--I've used both (and IntelliJ and TextMate and Notepad...) and I can tell you that Eclipse has exactly one feature over netbeans... Mylyn (it's been renamed, it used to be called Mylar). This thing is pretty damn cool, but few people seem to even know it exists.
So, if you don't know a bunch of keystrokes that already tie you to an editor, the up and coming is Netbeans--don't pass it up because of a bunch of Eclipse votes.
Better yet, get good with both--it can't hurt and makes me a lot more comfortable when a company requires one or another. Don't whine when they make you change.

Do not use Xcode - Java support in the later versions is very much lacking. Even Apple, who make it, suggest you use a different IDE. As for NetBeans and Eclipse, they both have their strengths and a large number of vocal followers. I suggest you try both and use whichever you find more comfortable.
I for one use TextMate and shell scripts. But I'm strange.

Well, I can chime in with Netbeans, it seems to work really well. There are some function key issues that I believe has a solution, I just haven't solved it. I've been quite happy with Netbeans. I like its "all in one out of the box" nature over the pick and choose plug in nature of Eclipse, but that's just a matter of taste.

Another vote for IntelliJ. http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/

I used both Eclipse and Netbeans. I like Netbeans more than Eclipse. From java editor point of view, both have excellent context sensitive help and the usual goodies.
Eclipse sucks when it comes to setting up projects that other team members can open and use. We have a big project (around 600K lines of code) organized in many folders. Eclipse won't let you include source code that is outside the project root folder. Everything has to be below the project root folder. Usually you want to have individual projects and be able to establish dependencies among them. Once it builds, you would check them into your source control. The problem with eclipse is that a project (i.e .classpath file) dependencies are saved in user's workspace folder. If you care to see this folder, you will find many files that read like org.eclipse.* etc. What it means is that you can't put those files in your source control. We have 20 step instruction sheet for someone to go through each time they start a fresh checkout from source control. We ended up not using its default project management stuff (i.e. classpath file etc). Rather we came up with an Ant build file and launch it from inside Eclipse. That is kludgy way. If you had to jump through these many hoops, the IDE basically failed. I bet eclipse project management was designed by guys who never used an IDE. Many IDES let you have different configurations to run your code (Release, Debug, Release with JDK 1.5 etc). And they let you save those things as part of your project file. Everyone in the team can use them without a big learning curve. You can create configurations in Eclipe, but you can't save them as part of your project file (i.e it won't go into your source control). I work on half dozen fresh checkouts in a span of 6 months. I get tired to recreate them with each fresh checkout.
On the other hand, Netbeans works as expected. It doesn't have this project management nightmare.
I heard good things about IntelliJ.
If you are starting fresh, go with Netbeans.
My 2cents.

It depends what you want to do. My experience with Java on the Mac is about a year old by now, but NetBeans had a much better out-of-the-box support for Tomcat (in particular) deployment, and generally seemed to be a little more user friendly. For instance, the Netbeans beta I tried out used forms for web.xml configuration, in comparison to Eclipse's plain ol' XML editor (and in Europa, at least, the XML editor's row redrawing was a little sketchy on the Mac).
That said, for that project, I wound up doing a bit of configuration (for a was a n00b) in NetBeans, then moved the XML config files over to Eclipse, and developed the rest there. As others have mentioned, the zillions of plugins are great, and in general the experience is just very consistent. Especially if you have to work on another platform.
If Eclipse had better OS X bindings (does it have any? I'm unaware), I would use that for Obj-C development, as well.

I have tested editors for Java extensively and prefer Netbeans to Eclipse by a significant margin. NetBeans has excellent support for Java, a very beautiful user interface and powerful features. It also has excellent support for C++ and I would choose for this it over, say, Visual Studio. Consider JCreator classic edition, an excellent place to start although not as powerful as NetBeans, easier to get into at first.
I'd also defend NetBeans plugins against Eclipse because although Eclipse is highly praised for the flexibility it is afforded by plugins I think this is largely down to the fact that the also very powerful plugins features of NetBeans are not shouted about so much, even though it is also very strong in this area. I have seen computational fluid dynamics applications based on the NetBeans platform, very impressive, I just don't think NetBeans developers make such a big deal over it because it's already a complete package from the moment you download it, powerful without any need for configuration with plugins.

If you're using Eclipse, be sure to use Ganymede (3.4) or later. They run great. The previous version (Europa) ran poorly on my Macbook Pro.

I happen to use Eclipse on my Mac (actually EasyEclipse which comes preconfigured with the most important plugins) and I must say it runs great. I have a less positive experience on Linux though.
I have also used NetBeans 6 recently and I was very impressed. It seems to have more functionality build-in. Most of the functionality is undoubtedly also available as an Eclipse plugin though, if you can find it.
Currently I have the impression that if you start developing Swing, Netbeans is your best option. Otherwise, Netbeans or Eclipse with a handy set of plugins are both excellent options.
If you do check out eclipse, give a thought to EasyEclipse (free) or perhaps even MyEclipse (not free). They come with the most usefull plugins preinstalled.

I've worked with both Eclipse CDT and NetBeans's C++ support, and I must say that in my experience CDT is far superior in both stability and in features. It's really impressive how well the CDT indexer works; the tooling is almost as good as Java's. I'm also a huge fan of JDT when compared with NetBeans for Java development. The workflow is just so much smoother, if only due to the incremental compiler (compile-on-save).
One thing about NetBeans though, its UI does flow a little better in the "Mac style", which is ironic seeing as SWT was created to provide a more native interface. The next release of Eclipse should be based on Cocoa (rather than Carbon, which is the current), but that won't be until next June.
Final note: the whole "in box" vs "plugins" issue is entirely moot and it has been since Eclipse Calisto (two years ago). Now, with P2 (the new update manager), it's dead easy to get different features in the IDE. I can start with a download and get a fully-functional JDT/CDT/Mylyn environment up and running within five minutes of installation (assuming a reliable internet connection).

I use Eclipse for development, and have had nothing but pain. It has more bugs than a bait shop, and is one of the worst written programs I have ever used. Use Xcode if you want to save time and frustration.

I'll suggest Eclipse because it has a zillions plugins and is almost a standard for Java development. But I've heard that NetBeans is really nice since their latest release specially if you want to do desktop application(Swing) .
I can't comment on Xcode since I haven't play with it.

Just from my experience, Eclipse is very large IDE. It needs more work to become better suited for the Mac environment. Netbeans is the best out of box experience. After installed, it is essentially ready to go. After I tried IntelliJ IDEA I forgot every other kind of IDE :P
But at the end no one wins over the other.
IMHO as USUAL !

Eclipse, because it has better support of C++ on mac. I used Netbeans long time ago, did not like it.
Use Java based IDE on mac only if you have to (especially when doing Java development). Xcode already supports C/C++ development, so no need to switch.

am I missing the point here or are developers still considering using Mac for java development?
I was a strong and rigid supporter of Mac as a development environment but ever since Apple's decision to not port java on later versions of os x my confidence has shaken a little.
And please do not even think about doing any j2EE deployment on Mac as it will bring about a tsunami of woes.
So long Java but I like my mac book pro too much .
FYI:I still use Mac for java development but sometimes I wish I were a python developer :(

From my experience, I use both Eclipse and Intellij (license) for J2EE development.
For overall of speed on IDEs, Intellij is faster and crashed lesser than Eclipse. I used Eclipse first and later on, I got used to Intellij and fell in love with it. However, Google's Android Studio is Intellij based. It's more modernized. Debugging is much easier especially you can evaluate a block code during the debug mode to see how it behaves instead of just inspecting objects. I highly recommend!

Continuous build with .NET and Java projects on a single machine

Is it possible to set up continuous build of projects written in .NET and Java on single build server with single set of applications?
I've seen CruiseControl has support for both world but as far as I know these are two separate applications. Should I go with a separate machine to build Java projects (a machine for .NET projects is already set up)?

Hudson has support for both Ant (out of the box IIRC) and NAnt (through plugin) so that's an option for you.

CruiseControl supports several different build options include Ant, Maven, NAnt, Phing (php), Rake, XCode, and then the generic "exec" which you can use to invoke any command-line script/tool you want. Not a problem mixing Java and .NET on the same server.
Of course this is not unique to CruiseControl. There are lots of CI tools that support multiple build technologies as you can see on this matrix of features.
Disclaimer: I work on CruiseControl. OTOH since I don't make money on it I don't much care which tool people choose. I care more about advancing the state of CI practices which is why I organize the Continuous Integration and Testing Conference (CITCON).

Ant and NAnt can reasonably easily execute arbitrary processes, including each other, so the actual build part shouldn't be too hard.
I'd expect the tricky bit to be getting the reports (including unit test results) into an appropriate format. How's your XSLT? ;)
EDIT: Now that I think about it, my first agile project had a continuous build server (just CruiseControl, I believe) which must have been doing some of this... I suspect at the time we directly invoked Visual Studio to build the code and NUnit to test it. If I were at the same company I'd check, but that was two jobs ago :(

You could checkout Atlassian Bamboo. Unfortunately, its not free, unless you are applying for an opensource/community license for use with opensource software.

You can use two different products on the same machine. Or you can run a single builds system across multiple machines. It is really up to the load you place on your CI.