Eclipse as an application framework
by Kevin Dangoor
Last week, I was looking at Swing application frameworks. It’s hard to consider creating a Java GUI application today and not consider the Eclipse platform as a possible framework. There is a document in CVS, Rich Client Platform Facilities, that describes how Eclipse 3.0 will work as a platform for non-IDE applications. This is a specific, stated goal for Eclipse 3.0, and there appear to be many people in- and outside of IBM who are interested in this.
It suffers from the same shortcomings as Netbeans.( and even worse with SWT ) so it is hardly a good platform to bet on
What shortcomings are those?
That’s a good question. If NetBeans was developed as a Java IDE, then from the get go it was different from Eclipse. Eclipse was built as a tools platform. If the NetBean people haven’t put any work into making it an application framework, then it would certainly have shortcomings as one. However, the folks at IBM *are* putting effort into making Eclipse a generic application framework. I’ve just started reading the June 16th draft of Beck and Gamma’s Contributing to Eclipse book. They talk about how Eclipse is not a giant application that accepts plugins, but rather a thin framework with the application completely built up by plugins.
In fact, looking at the documentation around the NetBeans Platform shows something that is *much* more IDE-centric than Eclipse’s Rich Client Platform work.
http://www.netbeans.org/projects/netbeans_platform.html#NetBeans%20Platform