Eclipse (software) - Eclipse Software

Eclipse is an integrated development environment (IDE) used in computer programming, and is the most widely used Java IDE. It contains a base workspace and an extensible plug-in system for customizing the environment. Eclipse is written mostly in Java and its primary use is for developing Java applications, but it may also be used to develop applications in other programming languages through the use of plugins, including: Ada, ABAP, C, C++, COBOL, D, Fortran, Haskell, JavaScript, Julia, Lasso, Lua, NATURAL, Perl, PHP, Prolog, Python, R, Ruby (including Ruby on Rails framework), Rust, Scala, Clojure, Groovy, Scheme, and Erlang. It can also be used to develop documents with L aTeX (through the use of the TeXlipse plugin) and packages for the software Mathematica. Development environments include the Eclipse Java development tools (JDT) 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 (SDK), 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. Since Equinox, plug-ins can be plugged/stopped dynamically and are known as (OSGI) bundles

Released under the terms of the Eclipse Public License, Eclipse SDK is free and open-source software, although it is incompatible with the GNU General Public License. It was one of the first IDEs to run under GNU Classpath and it runs without problems under IcedTea.

History

Eclipse was inspired by the Smalltalk-based VisualAge family of integrated development environment (IDE) products. Although fairly successful, a major drawback of the VisualAge products was that developed code was not in a component model; instead, all code for a project was held in a compressed lump (somewhat like a zip file but in a proprietary format called .dat); individual classes could not be easily accessed, certainly not outside the tool. A team primarily at the IBM Cary NC lab 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 (released on 21 June 2004) 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 (EPL) is the fundamental license under which Eclipse projects are released. Some projects require dual licensing, for which the Eclipse Distribution License (EDL) 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 re-licensed 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 (GPL).

Name

According to Lee Nackman, Chief Technology Officer of IBM's Rational division (originating in 2003) at that time, the name "Eclipse" (dating from at least 2001) was not a wordplay on Sun Microsystems, as the product's primary competition at the time of naming was Microsoft Visual Studio (which it, Eclipse, was to eclipse).

Different versions of Eclipse have been named after different science-related names. The versions named after Callisto, Europa, and Ganymede, which are moons of Jupiter, were followed by a version named after Galileo the discoverer of those moons. These were followed by two sun-themed names, Helios of Greek mythology, and Indigo, one of the seven colors of a rainbow (which is produced by the sun). The version after that, Juno, has a triple meaning: a Roman mythological figure, an asteroid, and a spacecraft to Jupiter. Kepler, Luna, and Mars continued the astronomy theme whereupon a new theme of chemical elements commenced with Neon and Oxygen.

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.

As of 2008 each Simultaneous Release has occurred on the 4th Wednesday of June.

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 and 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 (JDT), 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 the graphical control elements of the Java toolkit called Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT), whereas most Java applications use the Java standard Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT) 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. Eclipse was made to run on Wayland during a GSoC-Project in 2014.

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 (RCP) for developing general purpose applications. The following components constitute the rich client platform:

• Equinox OSGi â€" a standard bundling framework
• Core platform â€" boot Eclipse, run plug-ins
• Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT) â€" a portable widget toolkit
• JFace â€" viewer classes to bring model view controller programming to SWT, file buffers, text handling, text editors
• Eclipse Workbench â€" 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 (for development) 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 (WTP) 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 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 Object Management Group (OMG). Acceleo is an open source code generator that can generate any textual language (Java, PHP, Python, etc.) from EMF based models defined with any metamodel (UML, SysML, etc.).

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 implementations of the following standards:

• UML
• SysML
• OCL
• BPMN
• IMM
• SBVR
• XSD
• NEDA

The Concrete Syntax Development project contains the Graphical Modeling Framework, an Eclipse-based framework dedicated to the graphical representation of EMF based models.

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 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 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. Valable is a Vala plug-in for Eclipse.

Alternative distributions

A number of alternative distributions exist in the Eclipse project.

Eclipse PDT (PHP Development Tools)

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 (WTP) and Dynamic Languages Toolkit (DLTK).

Eclipse ADT (Android Development Tools)

Android Development Tools (ADT) is a discontinued Google-provided plugin for the Eclipse IDE that is designed to provide an integrated environment in which to build Android applications. ADT extends the capabilities of Eclipse to let developers 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 export signed (or unsigned) .apk files in order to distribute their applications. It is freely available to download. It was the official IDE for Android but was replaced by Android Studio (based on IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition).