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First Thoughts on the Eclipse IDE?

Posted by Cliff on from the looks-like-it-has-some-promise dept.

OpenSourcerer asks: "Has anyone used the opensource IDE Eclipse. Initial impression is that of a slightly slow but very modular and configurable IDE. Anyone else has any experience using this?" I must say that the idea is novel enough, instead of building an environment around a specific language/compiler, you build a framework and have plugins support the specific features that you want. Java development tools have already been released and it looks like the C/C++ project is just getting under way. For those of you who have given the Eclipse project a quick look, what do you think?

3 of 266 comments (clear)

  1. Not On Linux by BobMarley · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It runs on linux, but looks like ass, and is slow. It runs and looks *great* on win2k, though.

    Until the very latest devel builds, it was a Motif app (*gag*). They've just started work on a GTK+ version, but it's broooooken. In lots of ways.

    I intend to start working/playing with it, but I'm not a C guy, I'm a Java guy, and can't contribute much to the core of the editor, I'm afraid.

    Conceptually, it's brilliant, and the greatest thing since sliced kielbasa.

    cheers,
    Chris
    http://resumes.dice.com/objectnetworks

  2. I like it by nicestepauthor · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I've been using this one awhile. I used to use Visual Age for Java for Linux but IBM discontinued that after version 3.0, which left me with no way to write JDK 1.2 apps. Eclipse makes me want to forgive them for that. It has some of the best features of VAJ and has some great new features.

    For instance, VAJ was always difficult to use with CVS, but Eclipse support for CVS could not be better. Really outstanding.

    Eclipse does need more memory than VAJ did (I run both on an IBM Aptiva with 64 mb of memory and the difference is notable) but given enough memory it runs fine. For those reporting stability problems remember that Eclipse runs under Java and all Java IDEs under Linux are not equal. IBM's tend to work best but they aren't flawless. The IBM JDK does work better than Sun/Blackdown for running Eclipse so try that and see if you don't like Eclipse better.

    Eclipse so far lacks a GUI design tool but there seem to be several people at IBM and elsewhere working on one, so we should have several to choose from in time.

    I like very much that Eclipse is the base for IBM's commercial offering WebSphere Application Developer (the successor to Visual Age for Java). This means that most plugins written for Windows should also be available on the Linux side and that IBM should be able to offer a Linux version of WSAD without much extra effort (something that probably wasn't true of VAJ.)

    I find Eclipse very useable on its own and it has been a great help to my own free software project.

  3. Eclipse Rocks! by bleedingedge · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I've now been using and proselytizing Eclipse for several months. A "quick" view of it, even a couple of days, does no more to reveal its strength and depth than a similar spin of Emacs. Eclipse is rich in detail.

    The technology is very well thought out. What seperates it from things like NetBeans is that plugsins are beyond first-class objects: they are the only type of object.

    Let me explain. Everything in Eclipse is a plugin. Plugins publish (as XML) things called "extension points" that other plugins hook into. All that XML is processed at bootup time, and it allows the basic Eclipse engine to do a lot without loading much Java code. Plugins declare new menu items, tool bars, editors, actions, whatever but no Java code is loaded until the user actively selects on of those new options.

    I'm personally looking forward to writing some plugsin related to by own open source project, Tapestry.

    I've also been very impressed by their very open process. They have an open Bugzilla and very quick response times to bugs and issues. Several suggestions I've made have already made it into the project, and they don't know me from Adam. Eclipse is not perfect, but they are very keen on improving the rough edges.

    The interface is very clean and configurable, it really molds to how you, the user, want to run things. All those draggable views and all.

    There's already a C/C++ plugin. I'd love to see a Python plugin (perhaps using Jython?). There's a huge amount of functionality that hasn't been documented yet (do I smell an O'Reilly book?).

    I find it to be about has fast as Netbeans on my work machine (PIII 1ghz, 512MB) and a lot easier and more intuitive to use and configure. The UI is snappier (and prettier), and its loaded with features. It's like Emacs, you keep discoverring new things it does.