>Okay, so I think I'm just about done with NetBeans.  Thus far the only
>thing giving me a rash is the editor, which is made marginally useful
>(for me) through the Emacs key binding set.  Unfortunately, that last
>"ten percent" I'm missing has proven to be such a source of annoyance
>that...well...I just can't take it anymore, man! *sniff*
>
>What is the done thing when it comes to writing Java applications
>using Emacs?  There's obviously a mode for writing the code, but what
>other packages and .emacs magic might I want to use to get the most
>from it?  I could easily Google some how-tos and whatnot, I'm sure,
>but I'm also highly interested in the opinions of people actually
>working with Java today as to the usability of Emacs for the task of
>writing programs spanning multiple files and such.
>
>So if you're writing Java applications with Emacs as your
>center-piece, how are you doing it and what other tools are you using?

This topic comes up every once in a while, and I'm sure you'll find
plenty of opinions in the archives of help-gnu-emacs.

I use emacs for java development.  My setup is very simple, but it
works well for me.

  - java mode for java editing

  - ant for compilation, javadoc generation, and general integration
    with third-party java development tools.

    I set the shell environment variable ANT_ARGS=-emacs so that ant
    outputs file and line numbers in a format that compilation mode
    understands.  Within emacs, I 

    (setq compile-command "ant -find build.xml ")

  - gnu global for source code indexing and symbol navigation.

  - emacs' existing facilities for interacting with version control
    systems (cvs-mode, vc, etc)

  - A web browser for viewing javadoc

  - Occasionally, I use eclipse as a debugger.  (Primarily because
    I've never come to terms with jdb.)

Steve