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Eclipse in Action

Posted by timothy on from the bring-welder's-goggles dept.

Simon P. Chappell writes "The Eclipse IDE has thundered into the collective consciousness of Java developers since its release by IBM as Open Source Software. Up until this time, the majority of available documentation at the Eclipse website has been for plug-in developers, with scant attention given to the rest of us that actually want to use the tool for anything else. This book restores the balance and brings much needed help to those interested in this IDE." Read on for the rest of Simon's review, about which he says "Full Disclosure: I received a free, review copy of this book, so feel free to assume that I've been bought off and have traded my technical integrity to put about an inch of dead tree on my shelf." Eclipse in Action author Gallardo, Burnette and McGovern pages 383 (15 page index) publisher Manning rating 8 reviewer Simon P. Chappell ISBN 1930110960 summary A good book that lives up to its name.

Overview With a book like this it's difficult to know where to pitch the level. Do you aim for the lowest common denominator or do you assume some experience on the part of your reader? This book seems to have pitched itself well, not pandering to the absolute Java newbie, not afraid to get down into the code and yet gentle enough that newer Java developers can follow easily. The heavyweight chapter on writing plug-ins is at the back where it shouldn't frighten those of a sensitive nature.

The book is divided into two sections. The first and largest section concerns actual use of Eclipse during Java application development. The second section is for those who wish to write plug-ins for Eclipse.

The book takes a very 'Test Driven Development' approach to Java development and this shows in the manner that Eclipse is presented and taught. Emphasis is given to the tools that come with Eclipse, especially Ant, Junit and the CVS client. For those already skilled in these tools, this might seem like filler, but remember that there are still pitifully few Java developers using even these simple and free tools. My hat is off to the authors for their TDD evangelism, skillfully disguised as Eclipse usage instruction.

What's To Like I liked the progression followed in the book, first teaching the basic operation of Eclipse and then moving on to the tools that come with the base install. What's To Consider Some may consider that the material on Ant, Junit and CVS is filler. The 'Test Driven Development' theme may be a little too much evangelism for some.

I use Eclipse on a Mac OS X box and I felt that there was very little discussion concerning the cross-platform attributes of the tool. All of the screenshots were from a Microsoft Windows build of the software; a Linux or OS X screenshot would have been helpful.

One more niggle and then I'm done. There is no information on using Eclipse with other programming languages (a couple of paragraphs in the introduction chapter doesn't really count). I've recently started tinkering with Ruby and have used a Ruby plug-in to allow me to work within Eclipse as I learn the language. This is a wonderful testament to the power and extensibility of Eclipse.

Summary This is a good book. You know it's a good book when you already use the tool (both pure Eclipse and IBM's WSAD) regularly and you find yourself learning things that you had not previously been aware of. If you are working with Java and want a good free IDE that's going to grow with you, then Eclipse is a tool you should try -- and consider this book the User's Guide that would have been in the box if Eclipse came shrink-wrapped.

Table Of Contents
  1. Using Eclipse
    1. Overview
    2. Getting started with the Eclipse Workbench
    3. The Java development cycle: test, code, repeat
    4. Working with source code in eclipse
    5. Building with Ant
    6. Source control with CVS
    7. Web development tools
  3. Extending Eclipse
    1. Introduction to Eclipse plug-ins
    2. Working with plug-ins in Eclipse

You can purchase Eclipse in Action from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

7 of 247 comments (clear)

  1. Are they reinventing the wheel ? by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 5, Funny

    From the Eclipse page :

    Welcome to eclipse.org
    Eclipse is a kind of universal tool platform - an open extensible IDE for anything and nothing in particular.

    It's an EMACS clone then ?

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
    1. Re:Are they reinventing the wheel ? by Jack+Greenbaum · · Score: 5, Informative
      I try not to reply to trolls, but I've got to spread some good news for my fellow EMACS brethren who have been been looking for a modern development environment that has few compromises coming from EMACS. I can say that Eclipse is the first IDE with EMACS bindings that I've felt comfortable with. The EMACS key bindings actually work, and work well. For example you can set the mark then move the point. Compare this to other commercial IDEs that consider substituting cntl-w for cntl-x as "EMACS mode", even though you still must select the text with the mouse.

      But wait, there's more! With eclipse the EMACS work style that I use is even better than in EMACS because dabrevs (alt-/) work much better. In eclipse dabrevs are not just a textual expansion as in EMACS, rather it is context sensitive based on the jars you have in your class path as it should be in an Jave IDE. Say what you want about Visual Basic, but M$FT got this right a long time ago.

      Of course we had all of this in ZMACS on the Symbolics back in the 80's, but what goes around comes around ...

      -- Jack

  2. Just remember by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Even during an Eclipse, it's still unsafe to look at Sun.

  3. get down to the nitty gritty. by mark_lybarger · · Score: 5, Informative

    i've got this book as well as the slightly outdated netbeans book from oreilly. the netbeans book is miles better than the eclipse book. the eclipse book definately reads like an ibm type book. there are not enough pictures and walk throughs as there are explaining every single widget/button/option in extreme wordy detail.

    the netbeans was an overall easy read and got the user quickly familiar with the parts of the ide they needed to use.

    i'm a heavy eclipse user during my day job mainly b/c i think it's slightly nicer on win32, and i like the debugger more than netbeans. eclipse also seems to require slightly memory footprint and since i haven't yet convinced my manager that having more than 384MB of memory for a java development ide and running a local wl server is absolutely necessarry for maintaining some level of sanity, i'm using what works best for me. at home on a linux platform, i prefer netbeans just because it looks and feels nicer. the gtk+ on linux isn't as nice as the native java look and feel. just my personal preferance.

  4. Eclipse 3.0 new features by fatarfy · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here are the new features from the Eclipse 3.0 Milestones 1 and 2.
    Got these links off blogdex this morning.

    Milestone 1: http://download.eclipse.org/downloads/drops/S-M1-2 00306051737/eclipse-news-M1.html
    Milestone 2: http://download2.eclipse.org/downloads/drops/S-3.0 M2-200307181617/eclipse-news-M2.html

    I use WSAD and Eclipse 2.0 regularly. WSAD's (Based on Eclipse 1.0) java editor is weak, but the editor in Eclipse 2.0 is among the best I have ever used.

  5. Re:best ide ? by s88 · · Score: 5, Informative

    1) Yes there is (if i understand what you mean).

    Expand a java element in the Package Explorer View. Drag and drop it to where you want (eg another class). Eclipse does all the needed refactoring for you.

    2) No visual GUI editor. This is available for a price, though. I just wish it were free. :(

    I'll agree this is lacking, but take a look at some of the plugins:
    Eclipse GUI plugins
    And specifically: Assisi

    Scott

  6. the other book met my needs much better by bojolais · · Score: 5, Informative

    Heavyweight chapter on plug-in development? The Java Developer's Guild to Eclipse (Sherry Shavor, Jim D'Anjou, Dan Kehn, Scott Fairbrother, John Kellerman, Pat McCarthy) has a far better section (over half the book) on plug-in development. From what I can tell, the tutorial section of the book is well-done, though I haven't spent much time with it.

    If you've ever used Eclipse, I'd recommend the other book. If you're completely new to Eclipse, check out the included tutorials. They're surprisingly well-done.