Yesterday, Sun Microsystems made available a beta version of NetBeans Integrated Development Environment (IDE) 6.5. The new version of the open source development platform features IDE-wide QuickSearch, support for PHP, Groovy and Grails, imports from Eclipse and JavaScript debugging. It also adds a lot of enhancements for Java, Ruby and Rails, and C/C++ and improved interface.

NetBeans is an award-winning development platform that enables developers to create web, desktop and mobile application using a wide array of programming languages. With the latest 6.5 version, there is support for Java (Java SE, Java EE, Java ME), JavaScript/AJAX, PHP, C/C++, Groovy and Grails, and Ruby and Rails. The new beta also brings support for several web frameworks like Hibernate, Spring, JSF, JPA, the GlassFish application server, and databases.

In regard to the new PHP support, it features code completion, quick fixes and semantic checks, FTP support debugging with Xdebug and support for popular web services. As far as JavaScript/AJAX is concerned, debugging support for Firefox and IE, HTTP client monitoring and popular JavaScript libraries were added.

The Java development enhancements consist of Groovy/Grails support, compile/deploy on save, Eclipse project import and synchronization, built-in Hibernate support, and the JSF CRUD Generator is now Ajax-enabled. The database support received editor improvements, while the C/C++ development benefits from improved code completion and error highlighting, and remote development.

Also, there is now support for Ruby tests and Rake build tool, while the GlassFish v3 "Prelude" features a small footprint, fast startup and deployment, as well as support for scripting, including jRuby.

Sun previously expressed intentions to add support for Python in the future through the voice of Ted Leung, Dynamic Languages and Tools Architect. He mentioned that, in order to achieve this goal, a project called NBPython was already in development. "One of the obvious things that Sun could do in the Python world is to make Python a supported language in the NetBeans IDE. NetBeans has really nice support for Ruby and JavaScript, so why should Python be left out," said Leung at that time. However, the 6.5 stable version, which, according to the company, is scheduled for October 2, will not include support for this programming language.