Eclipse: The Universally Extensible IDE ...from IBM. Compiles anything

Hi all,
The more serious programmers here should consider using the Open Source IDE that IBM has been developing for a while now. It's free, it's immensely powerful and best of all - it's not meant for any specific platform. With the proper plugins and a suitable backend compiler you can make it compile C++, Java or any of the common programming languages. It boasts Syntax Highlighting, Auto Keyword/Syntax Completion and loads of other features tightly integrated into one nice package.

Here's a direct quote from their site:

# What is eclipse?
Eclipse is an open source software development project dedicated to providing a robust, full-featured, commercial-quality, industry platform for the development of highly integrated tools. It is composed of three projects, the Eclipse Project, the Eclipse Tools Project and the EclipseTechnology Project, each of which is overseen by a Project Management Committee (PMC) and governed by its Project Charter. Each project is composed of its own subprojects and is licensed under the CPL version 1.0.

# What is the Eclipse Project?

The Eclipse Project is an open source software development project dedicated to providing a robust, full-featured, commercial-quality, industry platform for the development of highly integrated tools. It is composed of three subprojects, Platform, JDT - Java development tools, and PDE - Plug-in development environment. The success of the Eclipse Platform depends on how well it enables a wide range of tool builders to build best of breed integrated tools. But the real vision of eclipse as an industry platform is only realized if these tools from different tool builders can be combined together by users to suit their unique requirements, in ways that the tool builders never even imagined. The mission of the Eclipse Project is to adapt and evolve the Eclipse Platform and associated tools to meet the needs of the tool building community and its users, so that the vision of eclipse as an industry platform is realized.


# What is the Eclipse Tools Project?

The Eclipse Tools Project provides a focal point for diverse tool builders to ensure the creation of best of breed tools for the Eclipse Platform. The mission of Eclipse Tools Project is to foster the creation of a wide variety of tools for the Eclipse Platform. The Tools project provides single point of coordination for open source tool developers in order to minimize overlap and duplication, ensure maximum sharing and creation of common components, and promote seamless interoperability between diverse types of tools. The Tools project is composed of subprojects which are proposed, selected and developed by the community of tool developers and the Tools Project PMC.

# What is the Eclipse Technology Project?

The mission of the Eclipse Technology Project is to provide new channels for open source developers, researchers, academics and educators to participate in the on-going evolution of Eclipse. It is organized as three related project streams, namely Research, Incubators and Education. Research projects explore research issues in Eclipse-relevant domains such as programming languages, tools, and development environments. Incubators are small, informally structured projects which add new capabilities to the Eclipse software base. Education projects focus on the development of educational materials, teaching aids and courseware.

looks good.. but hey 83mb download for SDK..then all those plugins... dude.. i am not on broadband here.. me dialup :-(

me too - just that dialup connections here in thailand last more than 36 hours at one dial - damned weird - dunno how.. back in india they'd at the max last for 15 hours....so no hassles here.. besides it's worth it I tell you - since you are doing CS, you'll find this REALLY USEFULL - for any kind of code you compile - since it supports almost ALL.

very very slick... i downloaded, but i haven't checked... and hey, i think this answered one of my other questions... lol.....

sure, eclipse may be able to do a lot with many different type of codes...but i couldn't help noticing how slow it can be at times when you try to run your program. And maybe it is simply the mac copy my school uses, but I find it annoying that i have to restart the entire application if i accidently put the program into an infinite loop. If there is a way to stop a program from running from a loop, please share

Sure eclipse is a great tool. But what I find is it starts hogging system resources the moment you start it. Think of developing an ejb application running on a webserver. Weblogic and eclipse running together will bring my comp almost to halt. I use jcreator to compile my java files. It is light weight.

I agree with you guys that Eclipse is a major resource hog - but the amount of tools it provides makes up for it all.. Even I use JCreator & Eclipse - alternately, whichever suits my need whenever.. Sometimes I use NetBeans too.. but it's a little slow since it's written in Java itself.

looks good.. but hey 83mb download for SDK..then all those plugins... dude.. i am not on broadband here.. me dialup :-(

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me too - just that dialup connections here in thailand last more than 36 hours at one dial - damned weird - dunno how.. back in india they'd at the max last for 15 hours....so no hassles here.. besides it's worth it I tell you - since you are doing CS, you'll find this REALLY USEFULL - for any kind of code you compile - since it supports almost ALL.

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He He He

I go Broadband, and VERY fast one too

Hmm... this actually sounds quite cool. I have noticed that while I like working with IDEs, it is usually too time consuming to learn to use a new one. A recent example: I have an assignment on a GUI programming course at uni to create a GUI for some game. No language or platforms specified. I have quite a little experience with Java but I knew enough that GUI programming is quite easy with it, compared to say C++. So off I went and downloaded a JDK and then decided to try out a IDE that was recommended on another course webpage. Few tries with it and I went F it, I'll go good ol' text editor and command line compiling. Had it been a C++ project and I wouldn't even think doing it like that, it'd be all VC++ since I'm very used to it. But with this... If I bother to learn to use it I can always bring new languages to my arsenal without the need for learning a new IDE.

I've been using Eclipse for a while now. It is literally the best thing I've found so far to write and compile my java and c++ projects with that happen to be free. It just makes things simpler than the old text editor/command line compiling. It very good for complex projects that involve OOP. it definately helps to keep things organized. The tabbed windows are a nice feature too...I like be able to have two or three classes open at a time in a nice organized fashion

I am using that IDE too and so far I dont have any problems here.I have download the SDK using flashget and just restarted the download when connections goes bad.I have no problems regarding this IDE and I use it 90% of the times when programming Java based softwares.