[rbanffy]

I can't answer for jdf, but, in my case, I've built a lot of applications using Django and Google App Engine on very frugal hardware, probably less than a more recent Chromebook. On both cases, the development environment is very light and defaults to store data in SQLite. Working with Python allows me to skip compiling stuff most of the time. Of course, a JVM is off the table, as is using Eclipse for your IDE. This machine is one of the reasons I went back to Emacs.

[jdf]

I've always been a vim/screen/bash user rather than an IDE, so I can't speak to the experience of using Eclipse/IntelliJ on a Chromebook. The fact that I'm doing everything console based certainly lowers the resource needs since the chroot isn't running another windowing system.

I know the JVM isn't often associated with low memory applications, but it seems like it should be possible. As I mentioned in my other reply, the Chromebook has more resources than the average Android phone, so all those Java Android apps should run fine (albeit under Dalvik rather than Sun's JVM).

[rbanffy]

I would not dare to run Eclipse under Dalvik. Just the other day, when someone compared it to Emacs here, I wondered whether it should be called "Egacs" rather than Eclipse.