In computer programming, Eclipse is an integrated development environment.
It contains a base workspace and an extensible plug-in system for customizing the environment.
Written mostly in Java, Eclipse can be used to develop applications.
By means of various plug-ins, Eclipse may also be used to develop applications in other
programming languages: Ada, ABAP, C, C++, COBOL, Fortran, Haskell, JavaScript, Lasso,
Natural, Perl, PHP, Prolog, Python, R, Ruby, Scala, Clojure, Groovy, Scheme, and Erlang.
It can also be used to develop packages for the software Mathematica.
Development environments include the Eclipse Java development tools for Java and Scala,
Eclipse CDT for C/C++ and Eclipse PDT for PHP, among others.
The initial codebase originated from IBM VisualAge.
The Eclipse software development kit, which includes the Java development tools, is meant
for Java developers.
Users can extend its abilities by installing plug-ins written for the Eclipse Platform,
such as development toolkits for other programming languages, and can write and contribute their
own plug-in modules.
Released under the terms of the Eclipse Public License, Eclipse SDK is free and open source
software.
It was one of the first IDEs to run under GNU Classpath and it runs without problems
under IcedTea.
History Eclipse began as an IBM Canada project.
Object Technology International, which had previously marketed the Smalltalk-based VisualAge
family of integrated development environment products, developed the new product as a Java-based
replacement.
In November 2001, a consortium was formed with a board of stewards to further the development
of Eclipse as open-source software.
It is estimated that IBM had already invested close to $40 million by that time.
The original members were Borland, IBM, Merant, QNX Software Systems, Rational Software, Red
Hat, SuSE, TogetherSoft and WebGain.
The number of stewards increased to over 80 by the end of 2003.
In January 2004, the Eclipse Foundation was created.
Eclipse 3.0 selected the OSGi Service Platform specifications as the runtime architecture.
The Association for Computing Machinery recognized Eclipse with the 2011 ACM Software Systems
Award on 26 April 2012.
Licensing The Eclipse Public License is the fundamental
license under which Eclipse projects are released.
Some projects require dual licensing, for which the Eclipse Distribution License is
available, although use of this license must be applied for and is considered on a case-by-case
basis.
Eclipse was originally released under the Common Public License, but was later relicensed
under the Eclipse Public License.
The Free Software Foundation has said that both licenses are free software licenses,
but are incompatible with the GNU General Public License.
Mike Milinkovich, of the Eclipse Foundation commented that moving to the GPL would be
considered when version 3 of the GPL was released.
Name According to Lee Nackman, Chief Technology
Officer of IBM's Rational division at that time, the name "Eclipse" was not a wordplay
on Sun Microsystems, as the product's primary competition at the time of naming was Microsoft
Visual Studio.
Releases Since 2006, the Foundation has coordinated
an annual Simultaneous Release.
Each release includes the Eclipse Platform as well as a number of other Eclipse projects.
So far, each Simultaneous Release has occurred on the fourth Wednesday of June.
^ There is also a 3.8 release of Eclipse Juno, but it is not promoted on the main downloads
page, but packaged distribution is available for download.
Eclipse 3.8 provides bugfixes for Indigo & adds Java 7 support, and its maintenance was dual
streamed with 4.2.
Features and plugins equivalent to a packaged distribution may be added from within the
IDE.
Architecture Eclipse uses plug-ins to provide all the functionality
within and on top of the runtime system.
Its runtime system is based on Equinox, an implementation of the OSGi core framework
specification.
In addition to allowing the Eclipse Platform to be extended using other programming languages
such as C and Python, the plug-in framework allows the Eclipse Platform to work with typesetting
languages like LaTeX, networking applications such as telnet and database management systems.
The plug-in architecture supports writing any desired extension to the environment,
such as for configuration management.
Java and CVS support is provided in the Eclipse SDK, with support for other version control
systems provided by third-party plug-ins.
With the exception of a small run-time kernel, everything in Eclipse is a plug-in.
This means that every plug-in developed integrates with Eclipse in exactly the same way as other
plug-ins; in this respect, all features are "created equal".
Eclipse provides plug-ins for a wide variety of features, some of which are through third
parties using both free and commercial models.
Examples of plug-ins include for UML, for Sequence and other UML diagrams, a plug-in
for DB Explorer, and many others.
The Eclipse SDK includes the Eclipse Java development tools, offering an IDE with a
built-in incremental Java compiler and a full model of the Java source files.
This allows for advanced refactoring techniques and code analysis.
The IDE also makes use of a workspace, in this case a set of metadata over a flat filespace
allowing external file modifications as long as the corresponding workspace "resource"
is refreshed afterwards.
Eclipse implements widgets through a Java toolkit called SWT, whereas most Java applications
use the Java standard Abstract Window Toolkit or Swing.
Eclipse's user interface also uses an intermediate graphical user interface layer called JFace,
which simplifies the construction of applications based on SWT.
Language packs being developed by the "Babel project" provide translations into over a
dozen natural languages.
Rich Client Platform Eclipse provides the Rich Client Platform
for developing general purpose applications.
The following components constitute the rich client platform:
Equinox OSGi – a standard bundling framework.
Core platform – boot Eclipse, run plug-ins.
Standard Widget Toolkit – a portable widget toolkit.
JFace – viewer classes to bring model view controller programming to SWT, file buffers,
text handling, text editors.
Eclipse Workbench – views, editors, perspectives, wizards.
Examples of rich client applications based on Eclipse are:
IBM Notes 8 and 9 Novell/NetIQ Designer for Identity Manager
Apache Directory Studio Remote Component Environment
Server platform Eclipse supports development for Tomcat, GlassFish
and many other servers and is often capable of installing the required server directly
from the IDE.
It supports remote debugging, allowing the user to watch variables and step through the
code of an application that is running on the attached server.
Web Tools Platform The Eclipse Web Tools Platform project is
an extension of the Eclipse platform with tools for developing Web and Java EE applications.
It includes source and graphical editors for a variety of languages, wizards and built-in
applications to simplify development, and tools and APIs to support deploying, running,
and testing apps.
Modeling platform The Modeling project contains all the official
projects of the Eclipse Foundation focusing on model-based development technologies.
They are all compatible with the Eclipse Modeling Framework created by IBM.
Those projects are separated in several categories: Model Transformation, Model Development Tools,
Concrete Syntax Development, Abstract Syntax Development, Technology and Research, and
Amalgam.
Model Transformation Model Transformation projects uses EMF based
models as an input and produce either a model or text as an output.
Model to model transformation projects includes ATL, an open source transformation language
and toolkit used to transform a given model or to generate a new model from a given EMF
model.
Model to text transformation projects contains Acceleo, an implementation of MOFM2T, a standard
model to text language from the OMG.
Acceleo is an open source code generator that can generate any textual language from EMF
based models defined with any metamodel.
Model Development Tools Model Development Tools projects are implementations
of modeling standard used in the industry like UML or OCL and their toolkit.
Among those projects can be found implementation of the following standard:
UML SysML
OCL BPMN
IMM SBVR
XSD NEDA
Concrete Syntax Development The Concrete Syntax Development project contains
the Graphical Modeling Framework, an Eclipse based framework dedicated to the graphical
representation of EMF based models.
Abstract Syntax Development The Abstract Syntax Development project hosts
the Eclipse Modeling Framework, core of most of the modeling project of the Eclipse Foundation
and the framework available for EMF like CDO, EMF query or EMF validation.
Technology and research Technology and Research projects are prototypes
of Modeling project, this project is used to host all the modeling projects of the Eclipse
Foundation during their incubation phase.
Amalgam Amalgam provides the packaging and integration
between all the available modeling tools for the Eclipse package dedicated to modeling
tools.
Extensions Eclipse supports a rich selection of extensions,
adding support for Python via pydev, Android development via Google's ADT, JavaFX support
via e(fx)clipse, and many others at the Eclipse Marketplace, as well as javascript and jquery.
Alternative Distributions A number of alternative distributions exist
in the Eclipse project.
Eclipse PDT The PHP(PHP hypertext Preprocessor) Development
Tools project provides a PHP Development Tools framework for the Eclipse platform.
The project encompasses all development components, including code-completion, develop PHP and
facilitate extensibility.
It leverages the existing Eclipse Web Tools Platform and Dynamic Languages Toolkit.
Eclipse ADT Android Development Tools is a plugin for
the Eclipse IDE that is designed to give The Developers a powerful, integrated environment
in which to build Android applications.ADT extends the capabilities of Eclipse to let
the Developers quickly set up new Android projects, create an application UI, add packages
based on the Android Framework API, debug their applications using the Android SDK tools,
and even export signed .apk files in order to distribute their applications.
See also
Comparison of integrated development environments Comparison of integrated development environments
for Java List of Eclipse-based software
List of Eclipse projects NetBeans
Notes
References
Further reading
External links Official website
Eclipse Marketplace Eclipsepedia
IBM Rational and Eclipse Eclipse 4 RCP Tutorial Tutorial for Eclipse
4 Using Eclipse as a Front-End to GDB Debugger
Eclipse Project Downloads Eclipse Marketplace
Europa Downloads Ganymede Downloads
Galileo Downloads Helios Downloads
Indigo Downloads Juno Downloads
Kepler Downloads