Eclipse in Action

Simon P. Chappell writes "The Eclipse IDE has thundered into the collective consciousness of Java developers since its release by IBM as Open Source Software. Up until this time, the majority of available documentation at the Eclipse website has been for plug-in developers, with scant attention given to the rest of us that actually want to use the tool for anything else. This book restores the balance and brings much needed help to those interested in this IDE." Read on for the rest of Simon's review, about which he says "Full Disclosure: I received a free, review copy of this book, so feel free to assume that I've been bought off and have traded my technical integrity to put about an inch of dead tree on my shelf."

Eclipse in Action
author	Gallardo, Burnette and McGovern
pages	383 (15 page index)
publisher	Manning
rating	8
reviewer	Simon P. Chappell
ISBN	1930110960
summary	A good book that lives up to its name.

Overview

With a book like this it's difficult to know where to pitch the level. Do you aim for the lowest common denominator or do you assume some experience on the part of your reader? This book seems to have pitched itself well, not pandering to the absolute Java newbie, not afraid to get down into the code and yet gentle enough that newer Java developers can follow easily. The heavyweight chapter on writing plug-ins is at the back where it shouldn't frighten those of a sensitive nature.

The book is divided into two sections. The first and largest section concerns actual use of Eclipse during Java application development. The second section is for those who wish to write plug-ins for Eclipse.

The book takes a very 'Test Driven Development' approach to Java development and this shows in the manner that Eclipse is presented and taught. Emphasis is given to the tools that come with Eclipse, especially Ant, Junit and the CVS client. For those already skilled in these tools, this might seem like filler, but remember that there are still pitifully few Java developers using even these simple and free tools. My hat is off to the authors for their TDD evangelism, skillfully disguised as Eclipse usage instruction.

What's To Like

I liked the progression followed in the book, first teaching the basic operation of Eclipse and then moving on to the tools that come with the base install.

What's To Consider

Some may consider that the material on Ant, Junit and CVS is filler. The 'Test Driven Development' theme may be a little too much evangelism for some.

I use Eclipse on a Mac OS X box and I felt that there was very little discussion concerning the cross-platform attributes of the tool. All of the screenshots were from a Microsoft Windows build of the software; a Linux or OS X screenshot would have been helpful.

One more niggle and then I'm done. There is no information on using Eclipse with other programming languages (a couple of paragraphs in the introduction chapter doesn't really count). I've recently started tinkering with Ruby and have used a Ruby plug-in to allow me to work within Eclipse as I learn the language. This is a wonderful testament to the power and extensibility of Eclipse.

Summary

This is a good book. You know it's a good book when you already use the tool (both pure Eclipse and IBM's WSAD) regularly and you find yourself learning things that you had not previously been aware of. If you are working with Java and want a good free IDE that's going to grow with you, then Eclipse is a tool you should try -- and consider this book the User's Guide that would have been in the box if Eclipse came shrink-wrapped.

Table Of Contents

1. Using Eclipse
2. 1. Overview
   2. Getting started with the Eclipse Workbench
   3. The Java development cycle: test, code, repeat
   4. Working with source code in eclipse
   5. Building with Ant
   6. Source control with CVS
   7. Web development tools
3. Extending Eclipse
4. 1. Introduction to Eclipse plug-ins
   2. Working with plug-ins in Eclipse

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You can purchase Eclipse in Action from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

The website

[bigjnsa500]

is already /.'ed... wonderful.... Mirror anybody?

Re:I'd like to weigh in ...

[mark_lybarger]

you didn't specifically mention what it is about eclipse's project handling that you don't like. i would mention that you can generally organize your work such that it makes using the ide much easier. eclipse gives you the ability to exclude certain directories for each project.

The point...

[Pac]

This should be obviuos, but here we go.

JBuilder is not free software (or even OSS). Borland can restrict the use of the Personal edition in whatever ways they want. Borland can simply discontinue the free edition at any time and leave the users without any option short of buying the paid edition or switching development platform (and this is a major problem for any serious development effort).

You also can't assume Borland will update the product in a timely manner. They can for instance delay the support for a new JDK version for whatever reason and you can do nothing.

In the end, having control over its development platform is strategic for most companies in this business. Im my shop we are moving fast towards completely open enviroment. In most cases only Windows itself is the last piece that must go but the market still requires us to have it around.

Re:I'd like to weigh in ...

[Samrobb]

I dislike the way that Eclipse seems to handle projects.

Then let the team know.

They're currently working on the 3.0 release for Eclipse - one of the topics discussed on the development mailing lists a while back was properly supporting sub-projects. The primary Eclipse team was asking users to submit information on how they would like to see Eclipse support nested projects. If you look through their bug database, you should be able to find the relevant bugzilla entries along with the attached discussions.

Re:get down to the nitty gritty.

[dr2chase]

Memory's cheap. It was easier to buy my own (512m) than argue for why it was necessary to run Eclipse. I'd have bought a gigabyte if there were slots in the box that would take it.

Re:best ide ?

[Anonymous Coward]

They are working on one: SWTworkbench [swtworkbench.com]

Yes, it uses SWT and not Swing, but you didn't specify :)

Before raving too much about Eclipse...

[gatkinso]

...keep in mind that many of it's UI features are blatant Visual Studio .NET rip off's.

We wouldn't want Microsoft to get any credit on Slashdot (however indirect), now would we???

Re:best ide ?

[msoori]

Eclipse maybe good enough for a free IDE, but it didnt pass my standards of excellence to make me a convert!!! Eclipse is one of the worst IDEs I've used. I had been using CodeWarrior for ages and was looking for a cheap alternative because I didnt want to pay $400 for CodeWarrior, so kept on trying every IDE I could find, free and otherwise. Today, I still use CodeWarrior, despite its cost because it offers superior navigation capabilities than anything else around. And its a very well thought out UI that is not clumsy like most others. I can concentrate on the problem at hand instead worrying about file management. Its money well spent.