The consistently rude are being consistent again, as yet-another-chain of comments on Javalobby shows how internet criticism flows so freely.

Despite the desires of the commenters below, JBuilder is still out there and kicking around. If I had a chance to sit-down with someone on that team, this looks like a bunch of questions I could ask:

• The “big three” IDEs, or at least, the ones one hears most about, are IntelliJ, Eclipse, and NetBeans IDE. In contrast, JBuilder seems to have been very quiet. What’s the reason for that?
• What are two or three main reasons why one should consider JBuilder over another IDE?
• JBuilder isn’t open source and it isn’t free. Is this going to change in the near or distant future?
• Where does JBuilder fit in with CodeGear’s strategy?
• What are the future development plans for JBuilder?

All valid questions, and not sugar-coating. Yet, because the editor who asked these questions on Javalobby also decided to announce the InfoWorld award JBuilder won recently, we get this great example of our community at its best:

JBuilder: InfoWorld’s Java IDE of the Year

Ok, now maybe this article isn’t the pen-ultimate in literature, but I don’t really think Geertjan did anything wrong; he took the time to craft up questions, and took the effort to contact someone at JBuilder about their product.

Yet, even though we are all adults, here are some snippets from the comment chain:

1st Comment: (censorship mine)

fu##ing marketing!

… and…

Funny that the only screenshot of JBuilder here actually says Eclipse SDK.

… and…

That’s because JBuilder IS Eclipse with some plugins… Which is exactly the reason why a LOT of customers have abandoned the product, which probably prompted Borland/Codegear to finally do some marketing and buy themselves an award in an attempt to regain some marketshare.

… and of course…

And this interview is nothing but a silly marketing strategy.

Geertjan responded with this:

Be nice, people. And this isn’t a marketing strategy. This is me interviewing someone from JBuilder, to find out where it’s going and what it’s plans are, and so on. It’s interesting to hear, for example, about things like “Application Factories”.

At which time this rebuttal was dropped:

‘Interviewing’ company representatives is marketing when the story contains zero/nada/null/etc.. in terms of critique.

Stories like these need more meat on the bones. You know (and everybody else knows) that there’re enough awards for each company to choose from. So instead of letting the interviewee repeat his marketing mantra, why not put a bit more effort on finding some interesting details behind the scenes?

I guess it’s easy to be so critical when that’s all you have to bring to the table - and looking at this user’s Javalobby history; criticism does seem to be all he/she is bringing to the table.

Being someone who has written and worked on content like what Geertjan posted, I know it takes time, and involves proof-reading and fact-checking. It’s a shame that it’s so easy for a few people to rip it apart so quickly; especially when I didn’t think it was that bad of a post; I think people saw the title and the first question, and decided to turn on their death rays.