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What's New in Eclipse?

Eclipse Gained The Backing Of The Key Java Vendors Including BEA, Borland, IBM, SAP, and Sybase
By Ed Burnette
Article Rating:
July 19, 2005 11:45 AM EDT
Reads:
 131,068

The AspectJ Technology Project will release AspectJ 5.0 soon after Eclipse 3.1 is shipped. The new version includes full support for J2SE5 features, integration of AspectWerkz-style code, better deployment (especially for container-based environments), faster performance, and more comprehensive IDE support. For example, generics are integrated with AOP language features such as join points, pointcuts, advice, and inter-type declarations. Annotations bring AOP to pure Java source files, so you can continue to use your favorite Java compiler and then weave in the aspects in another build step or when classes are loaded. Deployment in J2EE containers is easier and compiling and weaving runs faster and generates better code than before. The class-loading and runtime aspect weaving that made AspectWerkz so convenient should also be supported.

For a gentle introduction to AOP, you may want to check out the Concern Manipulation Environment project (CME) project. It offers powerful code navigation to help you identify cross-cutting aspects in your existing Java code.

Finale
In four short years since Eclipse exploded onto the scene, it has come to dominate the Java IDE landscape. User groups have sprouted up around the world, and hundreds of books and articles have been written about it (two dozen in Japanese alone!). Eclipse 3.1 is the culmination of a year's worth of development effort on features such as J2SE5 support, performance improvements, and rich clients. If that weren't enough, it will be the base of the next wave of software releases from the Eclipse Foundation and its partners. Whether you're a programmer trying to build the next Killer App or an entrepreneur building a business model on open source, this is an exciting time to be involved with Eclipse.

Acknowledgments
I wish to thank the many readers of www.eclipsepowered.org who contributed to this article, including Chris Gross, Philippe Ombrédanne, Ng Chin Kiong, Sam Mesh, Bob Foster, David Orme, mgallego, lmandel, and nobodaddy. And a special thanks to Xavier Méhaut, who maintains the Eclipse wiki site, http://eclipse-wiki.info, where we worked on the draft.

Published July 19, 2005 – Reads 131,068
Copyright © 2005 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
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More Stories By Ed Burnette

Ed Burnette is the author of the Eclipse IDE Pocket Guide (to be published later this year by O'Reilly), co-author of Eclipse in Action, and editor of the articles section at eclipse.org. He writes about Eclipse and the Rich Client Platform at his Web site, www.eclipsepowered.org. Ed has programmed everything from multi-user servers to compilers to commercial video games since earning a BS in computer science from North Carolina State University. He is a principal systems developer at SAS, and lives near Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, with his wife, two kids, and a whole bunch of cats.

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Most Recent Comments
Conneva Weblog 08/22/05 10:58:39 AM EDT

Trackback Added: What's new in Eclipse 3.1; I'm just getting around to reading Ed Burnette's great article summarizing the recent developments in Eclipse 3.1 (hat tip Ben Booth). In four short years since Eclipse exploded onto the scene, it has come to dominate the Java IDE landscape....
Serge Baccou's Blog 07/25/05 05:06:44 AM EDT

Trackback Added: What's new in Eclipse 3.1?;
In a previous note, I have announced the release of Eclipse 3.1. Meanwhile, I have read carefully the following page on Eclipse web site: Eclipse 3.1 - New and Noteworthy and I have installed Eclipse 3.1 on my PC. This is a summary of what is new in ...
Eclipse News Desk 07/19/05 11:19:39 AM EDT

SYS-CON Exclusive: What's New in Eclipse 3.1?
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.
hoba 06/16/05 02:27:24 AM EDT

Great summary, thanks a lot!
David R. Heffelfinger 06/15/05 08:52:39 AM EDT

I was unaware of the new feature of importing/exporting Ant buildfiles. Unfortunately the article does not explain how to do it. Eclipse help wasn't much help either. After some experimenting, I figured it out. Details can be found in my blog.

David