Eclipse 2.1 Released

insomnia writes "Eclipse 2.1 has been unleashed to the world today. Eclipse is an open-source Java IDE environnement and I highly recommend it; developing under your favorite text editor feels like comparing Eclipse to the dinosaur age - I can't live without refactoring now. You can see what's new in this release here."

Comments

Eclipse, Java ...

[joeflies]

Is the name "eclipse" a not so subtle reference to overtaking the Sun?

Re:Java

[methuseleh]

I'm no programmer... I can hack out ugly code in PHP, Perl, and JavaScript, and that's about it. And I can't answer your question w/ regards to developing in Java...

But... I do know that Eclipse is a general-purpose IDE which happens to be written in Java... You can use Eclipse to develop in other languages by installing the appropriate language plug-in.

I just installed Eclipse last week & I'm going to use it for PHP development...

IDEs vs. Text Editors

[eenglish_ca]

I have gone backwards in terms of developing software when it comes to using an IDE. Although I don't develop using Java I do work with C++ on a variety of platforms with several IDEs and text editor. When I began I used bloodshed's dev-cpp then moving onto M$'s VC++ as my projects required a better compiler and ide to handle all the files. Now, have gone back to using text editors, notepad and emacs, because I am using the compiler tools, flex and bison, in some of my work. In some ways a basic text editor is easier to work with, of course the nice color coding makes reading your code easier but really your code, when properly formatted(indenting and so forth), should be easy to read in a text editor. In addition, MDI text editors make it a breeze to program because you can have many windows open at once and still have your screen organized. Next to my text editor I have my console in which I type make and my app gets compiled as easy as 1,2,3. GCC is great to work with because it works exactly the same on windows as it does on linux. In addition, if you work on both linux and windows making the transition is easier when you don't have to deal with the clutter of all the features of an IDE no matter how well laid out they are. One of the things that attracts most people to IDEs is that a lot of them come with code wizards and so forth that help with the basic layout of applications. I have never found these to be of much use because I end up scrapping much of the code because it usually isn't as concise as I like it. So for now I will stick with my text editors.

Re:Still unusable

[miniver]

You're missing the point. So Eclipse doesn't provide a Tomcat plugin; big deal. A number of other developers provide plugins to do almost anything you might want, most of them open source (though there are some commercial plugins.) Have a look at the SysDeo Tomcat Plugin before you pass judgement on Eclipse.

My only gripe with Eclipse plugins is that Eclipse doesn't have a central repository that uses their automatic install/update mechanism for plugins to save people from having to hunt for the plugins. Instead they've let the community pick up the slack -- so you sometimes have to hunt around looking for just the right plugin.

Eclipse Does Swing!

[alacqua]

Ive seen posts here and on previous articles implying that eclipse forces developerse to use the SWT. Am I missing something? Id swear I wrote Swing code with eclipse. My (limited) understanding is that eclipse is written in Java and the eclipse developers chose to use the SWT, but that in no way affects the way you write your code. In particular, you may freely write Swing code while using eclipse.

Frankly, I dont give a damn what toolkits the eclipse developers have used. It is a great, free, open source product. I'll worry about the SWT when I develop for eclipse and not with eclipse.

I think this is an important point, so if someone with a little more knowledge of the subject can confirm this, please do so. Or please educate me if I am wrong.