> yes, it does require you to import all your classes into it's own > workspace/repository, but it doesn't really take all that long. i work on > projects with thousands of classes and once you get the hang of the OO > development paradigm it's really simple overall. it's different at first > because you only work on objects, down to the method level, and you never > see the entire .java file. it's roots are in ibm's smalltalk ide. I consider several minutes to be a long time. If you work outside the IDE and only import in order to use the debugger, several minutes to import the classes is way too long. Therefore, to use the debugger you are forced to use the entire IDE. This is the major drawback to the VA paradigm. It forces you to use only the tools it provides. Because of this it has to provide all the tools. Because of this it tries to do too much and thus doesn't do anything well. The editor is half ass. The version control is half ass. Etc, etc. Emacs is often critized for the same thing in this forum. However, unlike VA, emacs integrates with other tools and is highly configurable. I think that anyone that is attuned to open source and/or UNIX philosophies will find VA Java to their disliking. Mike