What is so poor about blue J ?

I'd be interested to know how much people use the features of their development environment to do the work for them and how much they prefer doing all the leg work themselves.
This relates to everything from laying out visual components to producing the configuration required for the run time environment ( i.e. automatically producing a deployment file for whichever runtime they use )?
As I've said before in this thread I use JDeveloper, should I start using Eclipse just to get used to the environment?
Nige

I hand code all my programs and blue j has a helpful little feature that creates a jar file for you so you dont have to command prompt the baby! ps. jar-ing has its benefits! if a user doesnt know how to compile code (and has windws and JRE - which they will have if they have windows) they can just run the executable just like a normal program. Nige, a bit of experimentation is useful, lots of employers look for eclipse - literate coders (in my experience).

I am interested as to why "Noone who is serious about Java uses BlueJ." I have used eclipse and netbeans and blue J offers no more abstraction from the java language than the other two - so what is the reason for this comment?

Coding every little thing from scratch is useful when learning the language. When you are employed developing an application with 800+ classes, anything that saves time is very beneficial. Things such as code completion, auto-generation of getters/setters and overriding methods, automated refactoring, GUI builders, debugging and profiling tools, and many more. At that level, it's a matter of productivity and if you aren't using the tools available then you're wasting time.

I can imagine the benefits of time saving techniques in the work place. I recently got my degree in software design and am on the search for jobs in the field but its incredibly hard to get foot in the door (as you guys probably know). I feel that I am still learning Java (obviously not the basics) even though I have spent 2 years worth of study on it so hence the scratch - up coding!

BlueJ is purely designed to teach programming concepts without exposing the language underneath.
It's solely an educational tool with no real value beyond that (and very little value in that).

The general impression we get from kids using BlueJ is that they don't learn the first thing about the underlying language, can't construct their own code, can't do a thing outside BlueJ (meaning it hides WAY too much), and have a very poor understanding of OO concepts.
Basically all they can do is click some boxes together in BlueJ and they think they're programmers.

Oh right I understand what you mean JWenting. that statement was demonstrated by numerous students on my course, but not all students. I wonder why they make us learn java in blue j if it is so basic (obviously an advantage in itself). But what hapens when those students want to work in a development background - they have to learn it all from scratch? degress do not mean much anymore here in UK

> But what happens when those students want to work in a development background
Maybe start experimenting on their own instead of waiting someone to hold their hand and guide them in darkness?

> degrees do not mean much anymore here in UK
They don't mean much anyways unless they mean something to the student. Many students have the misconception that just by _passing_ the exams or _getting_ a degree will make them a good _XYZ_. One should seek clarity, experiment and enjoy ones work and one would never feel that their degrees / education don't mean anything.

The force is within you, let there be light. ;-)

To be frank I have learnt more about programming from my own study than I did at uni so that goes in hand with what you've said ~s.o.s~. I am one who enjoys their work and I regularly experiment with programming/development. I did enjoy my degree and would recommend uni to anyone, however I was under the impression that passing exams and getting a degreewould open up career opportunities for me.