Eclipse redux, again and again and again.....

Published 11 November 04 02:44 PM | jvast 

Now I know most even within the Microsoft community consider Eclipse to be a major competitor to our Visual Studio line, but I just don't see it.  I see it mostly as IBM marketing hype and my sentiment is echoed in a recent Java Pro article with George Paolini, from Borland.  ( I know, I've heard they hype as well, but I don't think MS is buying Borland. )

In the article Paolini makes this point:

"Let's remember that Eclipse isn't comparable to JBuilder; Eclipse is comparable to the framework that supports JBuilder, which we all internally coordinate. We've never released it externally as a brand. Framework to framework is where you want to make the comparison. Now when you add plug-ins on top of Eclipse you can assume a level of functionality that would be comparable to JBuilder, but you would have to build that yourself and you have to support that yourself."  Java Pro interview w/George Paolini

Let me build off the above, I think it's great there is a free framework out there, even that there is a large community supporting it and I agree the SWT is much more performant than SWING.  But when it comes to getting your job done, you need an IDE in which you can do your work and not be distracted by almost functioning plug-ins.  My last point is that I rarely have trouble convincing an ISV to move to .NET from J2EE because of an IDE. 

When will the Eclipse hype begin to fade.......

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# murphee said on November 11, 2004 2:58 PM:
Hmm... your ISVs seem to have a lot of time on their hands. Eclipse offers features that VS users can only dream of: Extensive Refactoring support, Edit &Continue (that's actually using a feature called HotSwap in Java) has been available for *years* and not just weeks, features like Local History (basically a mini-VersionControl that works transparently but is immensly useful for looking up changes you didn't commit to your SCM server),...
Not to mention the loads of features that plug seamlessly into the framework (adding another source code management system, like Subversion, ... works without users having to learn a different GUI,...).
I don't know if VS has something like the QuickFix feature, but this has improved my coding by 100 % at least (and I'm not exaggerating; this feature just allows to ignore all those tedious issues that occur all the time, like).

I don't know what these "almost functioning" PlugIns you're talking about are. I had been using Eclipse for more than a year before installing my first plugin (and that was to add an editor for Wikis). In the meantime, the Eclipse project provides plugins for various languages (Cobol, C++,...), for building GUIs (Visual Editor Plugin for SWT and Swing) and many more (just see the Eclipse projects website).
And of course, for all the other plugins, that offer even further functionality: you don't have to go out and evaluate them yourself: there are already several Eclipse Distributions, that take the Eclipse SDK and add a proven (and properly interoperating) plugins for all uses (for less than 20 bucks for the effort).

The point is: MS has to play catch-up with Eclipse (and, other major Java IDEs like IDEA or Borlands JBuilder), as lack of those features is just embarrasing (Come on... the fact that you can change a classes name from the GUI is marketed as a huge "innovation" in the next VS Studio version... who's going to believe that?).
# Oliver Andrich said on November 11, 2004 3:04 PM:
As you said Borland also hypes. And they definitely do in this short comment. Eclipse is superior to JBuilder in all ways.

- Useability
- Performance
- Available Features
- Stuff needed by guys that code (Refactoring et al)

And by buying an eclipse workbench suscription you also get the rest you need for WebApplication development for $39.

Wether Eclipse stands up against Visual Studio? I am not sure or can'T tell it. But I can say, that Eclipse provides out of the box just about anything a coding guy needs. GUI Builders are of no interest to me, they basically suck more or suck less, but they still suck. :) So, at least for JBuilder I can say, that it provides nothing I need or which I can get for a cheaper price on a equal or sometimes better level.
# Sandu Turcan said on November 11, 2004 4:37 PM:
To me comparing the feature-set of Eclipse and VS is not as interesting as comparing their architecture.
And for all kinds of selfish reasons I wish VS would borrow a few things from Eclipse there.

First of all plugins are much much easier to write. Perhaps I haven't spent enough time looking at VSIP but it looked more complex, and I didn't see anything similar to PDE there. The fact that with Eclipse it's all managed code doesn't hurt either (... except for performance, I gotta hand it to VS - it's much faster).

Second I really like the fact that you can just copy your entire eclipse directory to another PC and it's ready to work. Imagine having your IDE on a USB key - go anywhere, plug it in and just run it, knowing you're not affecting the configuration on that PC. The fastest USB keys today read 20MB/sec so should be feasible.
# James said on November 12, 2004 10:48 AM:
VSIP, as in the marketing program and the API's are not well documented. The group in charge of VSIP now is committed to changing that, both the perception and publicly available documentation.

When I get a chance I'll post more information on VSIP and focus on VS.NET 2005.
# Jay R. Wren <jrwren@gmail.com said on November 14, 2004 9:50 AM:
<i>When will the Eclipse hype begin to fade.......</i>

to answer your question: When Express Editions of VS are finally available for free download. That is the center of the hype around Eclipse. It is an excellent tool for free. When VS is also free, the freeness around Eclipse will be far less important.
# Sandu Turcan said on November 14, 2004 10:08 AM:
Having written an application as an Eclipse plugin I can't say that I've spent too much time reading the documentation. Not that I'm bragging but I'm sure there are many people just like me, who start by clicking on "New Project" and then try to figure out what to do next.
With VSIP my next step was to read the documentation.
With Eclipse I was presented with an editor which allowed me to say which other plugins I depend on, what extention points from those plugins I wish to implement and what extention points will I expose myself.
It's like having the autocomplete feature. How many roundtrips to the docs did that save you?

The basic ideas behind each product seem to be similar - a small kernel that knows how to load the plugins/packages and wire them up together to form the application.
The implementations are different of course - VS relying on COM and registry, Eclipse on Java and XML.
The later is simpler for both development and management (as in putting it on on a USB key and taking with you).
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