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Speaking of Markettalk, has anyone deciphered exactly what Eclipse is yet? :P

If your students are not running Linux, and their backgrounds are in the Windows and mainframe worlds, then it might be best to approach OSS from the Windows side. This is especially true if your student's are not willing to install Linux on their own boxen or on whatever they may use at their place of employment.

So, be sure to include Windows based OSS programs such as found on the Open CD and check out the the source forge osswin site at http://osswin.sourceforge.net/.

You need to give them a flavor of what Linux is like to be sure, so include Knoppix in the mix somewhere.

It sounds like your course will be for programmers. If so, then introducing them to Cygwin would be a good idea. You may even wish to run KDE under cygwin on Windows (see http://kde-cygwin.sourceforge.net/

For development tools you should cover the creating programs from the command line using make, etc., but also cover OSS IDE's -- Eclipse in particular would be a good one. And of course use g++ for C++ and Sun's java (I am not a purist so I think Java's Sun will suffice but Sun's Java is not regarded as true OSS, so you may need to find something else for Java.)

If you use g++ with cygwin on windows, then also consider introducing them to minGW so they can make their programs run natively on windows.

I run both windows and Linux at home, and prefer Linux. But at work I have to use a window box. I have cygwin with X installed and use both firefox and OpenOffice as replacements with no problems. I am posting to let you know about the windows possibilities because I beleive that you may encounter some resistance if you require your student's to run Linux. OSS on windows is a good way to introduce those who are new to OSS and Unix like file systems and tools to newbies.

And who's fault was the proliferation was the PC Clones?

Could it be that Apple and Commodord were still using 1979 Chips while the PC builders were using 386's?

Could it be that Apple was lying to customors by saying the the AppleIIg would be supported, after the Mac was introduced and then canning support for the IIg the day Mac was out?

Could it be that the Mac was little more than an doorstop when it was released? Becuase it had half the memory it needed and was un expandable.

Could it be Commodore didn't descent system untill the A500 was released? (Kickstart on floppy).

Could it be that both Commodore and Apple kept trying to push 2nd rate systems on customers? A600, CD32, CDTV, A1200, Mac classic color, Mac se/30, when people were buying 486s? with descent harddrives. Those systems should have been released in 1988, not 1993!

Could it be that the Quadra should have been the saving grace of Apple, (And in many respects was.) But nobody know how to sell it or what it could do because Apple kept changing the specs and not telling or training anybody?

Could it be that Commodore and Apple both alienated 3rd party vendors. (Apple by not letting them in, and Commodore by not allowing for cross compatibility. A2000 vs A3000 compatibility for the Video Toaster.) And Apple did have some clones for awhile, but they were pretty much garbage.

Could it be that both companies had the edge in vision and technology, but rested on their laurals, and failed to press it? because they wanted low volume high profit machines, and made their low end machines overpriced and incompatible, hardwarewise with the industrial grade boxes.

The reason we have to deal with garbags OS's like XP on today is because both CBM and Apple failed. In fact Apple has still failed because there are applications that will not work because Apple will not implement multiple event threads within OS-X https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=6738 4#c14 !

One approach to speeding up Java applications involves drawing a prudent line between what will be done in Java vs. native code. Java purists may claim that anything less than 100% pure Java is evil, and there are trade-offs, particularly in the area of security. If you're pragmatic, and use the right tool for the right job, don't be afraid to use native libraries where appropriate. You don't have to go all or nothing.

For example, to speed up Java apps running on the client (not in a browser, full applications), use Eclipse's SWT. SWT is a UI toolkit that (mostly) uses the underlying Windowing system's widgets, rather than trying to draw everything in Java. As you might expect, this leads to some nice behavior from a performance standpoint. For example, try resizing windows in Eclipse on Windows XP. You'll notice very smooth redraws of the underlying components while the window resizes, just like a C++ app. Now try the same thing in Netbeans.

Similar solutions exist for accessing OpenGL natively, rather than using a more "Java heavy" library like "Java 3d."

And according to this http://www.eclipse.org/eclipse/development/eclipse _project_plan_3_1.html#TargetOperatingEnvironments / Eclipse 3.1 is only "supported" on Sun's NON-FREE Java packages. So therefore you can't include Eclipse since it won't run!

Now don't get me wrong, I know it _can_ run under gcj, sablevm, or whatever your OSS mind desires... but its slightly buggy and it's difficult to include a polished Linux distro.

Here's hoping it WILL be supported sometime soon!!! go-go-gadget-eclipse!

eclipse-gtk2-3.1-4.i586.rpm
eclipse-jdt-3.1-4.i586.rpm
eclipse-platform-3.1-4.i586.rpm
eclipse-scripts-3.1-4.i586.rpm

Eclipse is an open source community whose projects are focused on providing an extensible development platform and application frameworks for building software. Eclipse provides extensible tools and frameworks that span the software development lifecycle, including support for modeling, language development environments for Java, C/C++ and others, testing and performance, business intelligence, rich client applications and embedded development. A large, vibrant ecosystem of major technology vendors, innovative start-ups, universities and research institutions and individuals extend, complement and support the Eclipse Platform.

bitstream-vera-1.10-169.noarch.rpm

Did anyone else notice other OSS software in the list that SuSE left out of the OSS version claiming that it is NOT OSS when in fact it is?

While the preferred method would be simply use Linux, unfortunately my company is using Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0 with C++

Quit with the "Linux solves everything" cluelessness - Linux is not a C++ compiler. You mean to say that you think you'd rather develop under Linux than Windows. Okay, but then you have to decide what compiler (probably GCC) build system (Make, Scons?), version control (Subversion, CVS?) and what IDE or text editor to use (Eclipse, vi, Emacs?). If you're working in a team, it's going to be essential to at least standardise compiler and build system.

One thing you may be overlooking is that it's easy to duplicate what you refer to as the "Linux" toolchain experience on Windows - proving that there's nothing exclusively "Linux" about them. Thank GNU and the open source movement, not necessarily some guy from Finland:

* MingW32 is an excellent port of GCC to Windows. It probably has some difficulty compiling MSVC-specific code (I doubt MFC and .NET classes work), but you should ideally be using a cross-platform framework like wxWidgets instead anyway.

* Scons is a great Python based build scripting system. It leaves Makefiles in the dust as it allows you to use Python logic in the make process. I've personally run it on four different platforms (Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and Mac) and would never go back to Make. Although it helps, but is not necessary to be a Python fanatic (and if you don't know Python, take 20 minutes to follow the "Instant Python" tutorial linked on their site - it's possible you will fall in love with the language instantly).

* Eclipse is a nice cross-platform IDE that works well on Windows (and Linux, FreeBSD and the Mac). When used with the C++ extensions you get full syntax highlighting, project browsing and integrated debugging. Via custom project settings, it can be easily told how to build Scons projects instead of Makefile ones. (The only problem I've ever had working with Scons is requiring different settings to build Debug and Release builds, but I just set the IDE up to do Debug [work with that most of the time], then compiling and running Release from the command line).

And all of the above can be made to work nicely on Windows and Linux. If you switch to using those cross-platform tools on Windows, at some point your choice of platform becomes irrelevent and transitioning to Linux becomes extremely easy.

Netbeans.org doesn't actually say what NetBeans is, except that it's an IDE.

Yes, netbeans.org explicitly says what NetBeans is. If you would've gone so far as the "Products" page, you might have noticed: "NetBeans.org provides an open source, high performance, modular, extensible, multi-platform Java IDE to accelerate the development of Java applications, web services and mobile applications." Yes, it can handle things related to the net, and yes, it can also work with JavaBeans, and it can also be used for developing standard J2SE or J2ME applications.

I noticed that NetBeans comes bundled with Eclipse.

Then you were obviously not paying attention to whatever you were reading, because NetBeans and Eclipse do not come bundled together. NetBeans is Sun's official IDE, and it comes bundled with the Java Development Kit, which is obvious on their download page. Eclipse is an IDE developed by the Eclipse Foudation. Both of them are IDEs for developing Java applications of all sorts, developed separately.

See the history of Eclipse foundation and the add-in providers list (which may be out of date; dunno).

Eclipse is great. It comes with best-of-breed Java development tools (JDT) and you can get C/C++ tooling (CDT) and tooling for other languages, to add to it. There's also lots of plugins written by 3rd parties. Much of the development work on Eclipse is done by IBM, but many other companies are involved. I believe QNX is heavily involved in the CDT project, for example. Anybody can write their own plugins for Eclipse. The platform is fully open and freely available, and you can use it to create your own "rich client" applications in Java that use the SWT native widget toolkit and look and feel like professional applications (unlike Swing applications which always feel clunky and "wrong" when you use them).

Just yesterday I discovered the PyDev project, which provides Python integration in Eclipse. I only tried it briefly but it looks great. The two things that caught my eye are (1) you can debug Python applications with the Eclipse debugger just like you would debug Java or C/C++ applications, and (2) the Python editor supports code assist.

See the history of Eclipse foundation and the add-in providers list (which may be out of date; dunno).

Eclipse is great. It comes with best-of-breed Java development tools (JDT) and you can get C/C++ tooling (CDT) and tooling for other languages, to add to it. There's also lots of plugins written by 3rd parties. Much of the development work on Eclipse is done by IBM, but many other companies are involved. I believe QNX is heavily involved in the CDT project, for example. Anybody can write their own plugins for Eclipse. The platform is fully open and freely available, and you can use it to create your own "rich client" applications in Java that use the SWT native widget toolkit and look and feel like professional applications (unlike Swing applications which always feel clunky and "wrong" when you use them).

Just yesterday I discovered the PyDev project, which provides Python integration in Eclipse. I only tried it briefly but it looks great. The two things that caught my eye are (1) you can debug Python applications with the Eclipse debugger just like you would debug Java or C/C++ applications, and (2) the Python editor supports code assist.

What's wrong with phpeclipse ? It's based on the excellent eclipse webtools project.
Seems to do everything I'd expect a PHP IDE to do.

I've even used it on the natively compiled eclipse that comes with fedora core 4

Not WebSphere itself. IBM offers Geronimo support. The Development Tools subproject is hosted on Eclipse WebTools.

Java's language features, by comparison to C#, seems to be moving along at a glacial pace, only recently getting features like foreach loops, and generics.

I personally prefer Java because of Eclipse, but Sun are really going to have to get a move on if Java is to remain competitive with C#.

http://www.objectstyle.org/cayenne/index.html
http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/index.html
http://jakarta.apache.org/tapestry/

http://www.eclipse.org/
http://ant.apache.org/

Choose any database you want. Tapestry is simply AMAZING!!! Everything is a component. It is like have all of the coolest legos and building sites in not time. Also, if you don't like the block, it is EASY to make custom components. Howard Lewis Ship is a genius.

Okay, the Java world needs to really wake up and start buying into Cayenne. Get off the Hibernate kick!!! All I see is ways to improve Hibernate and Cayenne already has it all in place. Plus Cayenne and Tapestry were made for each other.

J2EE was a nice try, but way, WAY too complicated. Both Cayenne and Tapestry are straight-forward and easy to use, IMHO!!!

1.) Yes. It still has some issues, but it's a very nice addition to Eclipse.

2.) CVS integrates well with Eclipse. I've used it for hobby projects, and even set up my own CVS server. It will do what you want it to.

3.) It doesn't seem too difficult. Check this out.

Apologies to the guy you responded to if he wanted to do all this himself. I've been on a kick to champion Eclipse, but it's never nice to step on a geeks toes...

1.) Yes. It still has some issues, but it's a very nice addition to Eclipse.

2.) CVS integrates well with Eclipse. I've used it for hobby projects, and even set up my own CVS server. It will do what you want it to.

3.) It doesn't seem too difficult. Check this out.

Apologies to the guy you responded to if he wanted to do all this himself. I've been on a kick to champion Eclipse, but it's never nice to step on a geeks toes...

Well, imagine creating an application with nice 3D animation like that is a NO BRAINER. That's what Avalon + the new developer tools + .NET on Windows Vista will let you do, easier than a fart. Linux fan boys, enjoy your GCC.

Avalon? Avalon is supposed to be an XML descriptive language for GUI widgets, something like XUL or gladeXML. The only difference is that these tools exist right now while avalon is vaporware. So I'll go write a GUI in XML and finish it in a few minutes, while you still wait for avalon.

New developer tools? You really believe there are no developer tools on linux? Countless IDEs to choose from. From Anjuta to Kdevelop to Eclipse. Countless simple editors. Countless other tools like profilers, version control, etc etc. Detailed and thorough documentation on every tool you'll ever use. Please keep you uninformed opinions to yourself next time. Saves you the embarrassment.

.NET? .NET is BS. Read this very good article about .NET. It'll explain alot.
Now, If you're talking about managed programming languages like C# etc. there's mono. Pretty much everything .net has been transferred or will be soon, so your windows code will work on mono. Plus, mono has other extra subprojects you can use, not available on windows,

So yeah, you wait for your new tools MS fanboy, while we already have them.

Productivity:

Graphics:

Media:

Internet:

Survival Kit:

Development:

> It gets even worse when you try and find a free j2ee plugin for eclipse. For web apps, did you try Eclipse WST?

Eclipse is very nice. It looks like the C++ plug-in (CDT) uses a C/C++ parser written in Java. The parser is mostly, but not completely, compatible with gcc. See http://download.eclipse.org/tools/cdt/docs/specs/D esign_Specs/Parser/Parser-2.0-Design.pdf.

http://www.anjuta.org/ http://www.eclipse.org/cdt/ http://www.monodevelop.org/ http://glade.gnome.org/ please get a clue

>"Eclipse is hopeless for visual design"

I've been a Visual Studio user for a long time now (both VS.NET and previous versions all the way back to 4.x). Visual Studio is pretty good but it's still not even close to Eclipse. Everything you like in VS.NET has been in Eclipse longer, is much more polished and gives you more power all around (customizable).

And as to the parent troll about Microsoft documentation, well that might have been true ages ago I find that most Windows API stuff is easy enough to find on MSDN, the documentation for .NET is very easy to navigate and is comperable (and better in some places) than the online Java APIs.

What MS stuff can't the guy find docs for, that's what I'd like to know.

Yes... Eclipse

Do not forget the C++ plug-in...

Why is a book about an MS IDE relevant in the Open Source age of Eclipse?

Let me finish your sentence: you don't trust a global search and replace to not change string literals, etc. inappropriately. (And rightfully so.)

What you need a decent suite of refactoring tools. Search freshmeat. They're out there. Tools that will show you all the callers of a function - even polymorphic stuff with generic names; they understand context. Tools that are smart enough to see if your renaming a field causes it to be shadowed somewhere by a local variable. Tools that really understand the consequences of what you are doing and help you see them quickly.

If you're using Java, I highly recommend Eclipse. It's an IDE. If you have a favorite editor, that's fine. Do your normal editing in whatever and fire up Eclipse when you have sweeping changes like this. (You'll probably find yourself using Eclipse more and your regular editor less as time goes on. But maybe not, who knows.)

Many of the posts on this thread have mentioned OSS and Proprietary solutions that are running side-by-side but yet independant of each other. Where OSS could really shine is in the combination approach that is only possible with an improvement in licensing.
My company wants to make money selling hardware and services (software and support), and we want to use OSS software as much as possible to speed our products to market using proven technology. Our core products that leverage OS are also (by necessity and desire) OS. However, and this is critical, we want to extend that common OS code with proprietary extensions in order to keep smart business logic protected from competitors. The problem is that the 2 most popular licenses (Apache and GNU) have flaws when it comes to this combination. (Topic for different discussion)
As a developer, I want to develop the OS core with protections that ensure any changes to that core remain OS. As a paid developer, I want to develop proprietary extensions to said core without competitors being able to examine the contents. On the one hand, I'm aiding the community with some great tool improvements full time (well 50+ hours anyhow). On the other, I'm on a team of paid developers writing custom sellable business applications containing some billable secret sauce.

I think that OS community must understand that this is one of the 3 most likely software solutions in the future, and the most likely to provide paid development opportunities for OS developers in large volumes.

1. OSS - all open, all modifiable
2. OSS + proprietary - combo code - not really handled as well as it could be
3. Proprietary - all closed

Both Eclipse and NetBeans provide editing tools to ease the task.

..nearly has a seizure when he discovers that the commercial development licence for KDE is $3300 for one platform. (You're much better off using Gnome based Linux distros and doing development via cross-platform APIs like wxWidgets).

Because, you see, the development cost is $0 for using the Windows API (link to the Windows SDK download) and $0 for Visual C++ (link to the command-line compiler).

And for the cost of one KDE development licence you could buy 22 OEM copies of Windows XP Pro at $149., or 35 copies of Visual C++ .NET 2003 at $95 if you wanted an IDE to develop in (although personally I'd go with Eclipse and MingW32).

Who's expensive now?

Yeah because as we all know, IBM's never done anything for Java.

All of these software updates are driving me nuts. Under Debian it's fine, just "apt-get upgrade" and things happen fairly seamlessly. But on my windows box, updating requires downloading a new installer for each program, in some cases uninstalling the new version, and then running each new installer. These window installers all require multiple steps, and so it's just a big hassle to stay current.

Why can't more programs these days have automatic updates? Firefox does in theory. It'll check for new updates, then download the new version and start the installer for you and then break your install. Not the updating experience I'm looking for.

Why can't software updates operate more like Eclipse's update tool? Or Sun's Java update? Or Adobe reader's? Or dare I say it, Microsofts Windows update?

And yes, I'm lazy. This is supposed to be one of the menial tasks where computers replace people.

I've always had to own at least one additional windows box to do quite a lot of programming on windows. Well, it's all about JNI-Bindings in my case...

So -- A fast VirtualPC would be like a miracle, and I suspect VMWare guys will get into the ring. I really love Apple for this step, because I really enjoy Mac OS X. For me this means I can get a decent Apple-PowerBook with excellent performance and top notch Windows-compatibility!

I expect some more players getting into the game:

• Game industry - porting of OpenGL powered games gets easier (= cheaper) than ever, no more AltiVec
• Wine and (of course) CodeWeavers for Wine/CrossOver Office on OS X
• Lot of heavily optimized media-related stuff running exclusively on Intel boxes due to SSE, SSE2, MMX...
• Much more Linux-stuff due to easier compilation of "poorly programmed" software that doesn't respect endianess and other stuff

Now, if only eclipse got faster on OS X!

SubEtha's collaborative editing is cool, but I like other editors. Fortunately, you can also have collaborative editing in many other text editors.

DocSynch is a plugin for jEdit which used IRC for collaborative editing.

SangamPlugin adds collaborative editing to Eclipse.

Old school? Use VimSynch or Emacs or any text-mode editor with screen.

SWT acomplishes this. It uses native widgets where possible, and does so in an intelligent fashion.

Granted, this took much longer than it should have.

It's regrettable that Sun's marketing hype over Swing et all has poisoned people's impression of Java desktop GUIs, but with SWT we finally have a good framework...honest.

Try downloading Eclipse (written using SWT) to see for yourself.

SWT acomplishes this. It uses native widgets where possible, and does so in an intelligent fashion.

Granted, this took much longer than it should have.

It's regrettable that Sun's marketing hype over Swing et all has poisoned people's impression of Java desktop GUIs, but with SWT we finally have a good framework...honest.

Try downloading Eclipse (written using SWT) to see for yourself.

Yeah cause SWT is part of the java standard library. Perhaps you were thinking of AWT or Swing?

The poor design decisions will be fixed and the JVM will be eliminated.

I doubt either of those things will actually happen. Most of the standard library is a creeping horror from a security and extensibility standpoint, but the fundamental design hasn't changed noticeably since 1.1-- they've just heaped another cargo ship full of additional cruft into the standard runtime with each major release. Stack-based security with principals attached is clumsy, but it appears to be getting treated as the state of the art by both the Java and .Net camps. They both need to be hit with a capability and design pattern cluestick. I'd say to hit them with a COM stick, but they'd probably use the painful parts like object registries and reference counting, and miss the important lesson: abandon globals and statics, interfaces and parameters are the key.

As for elimination of the JVM, it won't likely happen for a few reasons, most notably that even in a system which entirely precompiles to native code, the JVM is still the basis of the language's functionality specification. A C-like Java compiler can certainly produce correct code so long as the same program does the same thing as it would on a JVM. Also, dynamic loading in Java is specified in terms of JVM bytecode.

The result will be a fast compiled language with an elegant syntax.

LMAO! The syntax is about as elegant as C without a preprocessor. In such a fix, one becomes dependent on souped-up editors to churn out boilerplate code. Velocity works as a nice simple preprocessor; for more intricate macros JSE might be a better idea.

I don't think Java should try to morph into C or C++. In my opinion the JVM is the strongest link in the chain; in exchange for a hit in startup time you get the speed of a compiled language, the flexibility of a symbolic interpreter and the safety of fully checked memory access rolled into one. It's probably not the best thing to build grep or wc on, but it's great for bigger things like daemons and windowed apps.

Start Here. Go there, read and do what it says.

And FYI, I'm resisting the urge to make snide remarks about the naivety of your comments. You state that you're ernestly going to try "making some games" (if you manage ONE coherent game I'll be impressed), and that you enthusiastically want to make 3D games (but appear to be scared of C++).

In the words of Yoda: Try not. Do. Or in this case, "after asking on Slashdot, try some of the suggestions".

Learn from games you play. You've obviously played a computer game before. Take one that's similar to the game you think you want to make. Write down all the things that you do in that game and what you think the game has to do to support that action.

(ie: you click "new game", the board re-initializes and sets up the game state. You try and move a piece, the game checks to see if it's a valid move. You win the game, the game somehow detected that condition. You've got a high score, the game knows this and stores it somewhere).

Write this down for a game that you know, then try to change it into the game that you want to make. Then expand each section with detail and keep adding more and more game features while keeping everything coherent. You'll soon figure out how complex (or simple) your game will probably be.

Great program design begins on paper. A great implementation can come later when you've got the broad strokes figured out. (Unless it's an organic design (which is often unavoidable in live projects where you can't afford to break something) - in which case, welcome to hell).

One of the first things that is beaten into 1st year computer science college students is that you should not cling to any one language. You should grow to the point where you can easily pick up any language thrown at you (the specific advanced knowledge later coming with experience).

FYI, there are decent free C++ tools and libraries available for Windows, you don't have to use whatever Microsoft tries to push on you.

With your Java background you might want to try messing around with Proce55ing (a very good prototyping tool) to solidify some of your ideas.

And of course, break the rules when it suits you.

Network code is the one major thing SDL is missing that DirectX has...but once again, when you're working on a shoestring budget, how are you supposed to afford that?

Two points:

(1) SDL has a network library.

(2) The DirectX SDK is a free download.

Even Microsoft's command-line C/C++ compiler is a free download. Snag that, the platform SDK and DirectX SDK and you're set. The only thing you don't have is the IDE.

I use Visual C++ and DirectX at work for making multimedia applications - but there is an alternative. At home (because I'm cheap and also because I run Windows, OS X and FreeBSD) - I use the MingW32 which lets me use GCC, OpenGL and SDL and to make cross-platform code that compiles on any of my machines. I also use IBM's free Eclipse IDE with the C++ plugin and the Scons build system - because those also work everywhere.

Eclipse has 2,425,709 lines of Java code and runs on any J2SE 1.4 (or newer) compliant JRE from any vendor on many platforms (the essential parts of it will run even on PDAs). I don't think any scripting language would have been up to this task.

My opinion is that Java is the best thing that could have possibly happened in the software development field in the last 20 years. The fact that it is an openly specified object-oriented runtime suitable for a *huge* variety of configurations (desktop, middleware, embedded, etc) is a blessing. Developers have been able to learn one language and develop any kind of applications on any platforms (while reusing many of the skills). Also, vendors can target a much wider market when they do not have to focus on a single platform. Not mentioning that Linux owes a lot of its success to Java.

Since eclipse.org is struggling, there's a screenshot about halfway down this IBM visual editor tutorial.

There are plenty. A good Free/Open one is called Eclipse. It is plug-in based and supports Java/Servlet/JSP/C++ and others. You can just download Eclipse and Tomcat and have a complete JSP/Servelt web application framework that works on MS Windows or Linux. Now just buy a JSP/Servlet book or search Google for a JSP/Servlet tutorial and your all set ; )

Yes, it's a licensing issue. Read here.

Here's a link that might help. This link might help as well.

If you need help on what a "link" is though, you'll need to go here.

Check out the Visual Editor sub-project within Eclipse for a Swing and SWT editor. It's made a lot of improvements in the last couple releases, especially the latest milestone builds of the 1.1 release (which are compatible with Eclipse 3.1).

check out this FC4 has it included, and it's pretty nice.

From TFSite:
Eclipse.org is the website of the Eclipse Foundation.

Eclipse is an open platform for tool integration built by an open community of tool providers. Operating under an open source paradigm, with a common public license that provides royalty free source code and world wide redistribution rights, the eclipse platform provides tool developers with ultimate flexibility and control over their software technology.

Eclipse has formed an independent open eco-system around royalty-free technology and a universal platform for tools integration. Eclipse based tools give developers freedom of choice in a multi-language, multi-platform, multi-vendor environment. Eclipse provides a plug-in based framework that makes it easier to create, integrate and utilize software tools, saving time and money. By collaborating and exploiting core integration technology, tool producers can leverage platform reuse and concentrate on core competencies to create new development technology. The Eclipse Platform is written in the Java language and comes with extensive plug-in construction toolkits and examples. It has already been deployed on a range of development workstations including Linux, HP-UX, AIX, Solaris, QNX, Mac OS X and Windows based systems. A full description of the Eclipse community and white papers documenting the design and use of the Eclipse Platform are available at http://www.eclipse.org./

The Eclipse Foundation is a non-profit corporation formed to advance the creation, evolution, promotion, and support of the Eclipse Platform and to cultivate both an open source community and an ecosystem of complementary products, capabilities, and services.

Seems simple enough to me. They're a non-profit market-speak-driven company that wants to be a cross-platform coding development environment company.

My money is on market-speak winning. I mean, anyone that can write "independent open eco-system around royalty-free technology and a universal platform for tools integration" is much better suited to that than Java. Maybe marketing Java...

The link gives a 404. Here is the correct one.

Beyond that, there's nothing stopping people from developing using SWT if they don't like swing.
It's not as flexible, but it's MUCH faster.

Have a look at what it can do:

http://sancho-gui.sourceforge.net/images/ss-new-1. png

They even have natively compiled binaries for it!

And let's not forget the guys who invented swt:

http://www.eclipse.org/

Of course, that's not to say that swing sucks:

http://www.powerfolder.com/8603/39627.html

Mmm. nice isn't it? I certainly wouldn't spot this a mile away as being swing.
That is what we call an example of a programmer doing his job right.

I used to hate swing applications too, but that was when I ran a 500MHz machine. CPUs are cheap these days.

How much quicker could we have had NeoOffice on MacOS if it were written in an easily-ported language like Java?