The Eclipse Foundation last week announced the launch of
Version 3.0 of its open-source development platform - the first
major release since the non-profit group assumed oversight of the
IBM-created technology.
One key feature is a rich-client framework that will further
transform Eclipse "from a platform for doing tools integration to a
platform for doing application construction and integration",said
Mike Milinkovich, the former Oracle vice-resident who became the
group's executive director this month.
Another much-anticipated addition is the integration of
Eclipse's Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT) and the Swing components
endorsed by the Java Community Process (JCP) which Sun Microsystems
created to evolve Java.
SWT and Swing are used to build graphical user interfaces, and
some suppliers cried foul when IBM broke ranks from the JCP with
its SWT. The technologies are being integrated for Windows and
Linux.
Eclipse has also released latest versions of its C and C++
development tools and its Hyades project for application
optimisation and verification.
The company has made the basic frameworks more generic so they
can support any application, not just an IDE, he said.
In doing so, it has created a platform which developers working
in, for example, enterprise IT shops can take these frameworks and
build rich, highly functional desktop applications in Java which
conform to the native platform look and feel of the underlying
platform.
Eclipse also unveiled two initial subprojects under that
top-level project called web tooling and J2EE tooling. Web tooling
is really addressing areas like HTML-based web application
development, XML, web services and service-oriented
architectures.
The J2EE tooling is for doing server deployments and application
construction in support of both servlet (Java Server Page)-style
development and (Enterprise JavaBeans) development as well.
The first release is expected in 2005.
Carol Sliwa writes for Computerworld