Sun Drops Bid To Join Eclipse 80
ilovestuff writes "According to ZDNet, Sun Microsystems has decided not to join the Eclipse open-source tools effort backed by rival IBM. In addition to dropping the plan to join Eclipse, Sun said Wednesday that it will no longer try to merge the Sun-sponsored NetBeans.org open-source Java tools project with Eclipse. The Eclipse open-source project, founded by IBM in 2001, is an IBM-owned consortium which has gained the membership of several development tools companies over the past year."
Title (Score:3, Funny)
In other news... (Score:3, Funny)
It's understandable, really... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:historically an eclipse was a powerful event/om (Score:1)
The word is deity, goofball.
I'm increasingly convinced that certain word misspellings are capable of achieving critical mass and turning into full-fledged memes. This is Not A Good Thing(tm).
-T.
Should have been under: Science - Astronomy (Score:5, Funny)
-grin-
A Rose is still a rose... (Score:1)
They actually offered to change the name if Sun was willing to join...
m.m.
Re:Should have been under: Science - Astronomy (Score:1)
Real reason (Score:5, Interesting)
Apart from the technical differences between Eclipse and NetBeans, Sun had some concerns that Eclipse was dominated by IBM, Green said. In September, Eclipse set out to restructure its membership model to gain independence from IBM and established a board.
Sad, but no surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
I wrote a version control plugin [sf.net] for JBuilder -- yet another IDE with its own plugin architecture -- and I'm currently learning the Eclipse plugin architecture so I can port it... yes, it sure would be nice if I could just deploy it as is to other IDEs!
But... I suspect that the whole merging idea was mostly conceived by management types who got a rude awakening when they started talking to the tool developers and found out what kind of effort it would take to actually do it.
The work involved would be mind-boggling... and it's not the sort of thing that would draw open-source developers. It definitely scratches an itch to implement that feature you've been longing for in your IDE of choice (which is why it's often easy to get lots of contributors to a good IDE; look how quick the Eclipse community grew!). But I'll be damned if I'm going to reimplement the same thing two years later for free.
The next version of any tool after it's been ripped apart and reassembled is usually much worse than the last version, too. I remember when JBuilder first switched to a version written in Java (3.5)... it hurt to see how many important features were broken or removed. Sure, you understand that this will help in the long run, but you don't want to be around while it fights it way back to mature status.
So would Sun and IBM be willing to pay what it would really take to get there? It would have been nice, but I'm not surprised the answer was no.
Re:Sad, but no surprise (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sad, but no surprise (Score:1)
Re:Sad, but no surprise (Score:2)
Re:Sad, but no surprise (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Sad, but no surprise (Score:2)
Re:Sad, but no surprise (Score:1)
It may be feature complete, but it's Windows only (a linux version has been planned for some time, but there's been no visible progress). I've been using eclipse for both Java and C/C++ under linux for some time - and the lack of subversion support is one of the key reasons I'm still using CVS.
port (Score:2)
CS-RCS [componentsoftware.com] (what I'm integrating) uses GNU RCS under the covers, which is what's underlying CVS, too (I think). They do offer an add-on to support CVS, but only in the paid version, so I'm still investigating.
JBuilder actually has all kinds of concurrent development features as well, including MS SCC integration (which CS-RCS does support directly!), but it's only enabled in the Enterpris
Re:Sad, but no surprise (Score:2)
eclipse uses swt, and I assume netbeans uses swing.
Right (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Right (Score:2)
Re:Sad, but no surprise (Score:2)
Sure, it would be very nice. In fact, there is already a JSR for that matter:
http://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=198 [jcp.org]
Why the hell haven't they just bought IntelliJ? (Score:5, Insightful)
IntelliJ is light years better than Eclipse or Netbeans. Why is Sun still putzing around? Buy JetBrains and call IntelliJ NetBeans.
Not to mention that Eclipse has got a hell of a better chance of competing with IntelliJ than NetBeans. They really need to move NetBeans into something more complete. MS is running so many circles around Sun in dev tools it's not funny. The goal of 10 mil Java developers ain't happenin until Sun pulls it's head out of it's ass and makes sure that the Java platform has top notch tools that can compete for novice developers with MS.
Re:Why the hell haven't they just bought IntelliJ? (Score:2)
Re:Why the hell haven't they just bought IntelliJ? (Score:1)
Re:Why the hell haven't they just bought IntelliJ? (Score:2, Interesting)
You forget a big point.
Even if IntelliJ is one of the best tools around, it can't be fashionnable as there is no open source version of it (or at least all I could find was a 30 days limited demo version).
Today, open source _is_ fashion. Companies and people ask more and more for Open Source. Whether they are or not related to computer programming (maybe even more so if they aren't).
Additionnaly it seems that community support has become an important requirement for such tools as IDE. And I person
Re:Why the hell haven't they just bought IntelliJ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sun bought OpenOffice and OpenSourced it, I'm pretty sure they did the same with NetBeans. IntelliJ is simply a "better" product than NetBeans or Eclipse. I'm willing to shell out of my pocket for IntelliJ because it makes me so much more productive than NetBeans or Eclipse. That's what Sun needs. MS has been making the case, successfully, that their tools make developers more productive. Sun and IBM can't make that case. Borland could maybe make that case, but I've honestly ne
Re:Why the hell haven't they just bought IntelliJ? (Score:2)
I ask the same question, but one notch higher: "Sun controls Java, and has a good Unix and a decent customer base. IBM would benefit from integrating all of these, has a much better reputation and outlook, and therefore should buy Sun. So why is IBM still putzing around?"
Re:Why the hell haven't they just bought IntelliJ? (Score:2)
Sun doesn't have anything that IBM wants to put it frankly. Sun has been quickly making themselves obsolete by not focusing on polished, integrated software products for developers and network infrastructure.
Give it another year and a half and look what IBM will have with Eclipse and the Ration
Re:Why the hell haven't they just bought IntelliJ? (Score:2)
So why is IBM still putzing around?
Because buying Sun will be less expensive later than now.
Re:Why the hell haven't they just bought IntelliJ? (Score:1)
No loss (Score:5, Insightful)
As an Eclipse user and plug-in developer, I would rather see Eclipse evolve freely than see it encumbered by the huge porting effort required to merge it with Sun's technology.
The fact that SWT (Eclipse's GUI toolkit) and Swing (Sun's) are incompatible as far as philosophy and vision are concerned is also significant.
SWT lets Eclipse and users develop portable programs that look and behave exactly like native applications: on Windows my app will look like a Windows app, on Linux it will look like a GTK+ app, and so on. Swing, on the other hand, is a platform in itself; it does provide some hooks for native technologies (printing, mouse wheels, etc.), but it will never adapt to changes of the local platform. SWT apps, since they use native APIs, do; for example, on Windows 2000 Eclipse looks like a Win 2000 app; on XP it looks like an XP app, with no additional theming support needed in the toolkit.
Re:No loss (Score:1)
How exacly does it make it possible to use native widgets on every platform where java works? Does it provide everything in a huge bundle that has to be installed along with your java program?
Re:No loss (Score:3, Informative)
Java VM does not mean working Swing (Score:3, Informative)
There are many clean room implementations of JVM (kaffe, gcj and a few proprietry projects) that do not provide working AWT and it is simpler to implement SWT for them then the AWT subset required for Swing. That is why one can already uses gcj to compile SWT applications but not Swing ones.
Re:No loss (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, Swing runs wherever you want, but the problem is that (a) it looks like crap, and (b) it doesn't integrate fully with the parent operating/windowing system. The former is less important if you only care about functionality; the latter is extremely important, period.
Non-native-looking/-behaving apps alienate users. Swing apps aren't affected by native themes, for example. I remember back when Swing didn't support the mouse wheel on Windows. Swing apps don't use Windows' native file dialogs. Consider accessability; Windows, Mac and GTK2 all have extensive APIs and technologies for screen reading and so on. Does Swing support them?
SWT already runs on a wide variety of platforms, and it's "driver" is small enough that adding support for new platforms isn't that much work. And the benefits are enormous.
Re:No loss (Score:2, Informative)
A lot of the points you make have been (somewhat) solved with the JDK 1.4.2.
With the GTK+ and Windows XP look 'n feels, Swing programs look like native programs, and adjust themselves to whatever theme you have set up (it only supports the Bluecurve engine for GTK though).
There's more info on it at GnomeDesktop.org [gnomedesktop.org]
The integration problems you talk about unfortunately still exist, but at least it can look better than plain old metal look 'n feel.
Re:No loss (Score:2)
No. "Look and feel" plugins to Swing aren't enough. They're just fake props.
What if you're running a special GTK or XP theme?
What when the OS' look is upgraded? Swing apps won't automatically adapt to a changing OS. Good applications live for a long time.
What about accessability (eg., screen readers)?
What about fonts? (I'm actually asking. Last I checked, Swing had its own font system that was not integrated with the paren
But SWT works in the important places (Score:1, Troll)
Re:But SWT works in the important places (Score:1)
Re:No loss (Score:3, Interesting)
Eclipse runs on Solaris/SPARC. It probably also runs on the other platforms you mention, but there are no official binaries, and it might need a few patches to run on, say, FreeBSD. However, this being open source and all, nothing is stopping anyone from implementing suppport for these platforms.
How exacly does it make it possible to use native widgets on every platform whe
Re:No loss (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No loss (Score:1)
Re:No loss (Score:2, Informative)
Re:No loss (Score:5, Informative)
The new implementation of tabs (NSTabView/JTabbedPane) in Panther is a row of buttons instead of tabs. The buttons do appear in a Swing application using JTabbedPane, _but_, the inside of the tabbed pane is only partially shaded when it's supposed to be entirely. This looks terrible since it's partially native but not-quite-there.
Eclipse's SWT has neither of these problems, nor does it have dozens of other problems that Swing has in Aqua.
Re:No loss (Score:2)
When using an AWT app, it's snappy. You probably would not know it's running on Java if you had never before heard of AWT.
I think AWT is the right way to go. Swing may be going down the path of idealism, but AWT is going down the path of practacality.
Re:No loss (Score:1)
Why merge? (Score:2)
Let them compete. It will only make them both better.
Re:In other news - a small pond lost one of its fi (Score:1)
Also, let's remember that the "web world" is a pretty large one. Not just serving up html pages for websites, but wireless apps, web se
Re:In other news - a small pond lost one of its fi (Score:2)
BFD. I learnt ML, smalltalk, Pascal and Prolog at uni , never used them since I left.
"it's a good bet they're going to use it on industry projects as well."
No , they'll use whatever languages the company tell them to use and if they haven't got the skills
required they won't get hired.
"let's remember that the "web world" is a pretty large one."
Not really. For every web facing application a company has written it probably has a dozen internal ap
Re:In other news - a small pond lost one of its fi (Score:1)
yeah, but those are pretty much academic languages by nature. java is not in that position at all.
"Not really. For every web facing application a company has written it probably has a dozen internal apps that arn't"
I'm just saying, inside the web world is a whole lot of stuff. Sure, the embedded controller world and the corporate infrastructure world are larger. But the web world is probably larger than the game pr
Re:In other news - a small pond lost one of its fi (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:In other news - a small pond lost one of its fi (Score:2)
Really? You think the bank you keep your money in wants its transaction processing system live on the web? And C++ might be archiac to you , but to
me its a damn sight more flexible and powerful than Java. Don't believe me? Try writing a device driver, high end graphics app or TPS in java.
Re:In other news - a small pond lost one of its fi (Score:2)
thinking off is front end and/or middleware.
Re:In other news - a small pond lost one of its fi (Score:1)
I hope the spiders don't object. Those tarantulas look mighty fierce.
what a shame (Score:2)
Yes they both are going in the rightdirection, but I have had constant problems getting code completion to work, getting the project to build using ant (Netbeans was actually easier than Eclipse IMHO).
Maybe someday they will get it, but then it will be to late.
Re:what a shame (Score:1, Informative)
Re:what a shame (Score:2, Informative)
VB == scripting language for ActiveX controls (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, you can have Swing controls and JBuilder has been doing the Delphi-like thing with them. While Swing is cross platform and one language (and Delphi VCL is one platform and perhaps two languages: Delphi Pascal and C++ Builder, and perhaps another platform depending on your thoughts on the success of Kylix), ActiveX is one platform but a whole bunch of languages, more so than the .NET world of many skins on the one CLR language. There are big advantages to cross language -- call me a relic, call me what you will, but I like that old-fashioned Object Pascal as a development language, but none of my customers want anything to do with it.
So what is to prevent a VB dude from switching to Eclipse and VEP (besides having suffered neurological damage learning Visual Basic)? That mass collection of 3rd party ActiveX controls that do all kinds of not only cool but essential application-specific stuff for numerous niche requirements. ActiveX may be crufty and a bear to develop for with its IDispatch and variants and BSTR's and all kinds of restrictions on data types depending on your target, but it is the success story of components as a means to reusable software. Java might have the killer library for everything else, but ActiveX is the killer software pool for the GUI.
Re:VB == scripting language for ActiveX controls (Score:2, Informative)
Re:what a shame (Score:2)
See eclipse is trying to bring togeather technoligies that were not built togeather. VB which I probably should have said MS IDE's like their Visual Basic IDE are all integrated really well. Eclipses integration is kind of scattered. At this point I don't think it is all there and I am not taking about the GUI window editor. JEdit is easier to use IMHO, than eclipse.
Re:what a shame (Score:1)
I have used both JEdit and Eclipse. Actually, you can put any library jar with a few mouse click (project properties -> build path -> library) and auto completion and compilation will work correctly without a problem.
With JEdit however, as far as I can remember you should install a custom plugin, and reboot, then you should input classpath for all the required library jars by hand to enable auto completion a
Sun? (Score:1, Troll)
On Java; How many more decades will Sun need before they figure out that attempting to collect license fees from Microsoft for Java is not a viable business model. Computer languages are not profitable because the market generally kn
Re:Sun? (Score:2, Insightful)
It got lucky on big iron in the 90's and did/does a terrific job with java. But it's feet are full of bullet holes where it shot/shoots itself in the foot.
There is a massive exodus of developers here in Dallas to Eclipse, and it is all based on attraction. Same with the open source projects I work with. Netbeans can do what it wants, but the most likely outcome is to be ignored to death.
In the same vein, SWT rocks, and I say that being a swing enthusiast.
Peopl
Compete with Microsoft? (Score:1)
From the Article:
I really don't see that the goal should be to threaten Microsoft. I develop applications with eclipse and I dont give a flying f#*% whether someone else is using Microsoft. My stuff works. I know there ar
Their loss, not ours (Score:1)
I've used AWT, Swing and SWT (Score:1, Informative)
Perhaps I'm stating the obvious, but... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Perhaps I'm stating the obvious, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
It doesn't really prove that native code is required. It just proves that Swing is crap.
I have a bunch of java applications that run fine without native code. They just aren't GUI apps.
The problem with Swing isn't that it's java, but Swing's overall design. After all, swing calls native methods to display stuff eventually, just not as early as SWT.
I think Sun could fix Swing if they really wanted to. I just