Hi,
during the last month I've been using JavaRebel
(http://www.zeroturnaround.com/javarebel/) for my GeoServer
development. The tool is a class reloader, basically it allows
one to change the code and have it automatically reloaded in
the running application, without the need to restart it.
It really shines when developing with the Wicket UI (how many
times have you restarted because of a mismatched wicket:id
in the code?), but works fine with most other changes as well.
I warn you, it has some wrinkles with debugging, especially when
setting breakpoints (you better re-set them after a reload)
and Eclipse will complain quite a bit about the code being
out of synch, but you can just tell Eclipse not to show
the warning again and the thing becomes workable (thought
not perfect).
The tool is not open source, but they provide free personal
licenses after you gave proof you're actively committing to
one or more open source projects. It's also free for a try
out of 30 days (but if you intend to use it longer term,
ask at least a week before, they take a few days to process
the OS license request).
Hope this helps
Cheers
Andrea
--
Andrea Aime
OpenGeo - http://opengeo.org
Expert service straight from the developers.