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Eclipse 2.0 Released

Smelroy writes "The Eclipse IDE version 2.0 was just released. There were several earlier articles on Slashdot found here and here."

14 of 171 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Hard disks by Hop-Frog · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's not JBuilder. It's a new IDE from IBM/OTI. The base platform is open source (OSI approved, I believe), then companies add their proprietary plugins on top of that (like IBM and Rational). Or you can use a variety of free plugins.

    The concept is basically the same as NetBeans--it just seems (may not be true) that a lot more companies have decided to back Eclipse. The Eclipse folks just took a different path for their IDEs. Very cool that we have a choice between so many good IDEs that are open source.

  2. Re:Screenshots? by Hop-Frog · · Score: 2, Informative

    IBM's version on Linux (this is based on Eclipse 1.0):

    http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/libr ar y/os-plat/

    Rational's version on Windows (probably Eclipse 1.0, too):

    http://www.rational.com/products/xde/javaed/inde x. jsp

    A free tool, Spindle, that works in Eclipse 2.0:

    http://spindle.sourceforge.net/

  3. Re:I still don't see Visual Studio for Linux by Hop-Frog · · Score: 2, Informative

    Eclipse gives you all that good intellisense stuff--classes, methods, parameters, auto import, etc. Even the as-you-type underlining for syntax problems.

    Don't get me wrong, MS did a great job with Visual Studio, especially the .NET version. Eclipse isn't there, yet, and may never catch up as VS.NET keeps evolving. But Eclipse is very nice. And there's even a C# environment in the works (as well as a C++ environment).

  4. Eclipse, Vim, and Netbeans by revscat · · Score: 4, Informative

    First off, nice post. It helps that I agree with just about everything you said. When you compare Eclipse with Netbeans, Eclipse is much faster, no matter how you measure that: load time, compile time, reponsiveness of the GUI, etc. Plus, it doesn't have every single possible bell and whistle available pre-installed. I hate the fact that Netbeans loads every single Java thingamajig that has ever been invented. So Netbeans is out.

    I still enjoy Vim, but I have Eclipse configured so that I edit Java files with the Eclipse editor, but XML and .properties files are still opened with Vim. It also helps that ^S not only saves, but compiles the current file. Another strong point of Eclipse is the robust history mechanism is has, sort of a built-in single-user CVS. Want to be able to compare your current code with what you saved last Thursday? No problemo.

    All in all, nice IDE. I never liked Netbeans and most of the other free Java editors (such as JEdit) are just enhanced text editors with no real benefits over Vim.

  5. Re:Installation, bugs, first impressions by its_me_ken_lai · · Score: 3, Informative

    On Windows (NT 4.0 SP6), I didn't get any errors except when I tried to build some big projects (Out of memory error), adding "-vmargs -Xmx256M" to the startup command fixed that.

    54MB is huge, but the convenience that the editor brings make it worth the download.

    Best thing I like so far is the organize imports feature (it automatically finds classes you have used in the library and and writes import statements for you automatically), no more api lookup and then copy/paste the package names, and it writes the import statements with each class that's used listed line by line so you know exactly what classes you're using in your code.

    Only thing I don't like now is the lack of external directory classpath support. Java allows classpath that ends with a directory but Eclipse forces you to jar up your libraries, which is not a major problem in itself but just inconvenient.

    Speed is definitely acceptable (on Windows at least). Of course it's no vi's or notepad's speed but then again which IDE is?

    --
    Ken Lai
  6. Try Java 1.4 by Midnight+Thunder · · Score: 4, Informative

    Swing in Java 1.4 has improved by a huge amount. I suspect that they have handed off more of the real work to the AWT level, but how ever they have done it, it is a great improvement.

    --
    Jumpstart the tartan drive.
  7. Re:Huh? by jockm · · Score: 2, Informative
    Well of course there's Transvirtual's XOE. I've used Kaffe on embedded projects. I've deployed rich-media presentation on desktop's and kiosks using Kaffe in the past as well.

    All of that is beyond the point I was making, that all of those are furhter along than Mono, and that Mono will run into the same kind of issues they have.

    --

    What do you know I wrote a novel
  8. Here are screenshots by boa13 · · Score: 5, Informative
    I too was quite surprised about the missing screenshots. So, I made some screenshots of Eclipse/Motif. Copy them as long as you want, I hereby give away any copyright I could have had on them. Besides, they won't stay forver on my web space, as soon as I need the space, they're gone.

    Well, that's it! Enjoy! There's also an interesting wiki about Eclipse.
  9. Re:Screenshots? by Tim+Colgate · · Score: 2, Informative
    There are some good screenshots here

    Ironically, they illustrate a C++ program.

  10. Re:Java UI doesn't have to be slow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Swing is only fast if you have a fast computer. I for one am of the opinion that you shouldn't need a GHz processor with boatloads of memory to run a GUI application. Menus in Swing take forever to pop up, scrolling uses obscene amounts of CPU, and Swing programs themselves use obscene amounts of memory.

    Try this as an experiment: In any Swing application with a resonably large amount of stuff in the menus, click the mouse on the first of the menus and move it back and forth across the rest of the menubar. Now try the same thing in a C++ or SWT application. Notice the difference?

  11. Impressions of eclipse (a few months with it) by Necroman · · Score: 3, Informative

    I do have to agree with boa13, Eclipse lacks some features that are nice when developing java as a side project or for school. If you were to have to design some large complex GUI interface, doing it in Eclipse would suck big time. But first I'll do some history.

    As many of you know, Eclipse is written and developed by IBM, all open source (YAY!!). IBMs last product was the hideous VisualAge for Java. This IDE was an abomination to the world of programming. I was forced to use it at school, and I will never forgive my instructor for that. You were stuck in one view, which was nothing like a file view (they ducplicated the view in Eclipse, but it works a lot better now). Getting VisualAge to show you an entire file was a pain in the butt, and if you were able to get to that point, if you messed up any syntax in that file (such as messing up a class declaration or having one to many closing brackets) VisualAge would not let you save the file nor tell you what was wrong. Next with it, all the Java files were hidden in one large database file that VisualAge maintained, exported also sucked.

    Ok, so IBM decided drop Visual which was a $800 program or so for professional. Eclipse offers a wide range of features and settings. From here out, I'll be comparing Eclipse to VisualCafe (which I have used most to VisualAge). Eclipse has a decent line formatter that I have been very happy with. It is nothing robust like JIndent, but that is something I hope they would improve upon. Most of the auto formating features are comperable to all other IDEs I have ever used. As far as hotkeys with eclipse, some of them are not as intuitive as others. There is a common hotkey (ctrl-tab), which most IDEs will switch between open files, and eclipse does not follow this; they use ctrl-F6 (dunno). But after you get past that, most of the hotkeys are pretty good.

    Speed: This is one thing I have to say I enjoy over VisualCafe. There is the use of SWT vs AWT, which does help a lot. But as far as how it handles the class/method browsers, it works quite a faster. It seems to pick up errors quickly and compiles just like anything else out there.

    Eclipse has some other fun built in features such as CVS browser (I think), pluggins, and lots of different views to choose from, all of which are quite customizable. For the Java Virtual Machine, you can choose between 1.3.1 and 1.4, which can cause problems if you have to change code that was originally written in 1.2 or 1.1.7 even. When compiling code, it is smart and will only compile changed files, or code in other files that has been affected.

    My use of Eclipse: I work in a dept of about 50 Java developers, which I am now trying to move to Eclipse. Here we do all of our visual development by hand, as to be able to get the exact behaviors we want. I work with projects that have 1500+ files in them, and a few files that are 7000+ lines. Eclipse handles the files well for browsing, but when it comes to a 7000+ line file, it can tend to lag a little (on my P2-233Mhz machine). At any one time Eclipse is running, it seems to use around 60-70 megs of memory, 20 more then VisualCafe, but should not be a big deal for most developers out there.

    Eclipse seems to be a very good IDE, and I have been happy with how it has performed. I have been using snapshots for a few months now, and it has become more stable, and I have yet to have it crash on me since its release (in that whole day Friday). Eclipse is a well suited IDE for large project development, as well as small, but seems to be designed to help with large projects.

    I am looking forward to more fixes features that IBM and partners will release with Eclipse (such as being able to print SELECTED text).

    --
    Its not what it is, its something else.
  12. Re:Finally GTK Support by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Strange thing: Eclipse has no syntax-colored XML editor.

    Sure not out of the box, but there is one.

    Head on down to sourceforge and pick up Solar Eclipse jsp and xml syntax highlighting goodness.

    I really should set up an account and karma whore more often.

  13. Re:You can't even open a file! by revscat · · Score: 3, Informative

    Part of the reason this is done is because Eclipse maintains a history of your files, a la CVS. So if you want to compare what your file looked like last Thursday to your current version, you can. The import requirement bugged me at first, too, but it's really not that big of a deal, especially once you start doing all of your work with Eclipse. After that you just create files in the project and build an Ant script to push them to wherever they need to go.

  14. Re:Key bindings by MagPulse · · Score: 2, Informative

    I found the two XML files you need to change, at least for JDT and the global key bindings. Globals are in plugins\org.eclipse.ui_2.0.0\plugin.xml and the JDT (Java editor) bindings are in plugins\org.eclipse.jdt.ui_2.0.0\plugin.xml.