A few days ago I added a post here about my Eclipse frustrations. Since then I’ve gotten three comments from readers suggesting I move to NetBeans.
Now, it’s interesting enough that anybody found this blog at all. I know I have a few regular readers (I’m reminded of the quote from The Big Chill where William Hurt says something like, “I had a small, deeply disturbed group of listeners”), but none of the comments came from them.
That means that the comments are either coming from lurkers (possible but not likely) or people who search for blog posts like mine.
Months ago, when I first mentioned how much I like the MyEclipse editor, I received a comment the next day. I contacted that person and found that they really do search on a regular basis for people using the product, which frankly I find a feature rather than a bug. One of my favorite things about MyEclipse is that their tech support is so responsive. Every time I’ve sent them an email I’ve received an answer within hours, and every time I’ve left a post on their forum I’ve gotten an answer in the next day or two. That’s really good. It’s part of the reason (other than the excellent quality of the product) that I recommend it in my training courses.
I’m not accustomed, however, to getting messages from users of an open source product. Here’s the other odd thing, too. In my recent posts I mentioned trying NetBeans. Each comment has suggested I try it, as though I hadn’t yet. I also responded to each saying I’m in the process of doing so. Still I got another comment suggesting I try the product.
In other words, it looks like some people are doing a keyword search for terms I’m using (IDE? Eclipse? NetBeans?) and responding without actually reading what I’m saying.
Maybe I’m overly cynical sometimes, but that sounds like marketing it me. 🙂 The question is, though, who’s gaining by doing so? NetBeans is an open source product from Sun. Who cares if I use it or not? That suggests people are commenting because they really do care, but why do they care that much? One comment I would understand, or even two, but three in three days?
Time will tell, I guess. Let’s see if I get an automatic comment this time.
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