Eclipse IDE should be reduced says project leader
Slimmer version would deliver more value.
By Paul Krill, InfoWorld (US) | Published: 09:28, 24 March 2008
Eclipse IDE needs to be trimmed down to deliver more value, according to an Eclipse project leader.
Oliver Cole, of OC Systems, who leads the Eclipse Test & Performance Tools Platform project, made the prediction at the EclipseCon conference and said that the Eclipse IDE now simply had too much to digest.
"We started off as an integrated development environment and now it's become an integrated everything environment. The trouble is finding what you want in it," Cole said.
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There will be a focus on the valuable parts and lots of it will not be valuable, he said. It cannot be predicted yet how this will all unfold, according to Cole.
Eclipse is set to work on the next major version of the IDE, Eclipse 4.0, or e4, which is due in two years. Cole did not believe all the paring could be done in the e4 timeframe.
Not all Eclipse luminaries agree with Cole, however. "I'm not sure I believe it's going to drop off in functionality," said John Duimovich of IBM, who leads the Eclipse Tools Project.
Also at EclipseCon, Teamprise announced availability of Teamprise 3.0, featuring client applications that provide Java and cross-platform development teams with access to the application lifecycle management features of Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server.
Features in version 3.0 include a plug-in for the Eclipse IDE, an Explorer-style GUI application, and a command-line client. The three applications communicate with Team Foundation Server. Enhancements include full integration with Team Build and support for Check-in Policies, Teamprise said.
A new pricing plan for version 3.0 enables users to purchase individual clients based on needs. Previously, clients were available only as part of the bundled suite.
