Eclipse History

IBM Canada began to develop the Eclipse in back to 1990′s. In 2000, Eclipse released as as open source project “Eclipse Project”. In 2004, It’s formed fully independent industrial consortium, the “Eclipse Foundation”. Since then many bundles released so far:

• June 2006: “Callisto” (uses 3.2 platform)
• June 2007: “Europa” (uses 3.3 platform)
• June 2008: “Ganymede” (uses 3.4 platform)
• June 2009: “Galileo” (uses 3.5 platform)
• June 2010: “Helios” (uses 3.6 platform)

Features

Eclipse supports many languages such as Java, C/C++, Web (XML/HTML/CSS), Perl, Phyton, Ruby, Rails, Mathematica… The best thing about Eclipse is that it supports continuous compilation, so there is no need to compile. Syntax/Compile-time errors are checked as you typed. Eclipse is also extendible through over 1,000 plug-ins on Plug-in Central.

Eclipse First Start Screen

Strength & Weakness

Eclipse is totally free you can obtain it on Eclipse Download Page. As I mentioned before it’s extendible through plug-ins and you can configure it as you desire. In addition to this, Eclipse supports team collaboration. On the other hand, since Eclipse checks for compile-time and syntax errors as you type. This requires some space on the disk and memory.

Workspace

Eclipse always uses workspace that holds project (such as source files, packages, and libraries) and personal configurations (such as code formatting).

Eclipse Workspace Selection Dialog

Views & Editors

Building blocks of user interface that includes editor for input activity and view for support information.

• Navigate a hierarchy of information
• Open an editor
• Display properties for the active editor

Eclipse View Screen Shot

Perspectives

A perspective is a particular layout of editors and views that are the ones most useful for accomplishing particular task such as Java, Debug, Team Synchronization…

Java Perspective Selection Dialog