[bad_user]

Why should continual/incremental compilation be part of the IDE?

You can do this in a separate process, the IDE only needs to detect that some .class files have changed and refresh the metadata of those files.

Eclipse support for this is sure nice, but then I hate Eclipse for being bloated, with a sluggish interface and shoehorning such features on top is the reason why Eclipse is the way it is.

[lmm]

The IDE is supposed to be integrated, and compilation is one of its main responsibilities. I don't really care how it's accomplished, but I can't write java without "new errors show up in my IDE whenever I hit save". If there's an easy way to set up this separate process malarky then I'm interested.