I recommend not getting stuck on a particular IDE. You'll want to be
able to switch IDE's at any time. Consider an IDE a fancy editor with
compilation and debugging features.
Really bad is depending on libraries that come with the IDE. Borland
used to be particularly bad with this, possibly still is.
I recommend using ant as the build process which essentially should
contain enough instructions to compile the right java source files
into class files, and package them up into a jar file.
Especially in a team environment, a company should mandate that each
developer must make sure that the ant build.xml file is working at all
times.
Some IDE's handle ant, that's great. I'd still learn how to first
write *everything* using something simple like Notepad or UltraEdit or
Crimson or something, which are all plane text editors. Once you get
a hang of that, then explore IDE's.
The problem with IDE's, which is also something M$ is particularly
weak at, is that they bribe you into thinking that you can take
certain aspects for granted and won't have to worry about certain
things. I guarantee in the end you will have to worry and will get
confronted with every single molecule there is.
So, the answer in my opinion is to work your way from the bottom up,
not from the top down.
So, straight JDK, jikes, ant. You can find ant on the apache.org
website somewhere.
Put all your java files of all your projects in one directory
structure. Only compile and import those files that are needed for a
particular project.
Last time I used Eclipse I got really ticked off how it took 5 minutes
to load, because it wanted to compile *all* my java files. I thought
this was very bad, because I always put all my java files in one
directory structure, and don't have different java structures for each
projects. This is how it was intended to be. Eclipse like to make
you think that each project should have its own source tree. Wrong!
My point in all this is, don't get bogged down with an IDE right away.
Get control at the low level. Then, let the IDE's fail or succeed.
Use the one that works and does things right and well. Obviously,
Eclipse, at least last year's version did it horribly wrong. Some
might prove me wrong.
What I do, is I have my java source tree, which is always the same
tree for every project (each project uses that same directory tree).
I have my ant build.xml file. My resources with images, and other
things my application needs. I make it use jikes, which is IBM's
command line javac replacement which makes things compile insanely
fast (like at the speed of the copy command almost).
I edit and compile using VIM, which is a VI on steriods. Most people
that know VIM claim that VIM really is the best editor ever made,
except for maybe Emacs.
You can easily use Crimson, a nice and free text editor for Windows.
Then, consider the IDE a changing thing, one day you might feel like
Eclipse, the next Borland, the next Netbeans, then Oracle's, whatever
floats your goat. Doesn't matter, because you know you compile using
the industry standard's ant, and you'll have all your java files
nicely arranged in the standard java and portable way. If an IDE
can't handle it, screw it, pick another one.