Donna

I just don't get it--why is it, after all these years of research and innovation, the best programming environment we have so far is really, in the grand scheme of things, quite mediocre.  Now, I really do like Eclipse, but I mean really--it's 2005!

Now, I suppose the same argument could be made for other types of software, like spreadsheets or document preparation.  But software is our field!  Why is the software we use so horrible?

It turns out that Eclipse would have caught the problem I mention here.  Go to Java->Compiler->Errors/Warnings and add a warning (or even an error!) for an empty statement.  Eclipse also has the option of giving a warning if you declare a method as throwing a checked exception that it doesn't actually throw. 

Incidentally, Eclipse's code formatting is very useful--you can have a different color/bold/italic for instance variables and static members.  Now all it needs is a button for "fix Java's stupidness" and everything would be great.