The Eclipse Foundation is shipping its annual release train for 2011, known as Indigo, with a key focus on giving Java developers more capability to build apps for the cloud and other environments.
The Eclipse
Foundation's
Indigo release train
marks the eighth year in a row that Eclipse has shipped a coordinated release
of projects, with this year's focus on the Java developer.
Mike
Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation, said 62 project
teams participated in Indigo. The Indigo release, which shipped June 22, had 46
million lines of code released on the same day (calculated by Ohloh), 408
developers (committers) contributed code and 49 organizations collaborated on
the release, Eclipse officials said. Ten predefined packages
enable easy download and use, they explained.
Developers can
download the 2011 Indigo release train at http://www.eclipse.org/downloads.
"From a
developer's perspective, a key theme is that first and foremost this is a key
release for Java developers," Milinkovich told
eWEEK. Indeed, highlights of the Indigo release include new
functionality for Java developers, and innovations in modeling technology and
advancements in Eclipse runtime technology. "Features such as Git support,
Maven and Hudson integration, a great GUI builder in WindowBuilder, and our new
Jubula testing tool will, I am sure, motivate developers to try Indigo," he
said.
For instance,
Milinkovich cites Google's WindowBuilder, an Eclipse-based GUI builder, which
is now available as an Eclipse open-source project, as a boon for Java
developers. "Plus, they set a land speed record for getting from project to
part of the release train."
Other key new
features for Java developers cited by Milinkovich include the following.
- The EGit 1.0 release provides support for Java developers
using Git for source-code management.
- Automated functional GUI testing for Java and HTML applications
is included via Jubula.
- The m2eclipse
brings tight integration with Maven and the Eclipse workspace, enabling
developers to work with Maven projects directly from Eclipse.
- Mylyn 3.6 supports Hudson build monitoring directly from the
Eclipse workspace.
- The Eclipse
Marketplace Client now supports drag-and-drop installation of Eclipse-based
solutions directly into Eclipse, making it significantly easier to install new
solutions.
Todd Williams,
vice president of technology at Genuitec said, "Genuitec is excited about the
inclusion of Google's WindowBuilder in the release train. Google's commitment
to Eclipse continues to grow, and now it provides developers free and open
access to one of the most popular GUI builders available."
Williams also
told
eWEEK: ""Genuitec, as a
founding member of the Eclipse Foundation, is always excited about the annual
release train. This is the sixth year in a row that the Eclipse community has
shipped a coordinated release of multiple projects, and with 62 separate
projects coming together in Indigo, it's is no small development task.
We're proud to support access to the new release with our free Pulse product on
day zero."
Mik Kersten,
CEO of Tasktop Technologies and creator of the Mylyn project, told
eWEEK, "While cloud-based IDE
efforts have been grabbing headlines, Eclipse has entrenched itself as the de
facto IDE for the Java ecosystem and beyond. Eclipse extensions are
instrumental to developers working on a broad range of frameworks, ranging from
the tried-and-true Spring to the more recent crop of Web frameworks such as Google
Web Toolkit, and now to PaaS [platform as
a service] and cloud destinations such as [VMware's] CloudFoundry and
AWS [Amazon Web Services}."
Moreover, "The
Indigo release provides the glue that brings together these Eclipse-based
development tools with ALM (application lifecycle management) and social coding
support via the Mylyn project and its extensions, which range from the lean Git
to the full-featured HP ALM, spanning the breadth of open source, Agile and
enterprise ALM. The result is that the Indigo launch signifies the most broadly
integrated and connected IDE to date, making the development day of both the
professional and the hobbyist more productive and more fun."
The Eclipse modeling include the following innovations:Xtext 2.0 has
added significant features for DSLs (domain-specific languages) that provide
the ability to create DSLs with embedded Java-like expressions; Xtend, a new
template language that allows tightly integrated code-generation into the
Eclipse tooling environment; and a new refactoring framework for DSLs. Other
modeling enhancements include Acceleo 3.1, which integrates code-generation
into Ant and Maven build chains, and includes improved generator-editing
facilities; CDO Model Repository 4.0, which integrates with several NoSQL
databases such as Objectivity/DB, MongoDB and DB4O; and cache optimizations
and many other enhancements allow for models of several gigabytes.
EMF 2.7 makes
it easy to replicate changes across distributed systems in an optimal way: A
client can send back to the server a minimal description of what's been changed
rather than sending back the whole, arbitrarily large, new instance.
Additionally, Eclipse Extended Editing Framework 1.0 generates advanced and
good-looking EMF editors in one click. EMF Compare 1.2 brings dedicated Unified
Modeling Language support and is more fully integrated with the software-configuration
management solution. Moreover, EMF Facet, a new project, allows extension of an
existing Ecore metamodel without modification.
The Eclipse
Runtime enhancements include the following: EclipseLink 2.3 supports
multi-tenant JPA Entities, making it possible to incorporate JPA persistency
into SaaS-style (software as a service-style) applications; Equinox 3.7 now
implements the OSGi 4.3 specification, including use of generic signatures,
generic capabilities, and requirements for bundles; the Eclipse Communication
Framework implements OSGi 4.2 Remote Service and Remote Service Admin
standards; and Riena 3.0 now supports the creation of Web browser applications
using the Eclipse Rich Ajax Platform.
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