Is Eclipse getting Eclipsed ?

I have been working on the Eclipse platform right from version 2.0. I have lead few projects on the Automotive and Internet Industries. Initially around 2001 and 2002, there were lot of announcements from the member companies and new joiners in the eclipse eco system.

In the recent years there were many new projects that have evolved into a full blown features(J2EE, WTP, ATP, STP, TPTP, etc…). All of a sudden i have a feeling that the eclipse eco system has stopped any major contributions. No major contributions were made from 2006 mid till now. I understand that the platform is been made stable and i have no complaints about it. Rest of the projects seem to be moving in the Tortoise and Tortoise race.

Is the Eclipse community (eco system) planning not to sponsor many of the new projects? or the contributors are not serious about the deadlines and commitments or eclipse is more of a stabl;e product and given to the community to build more and mroe commercial products around it.

I am sure the big Blue has a major role in the direction of the eclipse, but where is Eclipse leading to … Is Hare turning into Tortoise ???

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0 Responses to Is Eclipse getting Eclipsed ?

  1. Ulrich Weber says:

    Eclipse.org URGENTLY needs 3D-technology (see world of warcraft, Second Life and the likes) IBM and Google could contribute resources and developers. Both companied are involved in creating new 3D-worlds (Google Earth, IBM supporting Lindenlabs etc.)

  2. You have me confused. 🙂

    The major announcements about Eclipse were clustered in two time frames: 2001/2 when Eclipse was first started by IBM and 2004/5 when the Eclipse Foundation was created and when companies like BEA, Borland, Sybase, Wind River, Nokia and Motorola joined (to name just a few).

    Most of the projects you mention were started far later than you might think. WTP started in 2004. STP started in 2006.

    2006 had a number of really interesting new projects get going. For just a small sample, please take a look at the Ajax Toolkit Framework (ATF), Rich Ajax Platform (RAP), Mobile Tools for Java, PHP Development Tools (PDT), COSMOS and Aperi. I don’t have the numbers handy, but there were something like 12 – 15 projects started in the past 12 months.

    In some ways, I found your comments refreshing, as I’ve heard from others that Eclipse generates too much “hype”. Good to see the opposing view. 🙂

  3. Chris Aniszczyk says:

    I’m confused how you can say that giving this year there are 20+ projects being released as part of Europa, compared to 10 last year for Callisto.

    I guess you aren’t happy with the diversity of the projects maybe? What are you comparing Eclipse too? Can you give more concrete numbers?

  4. Daniel Beck says:

    Several really good announcements ware made in 2006, and several are going to be announced in 2007. I really look forward for CDT 4.0 :-). I’m also excited by DLTK, the toolkit for dynamic language (2007 and 2008 will be the year of dynamics script language!)

    I think, eclipse is “getting eclipsed”, because most features are added into the platform and into JDT. While I think, this is very good for RCP developers (and what is good for RCP is good for eclipse), JDT is already great for developing Java!

    What lacks is a good profiler, a visual editor, a visual web editor, better Web Tools, good subversion support (as good as the CVS support) and a UML tool. Most of these should be delivered out of the box: Almost every Java developer I know needs an XML editor.

    I hope, Eclipse plug-ins will see big enhancement and announcements for Europa+1. I will look into the DLTK code to see what I can do to help.

  5. Hummmm… Honestly even today, Eclipse is the bread and butter for me. I am with this community from past 4.5 years of time and i am proud being here.
    What worries me is the diversity of the eclipse.org projects and i personally feel there is no focus and direction. I could be wrong !
    The comprehensive documentation of the platform, jdt, emf, gef, etc… are lacking in the new projects (i dont want to name the projects, though).
    For many of the new projects that have been out, the industry expects you to use the new eclipse features (its a fancy for the product managers to have the eclipse tag in their product brochure) and then you see that you are doomed as they are not tested and no help is provided. And the contributing companies takes a long time to release a stable version.
    But i FELT that the platfor,and JDT came out much fater. And of course finally this is my openion…

  6. Porfirio says:

    “What lacks is a good profiler, a visual editor, a visual web editor, better Web Tools, good subversion support (as good as the CVS support) and a UML tool. Most of these should be delivered out of the box: Almost every Java developer I know needs an XML editor.”

    Thats what confuses me, Eclipse is big and empty
    It can to almost nothing out of the box compared with Netbeans

    http://bits.nbextras.org/netbeans/6.0/nightly/latest/installers/

  7. Porfirio says:

    I mean “can’t”

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