Why is Netbeans called Netbeans

The blog entry explains why NetBeans is called NetBeans

 

I have decided to start a "why is" section of my blog. I think I will expand it above the brief explanation to a bit of research about the topic (usually an IDE or a piece of software)

 

It took me a while to find out what how NetBeans got its name and in the end I had to read the history but which was actually quite interesting because it seemed a long journey to success.

 

To summarise (taken from the History of NetBeans link below)

 

 NetBeans started as a student project (the two founders Jan (Ian) Formánek, Jaroslav (Yarda) Tulach) in the Czech Republic (originally called Xelfi), in 1996. The goal was to write a Delphi-like Java IDE in Java. Xelfi was the first Java IDE (Integrated Development Environment) written in Java, with its first pre-releases in 1997.  Not only was Xelfi the first IDE for Java, it was the first IDE written in Java, Xelfi as shareware on the web for $20 per license.  Then a local businessman Roman Stanek invested some money into the project and they became a company.

 

THE NAME BIT

 

The original plan for the business was to develop network-enabled JavaBeans components. Jarda Tulach, who designed the IDE's basic architecture, came up with the name NetBeans to describe what they would do. The IDE would be the way to deliver them - and that's where the name NetBeans comes from. When the spec for Enterprise Java Beans came out, it made more sense to work with the standard for such components than to compete with it - but the name stuck.

 

Then in 1999 Sun brought them and NetBeans became the flag ship tool set of Java.  Finally in June 2000 they decided to make NetBeans Sun's first sponsored open source project

 

If you are interested in reading about the history of NetBeans it's not that long an article and it is quite interesting (as far as history's of computer firms go)

 

http://www.netbeans.org/download/books/definitive-guide/html/apis-c_history.html