Eclipse approves Serena-led app lifecycle initiative

Source: Computer Business Review

Summary:
For ages, the holy grail of software development has been to find a way to unify the steps of the process from which software is conceived, designed, coded, debugged, tested, managed and enhanced. It was the goal of ill-fated efforts ranging from IBM's AD/Cycle to CA 90s to the aborted Microsoft/TI repository.

Today, vendors of tools suites, like IBM, Microsoft, Serena, Compuware and Borland, provide at most partial integration that occasionally use common meta data, but more often than not rely on file transfers.

Against a backdrop of missed goals, Serena has just secured approval from the Eclipse Foundation to lead an open source project that will initially conceive a framework of web services representing processes in the software development life cycle that are driven from a federated meta data model.

The project, called the Application Lifecycle Framework (ALF), complements the core Eclipse framework that provides a common front-end shell or user interface into which best-of-breed tools can plug in. Ideally, ALF will provide a framework for back end, meta data integration of what actually happens during the software development process.

ALF's goal will be specifying definitions of common processes so they can be exposed as services. In so doing, the project will leverage web services standards such as BPEL to orchestrate the services required to perform functions such as providing an approval cycle for requirements definition or acceptance of software testing results.

Ultimately, the goal is meta data and tool interoperability via a federated approach where no single vendor controls all the definitions.

Read complete article. . .

Eclipse Foundation and Serena Software Announce Approval of Eclipse Application Lifecycle Framework Project

Source: BusinessWire.com

Summary:
The Eclipse Foundation, an open source community committed to the implementation of a universal development platform, and Serena Software, Inc. (Nasdaq:SRNA), the world's largest company solely focused on managing change in the IT environment, today announced that the Application Lifecycle Framework (ALF) project, an Eclipse technology project and proposed by Serena on April 30 of this year, has been approved by the Eclipse Foundation. The ALF project will address the universal problem of integrating Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) technologies so that they provide full interoperability, including shared ownership of business processes and data transformation from domain to domain. Traditionally tools have integrated to the Eclipse framework as Eclipse plug-ins; this project extends the framework to become the fundamental infrastructure for tool to tool interoperability.

"The goal of Eclipse is to create a universal development platform to enable global enterprises to develop software more efficiently," said Mike Milinkovich, Executive Director of the Eclipse Foundation, Inc. "Projects such as this one enable vendors and users alike to provide the vision, innovation and resources to enhance the Eclipse platform. We are looking forward to watching this technology project develop, mature and create even more opportunities for users to further support their ALM development initiatives."

The Eclipse Platform provides a universal development platform, component model and extensibility framework for tools integration. The Eclipse Application Lifecycle Framework will extend the Eclipse platform to enable meta-data interoperability and tool choreography that span the entire application development lifecycle. The result will be an Eclipse open source framework that allows ISVs to tightly integrate entire ALM suites or individual ALM products on the widely deployed Eclipse platform, making it easier for developers to manage application changes across the lifecycle, easily and cost-effectively.

Serena is leading a growing community of technology vendors and ALM users that have collaborated on the definition, planning and implementation of this project and are now beginning its implementation. As the ALF project matures, other entities are encouraged to participate as committers, users and developers to assist in the architecture, planning, requirements and testing of ALF and further increase the value proposition of Eclipse for application developers.

Read complete Press Release. . .

Eclipse Plugins Exposed, Part 3: Customizing a Wizard

Source: ONJava.com

Summary:
A while ago, I had a tiny portable electronic address book. I took it for granted until the day it stopped working. The salesperson who sold it to me couldn't retrieve my contacts, but offered to replace it. That day I learned that data is important. This shiny gizmo was worth nothing compared to the bits stored on it.

In part one of this series, we introduced Eclipse's plugin development environment and developed a simple plugin. In part two, we added a toolbar button, a menu item, and dialogs. The result was a shiny gizmo that didn't do much for us. It simply displayed sample text using a font. Now we need to make it manage actual data. We will massage the plugin so that it does what we need it to do. This article discusses editor documents and shows how to customize a wizard.

Read complete article. . .

Why "Eclipse Developer's Journal" and Why Now?

Source: itsolutions.sys-con.com

Summary:
EDJ's Editor-in-Chief Introduces World's First Independent Magazine Devoted to the Eclipse Ecosystem

When I was first asked to take on the role of Editor in Chief for Eclipse Developer's Journal (EDJ) I naturally asked myself this same question. Why do we need a journal dedicated to Eclipse right now?

I believe there are two main answers: 1. the community is large and growing, and 2. the community would benefit from a magazine focused exclusively on the Eclipse ecosystem.

While I searched the Net I found several existing outlets to talk about Eclipse and its related technologies, but none of them are focused exclusively on Eclipse and the community around it. So I said yes and here I am introducing the magazine, which we aim to make the best online resource for Eclipse anywhere on the Web.

To get an idea of how big the community is, I did a bit of poking around and found the following tidbits. Eclipse 3.0 was released on 25 June, 2005 and has been downloaded roughly 1.64 million times. The 3.1 download challenge has hit the 825,00 mark in just over 30 days. That is more than 2 million downloads in 13 months. The 2005 EclipseCon conference was sold out and several new Strategic Developers joined the project. There are currently 28 subprojects with several more in the proposal phase. The bottom line is that the Eclipse ecosystem is huge and growing. The ecosystem will benefit from having an independent magazine devoted to the various aspects of Eclipse and I’m looking forward to EDJ becoming that source.

With that being said I would like to spend the remainder of this introductory editorial on sharing my vision with you on how this thing known as EDJ will start, as well as some of the interesting directions I’d like to take it in the future. And as always I welcome your feedback on what we cover.

Read complete article. . .

BuildForge Joins Eclipse Foundation to Advance Real-World Application Lifecycle Management

Source: MarketWire.com

Summary:
BuildForge Plug-In Will Generate New Levels of Developer Productivity Through Efficient and Accurate Product Validation Within the Eclipse Environment

BuildForge, the leading provider of development automation solutions for Real-World Application Lifecycle Management (ALM), today announced it has joined the Eclipse Foundation to further its leadership role in integration and interoperability of key processes and technologies across the software development lifecycle. Eclipse is an open source, vendor-independent integration platform that allows developers to use their preferred heterogeneous tools within a common development environment.

In an effort to maintain process repeatability and audit control, enterprises traditionally deny developers access to production development environments. This creates an inherent bottleneck in the development process by preventing developers from validating their application design and code changes against the integrated code base. The lack of access and feedback can lead to longer development cycles, undermine product quality, and reduce developer productivity.

To address this challenge, BuildForge will create an Eclipse plug-in that introduces "developer self-service" -- giving developers secure, limited access to enterprise build environments so they can validate product changes through the BuildForge system without altering production processes or configurations. This integration breaks down the walls between development and configuration management teams and enables companies to adopt iterative development practices such as Agile Development and Extreme Programming to improve product quality and bring products to market faster.

Read complete Press Release. . .

Versant's ORM Project Gets Eclipse Foundation Approval

Source: PBDJ

Summary:
"I am pleased the JSR220-ORM Project is transitioning to this new phase in the Eclipse development process," said Robert Greene (pictured), vice president of product strategy at Versant, as the JSR220-ORM Project proposed by Versant in March of this year - to provide a common framework for delivering productivity and consistency in the important area of object-relational mapping - received on Friday the approval of the Eclipse Foundation.

JSR220 is the specification defining the standard for object-relational mapping (ORM) in Java.

The Eclipse JSR220-ORM Project will produce standards-based, object-relational mapping design-time tooling in Eclipse. ORM has emerged in the last year as a critical missing piece of software architecture in the drive to make the J2EE platform more powerful and easier to program. The Eclipse JSR220-ORM Project is designed to bring common tooling to the Java and Eclipse community to expand programming productivity and the value of Eclipse.

"The creation of the JSR220-ORM project is an important milestone for the Eclipse community," said Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation, Inc. "This project will provide a common framework for delivering productivity and consistency in the important area of object-relational mapping."

Read complete article. . .

Eclipse, NetBeans Not Always at Odds

Source: eWeek.com

Summary:
To exploit emerging java-based technologies, developers enjoy an expanding arsenal of tools that increasingly rest on one of two open-source foundations: Eclipse and NetBeans.

This year's JavaOne conference in San Francisco marked significant advances for both of these developer offerings, and eWEEK Labs found proponents of both efforts in surprising agreement that their work is more complementary than competitive.

Software teams should appreciate the contribution that each camp can make to enterprise development efforts.

The more versatile and more broadly supported offering is the Eclipse platform, maintained since February of last year by the nonprofit Eclipse Foundation.

That group encountered initial skepticism about its ability to get out of the shadow of IBM, which was, by far, the biggest player in the eclipse.org consortium when it was formed in November 2001.

Now that seems less of a concern, as the Eclipse Foundation last month welcomed its 100th member, NEC Corp.—with revenues nearly half IBM's.

Every Eclipse Foundation member agrees to produce a commercial Eclipse-based offering within 12 months of joining the consortium.

Read complete article. . .

IBM pushing rich internet client project for Eclipse

Source: Computer Business Review

Summary:
Following up its distribution of the OpenLaszlo rich internet client on its alphaWorks emerging technology website, IBM Corp and Laszlo Systems Inc are now jointly proposing an IDE project for Eclipse.

Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) are a reaction to the dumbed-down terminal emulation clients that typify most HTML web pages. Because of the limitations of HTML and JavaScript, Internet clients lack many of the visual navigation and local intelligence features of traditional Windows clients.

In recent years, Macromedia has begun beefing up its Flash player with the new Flex framework to provide an industrial-strength environment for development rich web apps. Microsoft in turn is developing Avalon, a rich Internet environment for its forthcoming Longhorn Windows platform.

For now Macromedia claims a head start, boasting 300 customers for Flex.

Read complete article. . .

Eclipse Foundation and Versant Announce Approval of Eclipse JSR220-ORM Project Project to Deliver Object-Relational Mapping Tooling Framework

Source: Yahoo!

Summary:
The Eclipse Foundation, an open source community committed to the development of a universal development platform, and Versant Corporation (Nasdaq: VSNT - News), an industry leader in specialized data management and data persistence software, today announced that the JSR220-ORM Project proposed by Versant in March of this year has been approved by Eclipse. The Eclipse JSR220-ORM Project will produce standards-based, object-relational mapping design-time tooling in Eclipse. JSR220 is the specification defining the standard for object-relational mapping (ORM) in Java. Object-relational mapping has emerged in the last year as a critical missing piece of software architecture in the drive to make the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) platform more powerful and easier to program. The Eclipse JSR220-ORM Project is designed to bring common tooling to the Java and Eclipse community to expand programming productivity and the value of Eclipse.

"The creation of the JSR220-ORM project is an important milestone for the Eclipse community," said Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation, Inc. "This project will provide a common framework for delivering productivity and consistency in the important area of object-relational mapping."

Read complete article. . .

The Eclipse Modeling Framework

Source: Dr. Dobb's Journal

Summary:
The idea of building applications by first modeling them, then transforming these models into implementation code has been around for many years. Providing a higher level abstraction for defining software would seem to be a natural evolution. Twenty or so years ago, structured programming languages replaced assembly language, or machine code, as the most popular way to write software. About 10 years ago, object-oriented programming languages became entrenched as the most predominant languages, again raising the abstraction level. Lately, there's been a lot of talk about model-driven development as the next higher level abstraction.

Each step in the evolution of software development has been accompanied by skepticism, and model-driven development is no different. The skepticism is usually the result of overly grandiose visions and promises, opening up the visionaries to attack from the more practical types. Many programmers think that class diagrams might be helpful to document their designs, but they know that implementing complex systems by simply "transforming a picture" is a pipe dream. They know that all the expressive power of a programming language can't be available in a model because if it was, it wouldn't be any simpler (higher level). It would just be another programming language.

Read complete article. . .

Tar, JAR, Zip with Eclipse

Source: NewsForge.com

Summary:
You need to pack your Java project quickly? You need to build a JAR without writing a script? In this first article, I am looking at JAR exports in details. In future articles I will look at JAR import, launch and edit, as well as tar and zips, JAR's ancestors and close relatives. I will consider not only the base Eclipse features, but also community plug-ins that provide additional support. If you are in a hurry or hate to read articles, start Eclipse and go to the menu File -> Export ->JAR File. Then download and install the Fat Jar plug-in and go to the menu File -> Export ->Fat JAR Exporter. Or take a deep breadth and dive with me inside Eclipse's JAR export capabilities.

Read complete article. . .

OpenLaszlo for Eclipse

Source: p2pnet.net

Summary:
IBM and Laszlo Systems say they’re planning to jointly link the OpenLaszlo rich Net application development system to the open source Eclipse platform.

LinuxWorld says the IDE for Laszlo plug-in that hooks OpenLaszlo to Eclipse, previously available on the IBM alphaWorks technology site, is now being formally contributed to the Eclipse Foundation.

"It's the actual source code that's getting contributed,” Antony Campitelli, vp of marketing at Laszlo is quoted as saying. “The proposal is now on the Eclipse Web site."

OpenLaszlo is an open source XML-native platform that can run in any modern browser, according to the companies, says the story.

“With it, functionality similar to what has been available in desktop applications can be provided.”

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Accelerated Technology's Nucleus EDGE Embedded Development Environment Supports MIPS Architecture

Source: BusinessWire.com

Summary:
Accelerated Technology, a Mentor Graphics division (Nasdaq:MENT), today announced that its Eclipse-powered Nucleus(R) EDGE software development environment is now available for the MIPS32(R) and MIPS64(R) architectures from MIPS Technologies. With the Nucleus software, developers using the 4K(R), 4KE(TM), 5K(R) and 24K(R) core families for digital entertainment and multimedia applications have a tightly integrated development environment in which to more quickly and easily build products to better meet market demand.

"Our customers need to accelerate their time to market in order to excel in the highly competitive digital consumer space," said Russ Bell, vice president of marketing for MIPS Technologies. "Leveraging the industry-leading MIPS architecture and the Nucleus EDGE software environment allows designers to meet and exceed their development objectives and deliver superior products."

"This new development environment consists of MIPS Technologies optimized software, including SDE compiler and MIPSsim(TM) instruction set simulator, integrated into the industry-standard Eclipse platform," said Robert Day, director of marketing, Accelerated Technology Division, Mentor Graphics. "Combined with our Nucleus EDGE software, developers of MIPS-Based SoCs now get the most complete embedded tool chain, ranging from high-level UML design tools, down to advanced debugging and profiling tools, all working seamlessly together under the Eclipse framework."

The Eclipse-based Nucleus EDGE software includes an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI) that provides tutorials and demos to guide users through the development process. The user interface (UI) is also more responsive, permitting users to interact with the GUI while the Nucleus EDGE software is busy running background tasks such as building the user application. This is particularly useful when debugging large applications with multiple cores, as engineers typically focus on different parts of their application, concurrently.

The Nucleus EDGE software contains an advanced project manager, complete with an editor and builder that helps users automate their build process. Developers can now set up one or more build environments by specifying the compiler and build options, giving total control over multiple projects and allowing for quick and easy revisions of their embedded systems. This advanced build system is fully integrated with the MIPS SDE compiler, and allows other command line-based tools to be plugged in as well.

Read complete press release. . .

Laszlo Systems and IBM Team to Contribute Open Source Code Aimed at Advancing Rich Internet Applications

Source: Yahoo!

Summary:
Laszlo Systems, developer of the OpenLaszlo(TM) platform and provider of rich Internet applications (RIAs) and services, today announced that the company has teamed with IBM to propose the "IDE for Laszlo" integrated development environment (IDE) project at Eclipse. This joint initiative is designed to further accelerate the development and deployment of OpenLaszlo applications and to support the Eclipse Foundation, the open source community committed to the implementation of a universal development platform.

The OpenLaszlo platform is an open source, XML-native platform for developing RIAs that run in any modern Web browser. Since Laszlo Systems announced its open source status last October, OpenLaszlo has been downloaded more than 60,000 times and is being deployed in applications serving millions of users.

IBM intends to contribute the "IDE for Laszlo," which will allow developers to build RIAs, more quickly and easily, using Eclipse. IBM initially launched the "IDE for Laszlo" last year on IBM's emerging technology Web site, alphaWorks. Since then, the "IDE for Laszlo" has been downloaded more than 13,000 times and continues to be a top rated alphaWorks download.

Read complete press release. . .

What's New in Eclipse 3.1?

Source: SYS-CON

Summary:
Since Eclipse's first release in 2001, it has become a popular environment for Java development. In the period between March 10 and May 11, 2005, users downloaded over 17,000 copies of one of the production SDK releases and over 3,500 copies of one of the stable (milestone) SDK builds on average every day. A vibrant eco-system of developers, plug-in providers, authors, and bloggers has grown up around it. Eclipse has also gained the backing of the key Java vendors including BEA, Borland, IBM, SAP, and Sybase. Developers like Eclipse because it provides a great platform for building Java applications, and companies like it because it unifies their software tools under one open source umbrella.

In late June of this year, the latest release of the Eclipse Platform, version 3.1, will be available for download from eclipse.org. In this article, I'll highlight some of the more interesting new features it contains. I'll also discuss some of the other Eclipse projects that are re-leasing new versions at about the same time.

Read complete article. . .

An Exclusive Interview With Mike Milinkovich Of Eclipse Foundation

Source: Linux Business News

Summary:

JDJ: Overall, how's the independence from IBM going? Since most of Eclipse's committers were IBM employees when you first went independent, how is building a community around Eclipse that is not so IBM focused going?
MM: It's going really well. Frankly, it's going much better and much faster than I had originally anticipated when I started the job. In many ways we have accomplished in the past year what I had expected would take two years or more.

First, the importance of adding companies such as BEA, Borland, and Computer Associates to our board cannot be overstated. Each of these companies competes fiercely with IBM in the marketplace. Each is making million dollar plus investments in Eclipse ($250,000 per year in dues, plus a minimum of eight developers). Each did their own analysis as to whether the Eclipse Foundation was truly independent. And each joined.

Second, the number of projects led by non-IBMers has increased dramatically over the past year. In terms of top-level projects, we have gone from three projects in which two were led by IBM to a total of eight projects with two still being led by IBM.

Third, the number of committers working on Eclipse projects who are IBM employees has steadily dropped over the past year from roughly 75 percent to just over 50 percent. The number will soon drop below 50 percent. This decrease has been mostly the result of increasing the total number of committers. We certainly do not turn away good people from IBM!

In fact, I would also like to recognize the investment that IBM has made in Eclipse. They started this adventure and their continuing investment remains impressive. I also think that the Java community as a whole should recognize the wisdom and strategic thinking shown by IBM in working to establish the Eclipse Foundation as a separate entity. IBM has truly demonstrated how to create a community.

Eclipse is truly really completely fully and utterly independent. Anyone who says otherwise has an agenda.


JDJ: How has the assimilation of so many new strategic developers after EclipseCon gone? Is the "plumbing" in place to handle this influx? Are you making adjustments to better handle large groups of people coming on board?
MM: I don't want to sugar coat things. We are having our growing pains as we start up all of these new projects. We need to help get these projects off to a good start and our processes and people are stretched in doing so. However, it's not just the new strategic developers who are causing growth. We have been receiving project proposals from many different directions.

The reaction from the Eclipse community has been outstanding. People with experience within the Eclipse community are stepping up to help us refine our processes and work with the new project leaders and committers to help them get started.

Back in May we had our latest round of Eclipse Council meetings and it was by far the best set of meetings we've had. We were actually debating hard topics like what does it mean for a project to achieve "Eclipse quality," how can we work toward being an even more stable and predictable open source community to further encourage commercial adoption, and what are the tangible things that existing projects can do to help new projects get started. I think it's a very good sign when our community leaders are constructively discussing the tough issues.

Read complete interview. . .

Web Tools Platform And J2EE Development The Eclipse Way

Source: PBDJ

Summary:
The Eclipse Open Source Integrated Development Environment (IDE) (see http://eclipse.org) is rapidly gaining popularity among Java developers primarily because of its excellent Java Development Tools (JDT) and its highly extensible plug-in architecture. Extensibility is, in fact, one of the defining characteristics of Eclipse. As the Eclipse home page says, "Eclipse is a kind of universal tool platform - an open extensible IDE for anything and nothing in particular." Although Eclipse is itself a Java application, all tools, including JDT, are on an equal footing in that they extend the Eclipse platform via well-defined extension points.

Of course, an infinitely extensible, but empty, platform might be interesting to tool vendors, but very boring for developers. Therefore, the initial version of Eclipse came with the JDT and the Plug-in Development Environment (PDE), both examples of how to extend the platform and very useful tools in their own right. JDT supported J2SE development while PDE supported Java-based Eclipse plug-in development. The combination of JDT and PDE fueled the creation of thousands of commercial and Open Source plug-ins for Eclipse, many of which supported J2EE development. For example, IBM released Eclipse-based commercial J2EE products, including WebSphere Studio Application Developer, and Rational Application Developer, while eteration, JBoss, Genuitec, Exadel, and Innoopract among others, released Open Source offerings. However, the profusion of J2EE plug-ins made it difficult for vendors to build on each other and for users to assemble an integrated suite of tools. For example, each J2EE toolset had its own way to support application servers.

As the popularity of Eclipse grew, it became apparent that the next logical step in its evolution was to add platform support for J2EE. This support would provide a common infrastructure for all J2EE plug-ins, with the goal of improving tool integration, reducing plug-in development expense, and simplifying the J2EE development experience for Eclipse users.

Read complete article. . .

Business Objects Builds Eclipse Plug-in for Crystal Reports

Source: eWeek.com

Summary:
Business Objects S.A. is nearing completion of an Eclipse plug-in for its Crystal Reports application that will let developers working in the open-source framework add Crystal Reports query and reporting capabilities to their applications.

The move is the company's response to the Eclipse-based BIRT (Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools) system, an open-source reporting system for Web applications; Actuate Corp. is spearheading its development.

BIRT provides core reporting features such as report layout, data access and scripting, mainly for Java and J2EE (Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition)-based applications. Business Objects officials in San Jose, Calif., said their plug-in will deliver a more complete reporting offering for Eclipse developers, providing functionality such as the advanced report design and management capabilities that are in the current Crystal Reports XI version.

Read complete article. . .

Exploring “Fluid” Frontiers for J2EE Apps

Source: Integration Developers News

Summary:
An innovative group of researchers in California are exploring how Open Source Eclipse devs can more efficiently tie traditional J2EE or legacy application code in with new loosely-coupled assets or services.

Integration Developer News spoke with William Griswold, Ph.D and professor at University of California – San Diego about his Fluid Architecture project, which is trying to apply ‘reverse refactoring’ technique to Open Source tools.

This group pushing the envelope on how enterprise devs can use aspect-oriented programming plug-ins for Eclipse to simplify building workflow, adding new features and even transforming their “what-if’ prototypes into ‘go live’ code.

Read complete article. . .

McCabe Brings Superior Software Quality Into Reach For Eclipse Users

Source: eMediaWire.com

Summary:
McCabe Software, formerly known as McCabe & Associates, Inc., today announced the release of McCabe IQ with enhanced Eclipse integration, bringing advanced software quality and test analysis to the ever growing Eclipse community.

“Industry research indicates that the Eclipse IDE continues to be utilized by more than half of the Java shops in the world,” says Dale Brenneman, McCabe IQ Development Manager. ”With the release of McCabe IQ’s enhanced Eclipse plug-in, we are now able to deliver the gold standard of software quality and testing solutions to development teams who traditionally only had access to entry level software quality tools.”

McCabe IQ’s enhanced Eclipse integration enables the user to request analysis on all or part of a project with ease, directly from their IDE menu, utilizing a host of software metrics, including the McCabe-authored Cyclomatic Complexity metric.

Read complete release. . .

IBM Taps into Universities

Source: RED HERRING

Summary:
IBM said Thursday it will give universities free access to new technologies like games and applications that are being developed in its labs, as the computing giant looks to get younger users hooked on its products and to build expertise for its software platforms.

Universities will get access to more than 25 technologies, which include games and simulations, middleware tools that enable grid computing, and open standard technologies such as Java and Eclipse. All of the technologies come from IBM alphaWorks, a web-based lab that works on emerging technologies.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University's Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences will be the first universities to participate in the program.

IBM Vice President for developer relations Gina Poole said that the goal of the program is to train, educate, and accelerate the adoption of open standards-based technologies.

Read complete article. . .

Open source BI takes aim at integration woes

Source: Computerworld

Summary:
Following the release of the open source Eclipse-based Business Intelligence Reporting Tool (BIRT) last month, in-house projects may benefit from a more standardized way of integrating company information.

Initiated by BI vendor Actuate, BIRT is aimed at developers looking to reduce Java coding time and a faster way to modify end user report requirements. Actuate's vice president of product marketing Michael Thoma, who is leading the company's open source strategy, said not having to build a BI application from scratch will free up a lot of "calories" which can be used for innovation.

"That's the fun part," Thoma said. "As with Eclipse, BIRT supporters will cooperate in the common environment and compete in the commercial space." Thoma said Actuate is now on the Eclipse board and, although it is a 100 percent for-profit business, it has invested "a huge amount of calories in engineering to develop BIRT."

"The Eclipse IDE is already at 65 percent penetration in the Java development space [and] the amount of commercial activity is how the Eclipse Foundation measures success," he said.

Examples of local Eclipse users include Centrelink, Auspost, and nuclear science group Ansto.

BIRT has a modular architecture consisting of the designer, an XML reports definition engine, and the BIRT engine which produces the reports and charts for either the Web or print.

"Actuate's first strategy with BIRT is to get developers using it," Thoma said, adding there are already 7500 downloads per month. "Our target audience is developers who are customizing existing BI applications or developing new reports from exposed data."

Thoma said leveraging the common Eclipse application framework helps integration.

Read complete article. . .

Study: Eclipse experiencing rapid growth

Source: SearchWebServices.com

Summary:
According to a study recently released by Forrester Research Inc. in Cambridge, Mass., the Eclipse tool platform has gained a foothold in more than 50% of IT shops, but despite it's copious rise in usage many senior staffers refuse to look directly at the phenomenon.

In a study of 85 North American and European businesses conducted this May, IT strategists, IT operations staff and application developers all reported a significant amount of Eclipse adoption within their organizations, but only 27% of senior IT managers reported any Eclipse usage in their organizations. Forrester analyst Carl Zetie argues that it's probably more a case of senior staffers willfully ignoring Eclipse usage than of them being unaware of it.

"The urban legend is that people are sneaking it in, that no one above team leader knows about it," Zetie said. "The reality is a lot more subtle than that. They're letting it infiltrate their organizations at levels where they don't have to oversee it."

Part of the rationale for that, Zetie believes, is at its heart Eclipse is a fairly benign platform.

"It can fit whatever approach you're using," he said, calling it "plug-in architecture with an IDE" as opposed to vendor-driven integrated development environments with sometimes cumbersome plug-in architectures.

"It puts control back in the hands of the IT shops," Zetie said. "It allows you to compose your own environment, to take just what you want rather than buy a suite."

In fact, Zetie found that most IT organizations only use three-to-five Eclipse plug-ins, though which three-to-five plug-ins greatly varied.

"It turns out people don't need remotely that much functionality," he said. "They're actually trying to simplify their integration platforms."

The study found that Eclipse had jumped less than 2% to more than 8% as the primary tool provider for IT shops in just six months since a November 2004 survey looking into usage patterns. Of those using Eclipse in any fashion, 44% said it was being done on an unofficial or pilot basis.

Given that unofficial/pilot foothold, Zetie expects the growth of Eclipse to continue because the model seems to be winning over coverts whenever it's given a chance.

Read complete article. . .

Sun's Keller: No plans to join Eclipse

Source: JavaWorld

Summary:
Joe Keller is vice president of marketing for Java Web Services and Tools at Sun Microsystems, responsible for driving the company's product direction in these areas. Previously, he was involved in the company's iPlanet division, where he minded integration and commerce application technologies. Before joining Sun, he managed the sale of artificial intelligence products at Texas Instruments. InfoWorld Editor at Large Paul Krill spoke with Keller at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco about where Java is today and where it is headed, along with touching on the progress of Web services and ongoing questions about whether Sun might join the Eclipse Foundation.


InfoWorld: There was a lot of talk this morning about the NetBeans open source tools platform. I think it could be argued that NetBeans doesn't really have the reception in the market that Eclipse does, although some would disagree with that. So where is NetBeans headed?

Keller: We're going to continue to invest in NetBeans. We think there is room for choice in development tools and we'll continue to drive that. We'll continue to be, if you will, supportive of Java communities, like Eclipse and others. We think there is room for a development tool that provides functionality for those developing for all of the Java platforms. So we'll continue to invest in NetBeans, and I think you saw a number of demonstrations of that technology supporting development of applications for the Java Micro Edition platform. Earlier in the week, you saw continuing support for developers who are looking for an easy-to-develop tool set in Java Studio Creator. And you saw the movement forward [of] our enterprise developers in a number of different projects.

Read complete interview. . .

Eclipse Research Award Winner Focuses on Un-Refactoring

Source: OETrends.Com

Article Summary:
An innovative group of researchers in California are exploring how Open Source Eclipse devs can more efficiently tie traditional J2EE or legacy application code in with new loosely-coupled assets or services.

Open Enterprise Trends spoke with William Griswold, Ph.D and professor at University of California – San Diego about his project, entitled "Fluid Architecture - Turbocharging Automated Agile-Design Refactorings with Aspect-Oriented Programming" The goal of the project is to apply ‘reverse refactoring’ technique to Open Source tools. We found the UCSD group pushing the envelope on how enterprise devs can use aspect-oriented programming plug-ins for Eclipse to simplify building workflow, adding new features and even transforming their “what-if’ prototypes into ‘go live’ code

Take a tour of these Eclipse plug-in technologies, which have all won an IBM Eclipse Faculty Award for Innovation. Also, the Open Source tools are available for review and download from UCSD, in our exclusive OET interview.

Read interview. . .

Eclipse, Solaris, Grasshopper - so what's going on here?

Source: Ed Daniel's .net blog...

Article Summary:
It's a well known fact that if you are looking to target western businesses these days then you're going to be designing software that runs in part on the Windows desktop.
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Of recent news and in discussion on a variety of lists is the freebie from Mainsoft: Grasshopper. This free add-in for the VS.NET IDE allows us to deploy to Linux with Mono. The free Eclipse IDE has a Mono plug-in enabling Mono development as well. If you're really into your x-platform stuff then you'll have seen X-Develop and MonoDevelop. We're also witnessing more and more professional and reputable models emerge in the UK for example with the type of messaging that I feel is working for software resellers and developers.

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UML Database Designer/Generator - DB Visual Architect 2.0 for Eclipse Released

Source: Linux PR

Article Summary:
Visual Paradigm is pleased to announce that DB Visual Architect 2.0 for Eclipse has been released with numerous tailored modeling and usability guaranteed to satisfy your database application development.

Visual Paradigm is pleased to announce that DB Visual Architect 2.0 for Eclipse has been released with numerous tailored modeling and usability guaranteed to satisfy your database application development.

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Milinkovich on Eclipse 3.1, open source development

Source: SearchWebServices.com

Article Summary:
Mike Milinkovich is executive director of the Eclipse Foundation Inc., a not-for-profit corporation supporting the Eclipse open source community and commercial ecosystem. In this interview, conducted at JavaOne 2005, Milinkovich highlights some of the new features in the Eclipse 3.1 development platform, including Web services support in the Web tools project. He also discusses the impact Eclipse is having on the tooling market, dispels misconceptions around open source culture and describes the profile of a typical Eclipse project committer.

Eclipse announced its 3.1 development platform during the week of JavaOne. There were also announcements around the plug-in development environment and the Rich Client Platform. Can you describe some of the new features?
Mike Milinkovich: The major news there is support for J2SE [Java 2 Standard Edition] 5. A lot of work has gone into performance improvements as well. The other projects that are shipping are Web tools, which are going to provide new tools for Eclipse for J2EE [Java 2 Enterprise Edition] application development, and Web standard tools, which include Web services. We also have our testing and performance and BI and reporting tools, plus a number of other projects as well.

The Rich Client Platform we shipped in the [Eclipse] 3.0 time frame exactly one year ago. It provides the ability to build multi-platform rich client applications, which you can deploy and manage using Eclipse. Part of its momentum is due to the number of interesting applications being built around it. One example is Azureus, which is the No. 1 download from SourceForge.

Eclipse is more or less shipping a great number of projects together and we're really hitting our stride by shipping a universal development platform that spans the software development lifecycle, all the way from modeling to application monitoring.



Version 0.7 of the Web tools project is shipping with Eclipse 3.1. What are some of the new tools available here for developers building Web services?
Milinkovich: The Web tools project 0.7 is going to ship tools to be able to build, deploy and test Web services. Part of the project is the Web services validation tool, which is one of two reference implementations of the WS-I Basic Profile, the other one being Microsoft's. There's a SOAP monitor so you can do tracing of the SOAP packets going back and forth.

Basically, we're making sure we do vanilla standard implementation all the way through. Since we're not a vendor, we have no interest in vendor-specific hooks, so we're very careful to be spec compliant and standards compliant in the tooling that we're constructing.

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IBM renews Java license at Sun's JavaOne fest

Source: SearchDomino

Article Summary:
Last week at JavaOne in San Francisco, IBM re-upped its Java commitment, renewing its Java license with Sun Microsystems for another ten years. Although IBM and Sun sometimes clash on implementation issues, the pledge to further commitment was to be expected, given IBM's extensive use of Java to create the WebSphere platform.

Much of the Java squabbling between Sun and IBM has centered on the operations of the Java Community Process (JCP). Although Sun has edged toward open sourcing of Java, it has not exactly moved in the way IBM would want. The Java license that IBM holds could be an ace in the hole for its newly acquired low-end Gluecode Java application server, if Sun ever decides to play legal hardball with a slew of similarly open-source-oriented Java servers. Note that JBoss, the firm backing the most competitive "open source" Java server, has signed a licensing agreement with Sun as well.

The IBM-originated Eclipse IDE and application development framework – now in the realm of open source – remains a key differentiation point for the Java strategies of Sun and IBM. Sun continues to stick with its own NetBeans component development architecture. At the same time, the Eclipse Foundation announced upgrades to its various projects, including new refactoring and generics tools and wizards to support J2SE 5.0.

If nothing else, this year's JavaOne does re-affirm Java as a vibrant platform, although few would claim Sun much resembles a software company. But Sun's shepherding of Java should not be too faulted, say observers like analyst Steve Garone.

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Development platforms for J2SE, J2EE, and J2ME

Source: Dr. Dobb's Journal

Article Summary:
When I began my career as a software developer, the modern concept of an integrated development environment (IDE) was yet to be defined. Instead, developers would simply use their favorite editor and compile code from the command line. I remember how much I looked forward to getting a cup of coffee as I started the compiler, knowing how long it would take. When the compiler was finished, I would go through any errors that were listed, open the appropriate source module, and locate the offending line of code. This was a luxury, veteran developers told me, compared to punch cards or submitting code to be compiled as overnight batch jobs.

Everything changed with Microsoft's Visual C++ 1.0. There were other IDEs available for Windows development (Borland and Symantec both offered them), but Visual C++ quickly took the lead. Over time, Microsoft set the standard for modern IDE features with Visual Studio, which included tools for building C, C++, and Visual Basic applications for Windows. With Visual J++, Microsoft even extended its support to Java. Alas, Visual J++ was abandoned, never to be extended to support Java past Version 1.1. For me, this put Java development back into the "dark ages" of using a plain old editor and command line.

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JDeveloper, Eclipse Moves Should Boost Oracle Middleware Stack

Source: Gartner.com

Article Summary:
JDeveloper is a solid, feature-rich IDE that is nonetheless often overlooked by the larger Java development community. Oracle's decision to make it free is clearly an attempt to counter the low cost of the Eclipse IDE and place JDeveloper in the hands of more developers, and also to strengthen Oracle's middleware market potential by removing the cost of tooling from the equation. This is part of a broader strategy designed to gain Oracle greater recognition as a service-oriented architecture (SOA) "supervendor" competing against IBM, Microsoft and SAP.

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Visual Paradigm SDE 3.0 for Eclipse released

Source: NewsForge

Article Summary:

Visual Paradigm Smart Development Environment 3.0 for Eclipse (SDE-EC) is a UML modeling plug-in for Eclipse. Being integrated to Eclipse, SDE-EC supports the model-driven development by providing a unified modeling environment and generating Java code from class diagram, reversing Java code to class diagram. It thus streamlines the software development life cycle transition by transition. SDE-EC not only supports the latest standards of Java notations, but also the latest and full UML 2.0 diagrams and notations

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IBM launches free Java toolkits

Source: ZDNet UK News
URL: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/developer/0,39020387,39207117,00.htm

Article Summary:

IBM this week launched new software development tools available for free on the alphaWorks Web site designed to assist developers in building business-driven software applications.

The four toolkits launched incorporate wizards, code samples and user-friendly interfaces to reduce deployment time and incorporate applications into existing databases.

The Ad hoc Development and Integration tool for End Users (ADIEU) allows end users to develop Web services and Web applications without any knowledge of Java or J2EE. The tool uses a form-based framework making use of "cards", which act like single-function applications.

The Availability Monitoring Toolkit is an Eclipse plug-in that allows developers to check the functioning of all dependent systems before testing an application.

The Web Data Access Client Developer, also an Eclipse plug-in, generates a Web-based data access client without writing code. It allows developers with little experience in databases skills to create form-based applications that will integrate with software such as IBM Cloudscape.

The fourth tool, Security Lifecycle Management Tools for IBM Tivoli Access Manager, is an Eclipse-based application that allows the integration of Tivoli Access Manager, IBM Rational development tools and IBM's security and single sign-on Web software. It also provides developers with access to working code samples and documentation specific to Tivoli Access Manager and its APIs.


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One, lesser known strike against Eclipse

Source: ZDNet.com
URL: http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/index.php?p=1571

Article Summary:

Yesterday, as a part of our ongoing coverage of JavaOne, I opined that this year's annual Java lovefest could turn out to be the last stand for NetBeans. As I described in that blog, NetBeans is an integrated development environment (one that embodies the write once run anywhere religion of Java) that's currently losing in an important popularity war against its rival IDE Eclipse. To some, Eclipse is Java's anti-Christ. Not only doesn't it enforce the write once run anywhere promise of Java, it practically encourages developers to build operating system specific applications.

There are already some interesting responses to that blog. quietLee wrote "My guess is [that Sun] thought to include OS specific hooks into the JVM was probably viewed as burn at the stake heresy." However, there is one legitimate, pro-NetBeans point that I like — one that was raised in a conversation yesterday (after I posted that blog). It has to do with the slippery slope issue. The question is, once you step outside the write once run anywhere sanctuary — even ever so slightly — could the situation spiral out of control from there to the point that you really are no better off than writing dedicated applications? If things get messy on the deployment side of the equation, the answer could be yes.

As I said in my blog, developers may be mature enough to decide for themselves whether they're willing to bear the cost of maintaining platform specific versions of their applications, but there also could be a slight cost on the deployment/end-user side as well. Deployment of an Eclipse-developed application with OS dependencies also requires a significant amount of special care to make sure the JREs on the end-user systems will run them. Pages 25 thru 27 of an excellent Eclipse tutorial that I found do a good job of explaining the steps that developers may have to take to guarantee that end-users' systems will be able to run their Eclipse-developed applications. That this sort of prep work must take place means that Eclipse's interference with the write once run anywhere promise isn't strictly a developer-side issue.

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Oracle Brings Business Process and Service Orchestration Standard to Eclipse Developer Community

Source: Yahoo
URL: http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050629/sfw053.html?.v=17

Article Summary:

Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL - News) today announced it is proposing to lead a tooling project for the Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) standard within the Eclipse Foundation open-source community. The proposed project underscores Oracle's continued commitment to making tools support for key standards-based technologies, such as BPEL, freely available to all developers.

A cornerstone for simplifying the development of service-oriented architecture (SOA) applications, BPEL is widely recognized as a critical technology for reducing the cost, complexity and inflexibility of integration projects and enabling developers to more easily orchestrate Web services into business processes. By bringing BPEL support and expertise to the Eclipse developer community, Oracle is helping drive further adoption of SOAs. As the proposed project lead, Oracle will help build an open source BPEL tool under the Eclipse Public License. The new tool will be based on technology that is currently included in Oracle® BPEL Process Manager and the corresponding BPEL Designer, Oracle's industry-proven BPEL tool. Oracle's BPEL Process Designer is currently integrated in the Oracle JDeveloper 10g environment and is also available separately as a plug-in for the Eclipse integrated development environment.

"BPEL is one of the most important standards required for the development of enterprise SOA applications," said Edwin Khodabakchian, vice president, Software Development, Oracle. "This project combined with our EJB 3.0 and JSF tooling projects for Eclipse developers, positions Oracle as a leader in making key SOA-related technologies and standards available to all developers regardless of which development environment they choose."

"Throughout the years, Oracle has demonstrated a strong commitment to developers," said Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation. "We are pleased to have Oracle propose and lead Eclipse tooling projects for critical technologies such as EJB 3.0, JSF and now, BPEL. Their leadership and dedication to the developer community will play a pivotal role in the future success of these technologies."

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iWay Software Joins Eclipse Open Source Community

Source: Yahoo
URL: http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050629/nyw039.html?.v=12

Article Summary:
iWay Software, an Information Builders company and the leading adaptive software provider, today announced that it has joined the Eclipse Foundation, an open source community dedicated to the implementation of a universal development platform.

"We are supporting the Eclipse initiative because we believe Eclipse will substantially speed the deployment of service-oriented architectures (SOA)," says John Senor, president of iWay Software. "iWay Software is very committed to simplifying enterprise integration, and with our new plugs-ins for Eclipse, we can seamlessly interconnect Java composite applications to the iWay Adaptive Framework."

The iWay Adaptive Framework is a suite of productivity tools and over 280 packaged adapters that allows IT to increase productivity and its ability to make a business more competitive. The Adaptive Framework incorporates years of middleware and solutions architecture expertise to provide the foundation of an enterprise's service-oriented architecture.

Without the iWay Adaptive Framework, creating Web services and other interfaces to disparate, proprietary information systems is an expensive and complex task that requires significant management attention. It requires skills in multiple programming paradigms, programming languages, application packages, operating systems, databases, and other technologies.


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