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DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT<br />
TECHNOLOGY<br />
In Control with Eclipse<br />
A modern development environment<br />
with many options<br />
Thijs Schoonbrood<br />
So you would like to start a new programming project — the whole idea is clear in your<br />
mind and you already have an eye on a programming language. But then things get<br />
harder, because which development environment will you use this time? One is too complicated<br />
to allow a small program<br />
to be written quickly, and another<br />
is too limited for large projects.<br />
Eclipse is a modern development<br />
environment, which is not only<br />
easy to learn but also easily<br />
expanded and suitable for the<br />
most diverse programming languages.<br />
Furthermore, the package<br />
is free and open-source!<br />
Figure 1. This is what Eclipse looks like most of the time.<br />
Eclipse is an open-source and platform independent software-framework<br />
for the development of rich-client applications.<br />
The software is used frequently as a Java IDE<br />
(Integrated Development Environment) and is viewed by<br />
many as the best of its type. Eclipse is nevertheless also<br />
eminently suitable for other programming languages.<br />
Although IBM initiated the development, for several years<br />
now the non-profit Eclipse Foundation has continued to<br />
maintain Eclipse, with support from, among others, IBM<br />
and Borland.<br />
The current (stable) version of Eclipse is 3.1. This one, as<br />
well as all previous versions, can be found at<br />
www.eclipse.org. The size of this package compared to<br />
other IDEs can be considered modest: a little more than<br />
100 MB. This is caused, in part, by the fact that much of<br />
the functionality of Eclipse resides in separate plug-ins,<br />
which we will describe a little further on.<br />
After completing the download, we can get started immediately,<br />
since Eclipse does not need to be installed. Simply<br />
unzip the file and Bob’s your uncle! After starting the<br />
program, you choose the so-called workspace, the folder<br />
that will contain all our projects. After that we arrive at<br />
the welcome screen, where we can choose from several<br />
tutorials or examples, or go straight to work.<br />
Different perspectives<br />
We now end up at the so-called workbench. This workbench<br />
consists of several perspectives. The idea behind<br />
perspectives is that when developing a program several<br />
different tasks can be distinguished, such as among other<br />
things, programming (creating source code), debugging<br />
10/2006 - elektor electronics 67
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