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Sun Opens Modeling Tools
twofish writes "According to the Register, Sun is set to open source a few modeling tools, including their UML modeler, XML infrastructure and visual editing tools, and BPEL tools. The software, part of the planned Java Studio Enterprise 9.0, will made available for download as part of Sun's NetBeans Enterprise Pack." From the article: "By open sourcing its UML tools Sun is continuing its push against the rival Eclipse open source tools framework. The Eclipse Foundation has pushed UML and model-driven architectures for some time via the Eclipse Tools Project. The project encompasses an open source implementation of UML, called UML2, and a modeling framework and code-generation facility to build tools and applications that use a structured data model - called the Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF)."
I see there are some XML tools included in this offering. I haven't been able to find out if there is a decent XML Schema editor included. I would really like to get a free XML Schema editor that is as good as XMLSpy.
Read Epic the first RPG novel.
These are developer tools. Their sourcecode is open. Their consumers are developers.
Where's the adapter code that plugs each development platform's modules into the other's framework? This is the best case for open software discarding arbitrary vendor boundaries I've ever heard.
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make install -not war
Eclipse is not what you may think it is. Eclipse is the community front-end for the expensive IBM WSAD environment. Most of the places I've worked that use Eclipse do so because they see it as an alternative to the WSAD tools, and they're using WebSphere as the eventual platform; which is truly irrelevant if the software is written corectly.
NetBeans is much more like it looks. Formerly it was the community front-end for Sun's expensive Forte environment, but Sun has since abandoned that for truly the community-driven IDE, backing it with every visit to the JDK download page. And it works just fine with all of the Java application/servlet environments, whether Sun released them or not.
NetBeans is also pure Java, written on Swing, while Eclipse uses its proprietary SWT, which uses native calls to get its GUI work done. You can take the same archive of NetBeans to any J2SE-enabled desktop and it'll work. Not so with Eclipse. Because of this, it's easier to adopt new releases and plug-ins in NetBeans than it is for Eclipse. Many of the third-party add-ons for Eclipse assume or require Windows, and therefore don't work on LINUX, Solaris, Mac, or any of the other envornments. Not so with NetBeans; the plug-ins are also Java, so they work everywhere NetBeans does.
I was a long-time advocate of NetBeans before Eclipse came in to dominate the workplace. Eclipse does win some robustness categories, and its rapid-development bits are a little better (auto-complete/suggest kicks over NetBeans), but both are modular and extendable, and NetBeans has usually come with the tools needed to get the job done before Eclipse has (early GUI editor, and built-in Tomcat, Ant, JUnit...).
And, yes, I do most of my development in Eclipse, but I check out each release of NetBeans, and even try to continue to evangelize it.
Try not to be one who thinks that everyone should just join the "leader" as it often stifles competition, advances, and options. Someday Eclipse will catch up and have a GUI editor, BEPL and UML GUI tools, and some of the other flexibilites that NetBeans 5.5 has now.
End the FUD
pssst... I have a secret for you... companies that do things purely out of altruism don't exist for long. Of course Sun is doing Java to benefit Sun. Otherwise the shareholds sure would be pissed!
Why do some people think that companies trying to make money is a dirty little secret? Its the whole point!
Jeremy
I don't have a problem with a company making money off of a product. I have a problem with a company actively subverting other people's altruism in order to maintain a stranglehold on profit. Don't confuse me with an open-source-only hippie, but at the same time the Eclipse people deserve better than Sun trying to flush them out just to keep Java on a tight leash.
I was always under the impression that UML's biggest purpose is not the design of a project, but rather so programmers can more easily communicate concepts of a project's architecture to the dummies at the same company who don't know anything about programming or design. Marketers, for example.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've certainly had no need to use UML in any of my projects.
Slashdot requires you to wait longer between hitting 'reply' and submitting a comment.
The NetBeans tools may be great, but NetBeans' time has passed. Eclipse now has very strong momentum.
The statistics of IDE use disagree with you. Both Eclipse and NetBeans have very strong momentum. NetBeans use has been increasing dramatically recently. The reason? NetBeans has so much included in the base system, such as J2EE development and GUI designers. With NetBeans 4, powerful refactoring facilities were added (at last!), and with NetBeans 5 there is now one of the best GUI designers (Matisse) ever released.
It is important for the future health of Java development that there should be a choice of quality IDEs. If there is just one, then it can have excessive influence. A recent example of this was Eclipse's late support for Java 1.5. Many developers held back on the use of Java 1.5 because Eclipse did not support it.
Eclipse is the most widely used Java IDE, but NetBeans (and others, such as IntelliJ) are very widely used as well.
There has always been need for a great open source UML modeling tool, hopefully people will start designing 'more' with tools like this readily available. Other tools experience:
Thank you Sun for helping the developer community.