Native Eclipse IDE? - eclipse

This might be better suited as a Super User question, but since it's programming related, I put it here:
Is there any version of the Eclipse IDE available that runs as a native Windows executable, instead of as a Java program that's merely started by a .exe file?
(I'm guessing it could potentially be compiled with GCJ, so I'm wondering if anyone's already done it.)

I have never heard of such a thing and I have been involved in Eclipse development for many years. Why would you want such a thing? Surely not for performance as a modern JVM runs Java code on par with native code and faster in many case as JIT can optimize and re-optimize on the fly better than a static compiler.

Excelsior JET has done this with Eclipse Classic Juno as a demo for their Eclipse RCP support.
Have a look here: https://www.excelsiorjet.com/solutions/protect-eclipse-rcp-applications

Related

Can you create a GUI in Eclipse?

I am learning Java and my IDE is Eclipse Mars. I was wondering if there was a way to create a GUI in Eclipse?
I researched it and the only half decent way I can find was pretty complex, any ideas?
Eclipse includes WindowBuilder, a "bi-directional Java GUI designer." Whether you have it installed in your Eclipse depends on which package you downloaded; if you downloaded Eclipse IDE for Java Developers then it's already included. If you got a different package, you can install WindowBuilder via these instructions.
Eclipse itself has only the coding function when it comes to GUIs.
If you really want to know your way around GUIs I recommend you learn it by programming it.
If you just want to try it out one time or start with easier lessons and then go into programming it yourself I recommend the IDE "Netbeans". It has a drag-and-drop kinda GUI builder implemented with which GUIs are very easy to implement.
Especially if your are just learning Java I recommend learning the basics in Java first, insert your functions into an easy to build GUI with Netbeans and later on go into fully programming GUIs.
Netbeans is also free and pretty much the same as eclipse. Maybe less customizable features, but for beginners and people who want to know how GUI works its perfect.

Another Java vs. Scala perspective - is this typical?

I have been reading about Scala for a while and even wrote some small programs to better understand some of the more exoteric features.
Today I decided to do my first "real project", translating some 60 lines of ugly Java code to Scala to rewrite it using the better pattern-matching features (why? because the Java version was becoming hard to maintain due to excessive combination of regex and conditionals).
About halfway through the editing process, Eclipse thew up this error:
alt text http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/1243/errorms.jpg
I get the general impression that the Scala IDE in Eclipse is a lot buggier and less complete than its Java equivalent. Is this correct or do I just have a bad installation? Is there a better IDE for Scala?
I really like IntelliJ Idea Community Edition's Scala support. I've been using it from it's early days. I've also tested Netbeans and Eclipse plugins but I really don't like them that much. Especially all Eclipse Scala plugins are crap. I also tested Textmate Scala bundle, which is very nice but doesn't offer auto completion.
Here is my Scala Ide top list:
IntelliJ Idea Community Edition
Netbeans
Textmate (This is here, since I really like Textmate for writing Rails applications)
Eclipse
When you learn IntelliJ Idea keyboard shortcuts and add some live templates you can be very productive programmer. Furthermore, if you buy the Intellij Idea Ultimate Edition you can even share the settings with multiple computers or with your team.
What I suggest:
Download IntelliJ Idea Community Edition
Install the Scala plugin
Learn the keyboard shortcuts: Windows and Linux, Mac
Configure Live Templates when you get more familiar with the ide
The Eclipse IDE Scala support has not been great for some time, but is now receiving additional development effort alongside the introduction of Scala 2.8, and appears to be improving. For Scala 2.7 I have found the Intellij plugin to be in a better state.
One problem that both of these plugins have is that Scala itself is a moving target - Scala 2.8 has introduced additional syntax and structures to Scala 2.7.
From my own experience with Eclipse, using it for languages other than Java is never quite as good.
You might find this post of interest.
I get the general impression an IDE for a new, young, niche language is a lot buggier and less complete than a widespread, supported, mature language
Try Netbeans. Its plugins are generally of a simpler construction anyway, so should have less 'gotchas'
One point to make is that it is possible that people are still put off IntelliJ because they assume that the licence is expensive, especially if they are happy with Eclipse and are unaware of the Community Edition which is free and open source.
I cannot give any comparison with the other IDEs as I have always used IntelliJ, however the Scala support is certainly good, all things considered, and getting better.
We are using Eclipse Scala plugin at work and working with it is quite terrible. One cannot really trust reported errors inside IDE, runtime exceptions are the order of the day. Our best experience is with build from 25-11-2009.
At home I play with IntelliJ 9 and its Scala plugin and I find it much much better. I am newbie to IntelliJ but I am very impressed with all those little details which (once you get used to them) increase your productivity... a lot.
The drawback is in IntelliJ there is no compile-error reporting on the fly (at the time you're writing code) yet implemented and only Scala up to 2.7 is supported (2.8 by nightly builds only), but there are NO runtime exceptions while working with the IDE. I would recommend you to try IntelliJ, community edition at least.
I never really get on with IDEs at the best of times because they are usually pretty awful at actual text editing, but Eclipse's Scala plugin is particularly brittle to the point that projects "forget" that they are Scala after a while. Battling Eclipse seems to consume more effort than it saves. I just went back to my Emacs and sbt REPL in a terminal.
A light play with IntelliJ confirmed that it does at least do the job as a Scala IDE, but again I didn't care for its editor. It's also commercial software. However, if you are seeking a robust Scala IDE, this is perhaps where you should be looking.
What I have since settled on is perhaps perverse and not for the newcomer, but suits somebody who has definite opinions about their text editor. ENSIME is an editor plugin and server component that adds what you need from a Scala IDE to Emacs. It also claims support for vim, Atom, and Sublime, but I've not tested these. Occasionally it also has a bad day—obscure kinds of macros particularly confuddle it—but it generally does the job.

using eclipse for other languages than java?

I came to know that eclipse can be used for other languages as well. But will it give the same comfort level as using java? Is there anybody who has used eclipse for other languages?
I've used Eclipse for both C/C++, Ruby, Erlang, and a few others. None of these are as tightly integrated with Eclipse as Java is, but CDT (C/C++) gives Visual Studio a good run for its money. I usually use Emacs for the other ones.
Yes, you can use Eclipse for many languages other than Java. I personally use Eclipse to code in C++, Perl, PHP, and do JavaScript as well inside of it. While it also supports plugins for connecting and executing queries against databases, I tend to prefer other options there such as Toad or Oracle SQL Developer. There are numerous other plugins to support many other languages that you can find either through the Update Manager or a simple Google search, many of which are excellent.
As a side note, if you're not using Mylyn, you're missing out.
Eclipse is used as a base for other language and tool:
for example As3 with FlashBuilder; PHP, Javascript with Aptana studio, C,Python,... with other plugins, etc...
You can found here for example some plugins for other languages.
I've used it for Javascript (jQuery): compile-time checks are a godsend to the barren lands of javascript.
For Java developement I feel most comfortable using Eclipse.
I tried using Eclipse for coding with Python. There is PyDev, an Eclipse plugin that can be used to work with the Python code in Eclipse. Though PyDev provides features like Code Completion, Syntax highlighting etc, I felt comfortable to use editors like gvim or emacs rather than Eclipse
for working with Python code. YMMV
Yes, Eclipse supports many other languages.
But you knew that already when you saw http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/
So, I guess that you are asking how well it supports them...
It is possible to have Eclipse without Java. Imagine taking that and then adding Java support. Compare that with CDT for C++ and - in my experience - they are pretty much the same.
Yes, Eclipse is slanted at Java, and I doubt that anyone will deny that, but at the same time it tries to be fair and generic and pretty much achieves it. Any few % less other language support doesn't matter when you realize that no other IDE compares.
Bottom line, whatever your language, you will be hard pushed to beat Eclipse.
And that's before I get started on the myriad plugins ...
Not only programming, debugging with Eclipse is sweet. Beside Java, the other languages I mostly work on Eclipse are PHP and Python.
While I was working on the Eclipse Web Tools Platform (WTP) project we often said that the Java Development Tools (JDT) were the model that we referenced for features for Web related languages. I think JDT has set the bar and many other projects that implement language specific tooling try to reach the JDT bar. I don't know that any have or that copying everything about JDT is the point but I do think the Java tools are exemplary development tools.

Ada/Eclipse Integration

Are there any freely available Ada plugins eclipse. Eclipse is my main IDE and I occasionally need to read and modify some Ada, having it all in the one IDE would be ideal.
For Eclipse, AdaCore distributes and maintains the GNATBench plug-in, though I've never personally used it. I believe it is not GNAT specific, so it may still be of value even if you're using a different compiler--but I could be wrong on that :-)
If you're using the GNAT Ada compilation system, you've got a fully Ada-aware IDE in their GNAT Programming Studio (GPS), which is what I've been using ever since it finally stabilized a few years ago. It's got the jump-to-definition, get references, specialized search, etc., capabilities that you'd expect.
These, as well as the rest of AdaCore's GPL Ada development environment and tools, are available from AdaCore's Libre website. Download page is here.
If all you need is syntax highlighting, then maybe EclipseColorer will do the trick for you? It's a general-purpose extensible syntax highlighting engine that has definitions for Ada out of the box.
You may also want to check out Hibachi:
The goal of the Hibachi project is to create an Ada Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and tooling framework for the Eclipse platform.

How does Qt Creator shape up against Eclipse CDT?

Qt Creator looks like a good IDE. I've been using Eclipse CDT and while a little buggy, it does the job.
Does Qt Creator have the same capabilities as Eclipse CDT?
Qt Creator uses MinGW under the hood, so it only makes sense that it would be able to compile without using any Qt headers. Simply uncheck all of the headers when making the project and you can code just like you would in any other IDE.
I took an example shot for you to see:
Dead link
Edit: Ahh you edited your question.
Yes of course! Qt is a great environment and can sure hold it's own against competitors like Eclipse in C++. Although keep in mind Eclipse satisfies a myriad of developers, from Java to C++ to Python among many others. Typically an IDE specializing in one language will be more catered to that language, but Eclipse sure does one hell of a job catering to developers of multiple languages with it's vast amount of plugins. If you're comfortable with Eclipse CDT, I think you will feel right at home with Qt Creator, better yet, pampered.
such a great piece of software.
Well, QTCreator does exactly what a Linux C++/C dev (i assume you are a linux dev from what i read) would want from an IDE. Neither too much nor too little features. The problem of feature rich IDEs like Eclipse is that you might loose control of your project since it pretty much handles everything. If something goes south you have to take the features/plugins you used into consideration during the debugging process.
But overall, eclipse is (imho) the better choice since it makes sense to get used to one IDE that can pretty much handle every language. At work i use eclipse CDT for exactly this reason. For private projects i use QTCreator, because C/C++ are the only languages i use for these projects.
I hope this helps
Since you mentioned nothing about Qt, I assume that you plan to use QtCreator for a non-Qt C++ project, with its own custom Makefiles, not qmake-based, not Eclipse-CDT-based.
After I switched to QtCreator (now working on the same project, same code) I noticed the following advantages of QtCreator:
QtCreator moves faster than EclipseCDT for the same C/C++ project.
EclipseCDT is harder to config with custom Makefiles. QtCreator is easier. This is the case when you checkout a project with its own custom Makefiles, not IDE-generated ones, and you need to map that project's build targets to EclipseCDT build targets/configurations.
It's easier to deal with .pro(ject) files in QtCreator than workspaces in EclipseCDT.
In my case, the EclipseCDT memory footprint after indexing is about ~2GB. For QtCreator, it is only ~600MB, for the same project.
Source indexing in EclipseCDT takes a lot of time - when I start EclipseCDT, my computer is frozen for about 20 minutes due to indexing. In QtCreator it takes a quarter of that time, and the computer is responsive during it.
Of course there are a lot of advantages that EclipseCDT offers like the plethora of plugins (EGit, Subclipse, cppcheclipse, etc), but it depends if you really use them.
In the end, I think it's a matter of personal taste and habit, as you can achieve your goals with each of them.