developerWorks: Extend Eclipse’s Java Development Tools

“A number of commercially available products, based on Eclipse,
show the practical implications of this way of delivering
integrated products. IBM WebSphere Application Developer and
Rational XDE, for example, demonstrate the impact that Eclipse has
already had. These products and others based on Eclipse diminish
the user’s learning curve because of their similar user interface.
Sure, this is valuable to large software houses, but what’s in it
for the ‘little guy?’

“That’s where the extensibility story of Eclipse gets
interesting. Not just integration for those who have large
development organizations, but also for anyone willing to invest
some time in learning a few Eclipse frameworks. ‘Oh no,’ you may be
thinking, ‘not more frameworks; I don’t have the time to learn more
frameworks.’ Don’t worry; it will be quick and fairly easy. And
before that little voice in your head has time to say it, no, this
article will not be a trivial ‘hello world’ extension of Eclipse.
Rest assured, you’ll see practical value and a clear demonstration
of how you can enhance your productive use of Eclipse’s Java
development environment. You may even be a little surprised to see
that it takes only a few dozen lines of code to do some fairly
amazing things.

“This article will show you what is possible and where to start,
and give you a firm appreciation for what’s involved in getting
there. Though extending Eclipse is an advanced topic, you can start
with only passing knowledge of how to use Eclipse’s Java
development environment…”

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