IBM has announced that an additional 13 vendors have agreed to join its open source project Eclipse, including SAP, Hewlett-Packard and Oracle, bringing the group's total to 30. The way IBM sees it, "Building your own tools platform would be the equivalent of building your own HTTP server," said Scott Hebner, director of marketing for IBM's WebSphere division. "Why do that when you've got Apache?"

Read IBM builds momentum around Eclipse.

Seems like NEt beans is going to have a tough time.

My suggestion : all you framework developers port your stuff to Eclipse.

Personally I love netbeans more than eclipse

As far as programming language goes, I can live with one language (Java) and one framework (J2EE), but limiting even the tools to one IDE is ridiculous. What will happen to small vednors (tools wirter), how will they make money? As far as I know IBM is still the biggest monoply in the software business (but they are very political) and all the craps by default goes to MicroSoft.

I think that both .NET and J2EE push component development. That being said, this is the dream that we've have been trying to accomplish. Small tool vendors can develop components that can plugin into a single a common platform. Rather than these small vendors having to re-invent the wheel and write common low level code for their IDE's, they can concentrate on the features thatmake their IDE the best.

<quote> Small tool vendors can develop components that can plugin into a single a common platform. Rather than these small vendors having to re-invent the wheel and write common low level code for their IDE's, they can concentrate on the features thatmake their IDE the best.
</quote>


Why don't you ask IBM to open their J2EE appserver architecture based on micro kernel approach like JBoss or openejb (http://openejb.sourceforge.net/index.html), so you and me can right the plugins for websphere too:-) Wake up and smell the coffee dude!!

<quote>
As far as I know IBM is still the biggest monoply in the software business.
</quote>

In what market is IBM a monopoly?

MAINFRAME and AS/400

Failed Monopoly in the PC area (hardware + its old PC- DOS ..... what a relief !!!!!!

in those days if you use ibm equipments say in the millions of dollars and you decide one day to buy another vendor's equipment say a printer, the ibm consultants working on your site just walk away from work... How do you call this ????

Mainframe and AS/400 a monopoly?!? Surely, you're not serious!

The market that pops up around a single vendor's product is not, in and of itself, a monopoly. By the same rule, you could say that BEA has a monopoly in the WebLogic market, or Oracle has a monopoly in the Oracle market, or Borland has a monopoly in the Delphi market. Oops. I wrote some code today. Guess I'm a monopoly in my application's new inquiry module market.

When you can start defining the monopoly in broad market definitions, like desktop operating systems, server operating systems, internet browsers, application servers, etc., then you've got a problem.

Eclipse doesnt mean one IDE, it means one IDE framework to which the small (or large) vendor can write plugins and customizations. I have used the bare bones Eclipse 2 and I have used the IBM WebSphere Studio Application Developer, based on Eclipse 2, and they are by no means the same IDE. The added value of the IBM customizations is immense when developing for the WebSphere AS. Eclipse just means that the treshold for smaller vendors to enter the IDE market becomes lower.

"Eclipse doesnt mean one IDE, it means one IDE framework..."

Still, its like limiting vendors to a single IDE, as everything Eclipse provides will be the same among all IDEs... and I think most developers will consider Eclipse a somewhat complete IDE... as complete as e.g. IDEA was with version 2.5; Although they do the same, I liked IDEA _ways_ better... and IDEA is an example of what would disappear when everyone would use Eclipse as the basic IDE-framework.
Sure, someone could re-implement parts of the Eclipse framework and create an SWT-based IDEA, but then we again don't use a "common framework" like IBM proposes.
I like Eclipse, but its not the milestone IBM tries to put it as; I dislike IBM's Eclipse-related politics and I think SWT is a ridiculous misdevelopment, Eclipse is slow (you cannot see it because your PC is so fast - you _can_ see it with WSAD), some things don't work (refactorings... ever tried IDEA???).
I'm glad I have the choice to use another IDE, as I prefer JBuilder, TogetherCC and IDEA over Eclipse, WSAD, XDE etc. (are there any more at the moment?); I "even" prefer Orcale JDeveloper. All of these vendors, please don't base your tools on Eclipse;

Messi

P.S.: Please don't get me wrong, Eclipse is not that bad, I worked with it, I like it, its just not the holy grail and there are better tools, that's all; IBM tries to ignore and deny this... and some believe this!!!

I think vendors see, among other features, that SWT could really open the door to Java on the desktop. Looking at it as just an IDE misses the true gem that has the chance to compete directly against Windows Forms. Write once run on Windows and Linux.

<quote>
 I think vendors see, among other features, that SWT could really open the door to Java on the desktop.
</quote>

Provided the desktop is a Windows desktop, in a supported locale. SWT has a decidely Windows-ish slant to it, with some i18n features not on the slate for anywhere other than Windows. SWT is no magic bullet. It lacks *many* features I would consider essential. Things such as 2D graphics, anti-aliasing, the ability to subclass widgets, the concept of renderers. I was utterly stunned to find out that SWT can't put icons on menus in Windows NT, something I've take for granted with Java for several years.

Swing's reputation as ugly/slow is truly undeserved. A simple look at the applications available at http://www.jgoodies.com shows that to be true.

Jim S.

Swing is much more than ugly and slow. I write Swing applications every day. Productivity in Swing is abysmal. It is painful to develop in and woefully inadequate. It is just not meant for any kind of serious development.

> would be the equivalent of building your own HTTP
> server," said Scott Hebner, director of marketing for
> IBM's WebSphere division. "Why do that when you've got
> Apache?"

I think this, as a standalone statement, is accurate. If I was simply building a generic tool from scratch and wanted a jump start, I would start with Netbeans.org or Eclipse. Both those platforms are suitable for the job and both are currently being used to do this today.

The more interesting case, however, is when you are building a value-add for a particular market such as J2EE & related technologies. In this case, I would want to take advantage of more than just the base tool functionality, but also take advatage of things like integrated UML, profiling, compilers, SCM, remote debugging and deployment, for example.

Once you get to this level, there is less common ground. J2EE ensures the runtime portion to remain common, but each vendor has specifics in their tools that make them ideal for their particular runtime. The trend is moving in the direction of consolidation towards the goal of tight integration between the different components of the development tool, as well as the runtime platform.

Eclipse is one choice for users to write extensions to and/or use as a development environment. Oracle's JDeveloper, along with NetBeans, IntelliJ and JBuilder are others. All of the members of Eclipse are also partners of Oracle, Sun and Borland. A bunch of partners does not a standard make. Oracle has hundreds of partners and users committed to our tools platform.

I agree with the other posters here that there is no defacto or industry standard IDE, and there shouldn't be. With the J2EE standards governing the runtimes, it is in the design-time that we are currently getting the more interesting innovation and growth. Let us tool vendors create and compete for your business. We are happy to do that.

Standards are about choice. Wanting to force everyone to use a single tool defeats the entire purpose. This will not, and should not happen. There will always be a group of tools available in the marketplace competing against each other for developers. Eclipse, (like JDeveloper, Netbeans, IntelliJ and JBuilder) is just one of those choices.

   -ted

Ted Farrell
Oracle Corporation

Java is language for people and every Vendor is providing tools for development. Our team has switched 3 IDE's in the last 4 year and right now we are leaning towards using a opensource IDE like Netbeans or Eclipse. I wonder in how many languages can you do that. We even have different flavours of Java appserver in our IT shops starting from Tomcat/JBOSS to Weblogic.


I have been programming for the last 15 years and I have never since any language as well written and detailed like Java. We just ported some of our Apps from windoze to Linux with zero line of code changes I dont think any language will every come close to Java. To us .Not is cluncky, buggy, propietory language no one I have meet so far working in Java will use .Not. To us .Not is a hype and will always be a hype from a Evil Empire and we whats its goal is.

IBM's acceptance to Linux and Java says lot about the company.

once I've taken the very old Fortran library from the mainframe, and ported it to my PC. I had to change only a couple of functions which dealt with big endian issue. "very old" means written couple of decades ago :)

That's what I call portability!

<Jamie>
I have been programming for the last 15 years and I have never since any language as well written and detailed like Java.
</Jamie>

Never used Smalltalk i guess...

Are you people aware that IBM has a lab that specializes in making windows operating system work the best with its hardware ?
My point is stop dreaming, wake up, IBM is as bad as MICROSOFT. Ibm is eating a banana from both ends.

You think they are interested in defending Java. They are just there to make money from both Java and Microsoft. Challenge them to stop using/selling/promoting microsoft technology and see if they do it.

"You think they are interested in defending Java. They are just there to make money from both Java and Microsoft. Challenge them to stop using/selling/promoting microsoft technology and see if they do it. "

Of course IBM is trying to make money, and they are going to do it by giving customers technology to help with problems they are facing. In some cases that is by providing Java based appservers, in some cases it by making sure Windows runs well on their hardware. What do you expect them to do? Package a different OS on PCs? Not try to optimize? In the end, IBM is corporation with responsbility to make money for their shareholders. Most companies have Microsoft applications and need help integrating them with other applications. Why would anyone want to challenge IBM to stop addressing this?

You're totally right. I see no problem in IBM support both. It's a corporation, so it has to distribute profits to their shareholders. We're all Java fans here, but we cannot simply close our eyes to Microsoft and it's platform. It exists now and will probably exist for a long time. And, just like we like Java, many others hate and prefer .Net, and we cannot simply impose our choice.

This is a healthy news for J2EE. Many incidents have been happening towards streamlining the J2EE Environment. This would make most of the business applications choose the environment suitable for them quickly.(Struts and Eclipse on Tomcat is the currently used environment on the client side,though).

Hmmm.

* Why build your own application server when you have JBoss?

* Why build your own hardware when you have PCs?

* Why build your own language when you have assembler?

* Why build your own house when the government could build it for you?

* Why build your own make of car when others already exist?

Etc, etc. ad nauseum. There are a thousand good reasons to build your own tools platform and a thousand not to use someone else's.

We all say J2EE is a community. But the reality is everybody has thier own agenda. IBM's needs are different from Sun's. Why can't they work together.. What is going to happen to JBuilder, Visual Cafe etc.....

Does anyone know who these 13 are?

"Why do that when you've got Apache?" he says...

Funny, just today, as I was installing Websphere, I had the option to install it on top of IBM HTTP Server. Why indeed?

"Funny, just today, as I was installing Websphere, I had the option to install it on top of IBM HTTP Server. Why indeed?"

Especially since IBM HTTP Server is Apache under the covers.

Exactly. IBM HTTP Server uses the Apache HTTP engine as its base, and adds security and system management functions on top of it. The fact that IHS is based on Apache supports Hebner's statement, does it not?

Randy Schnier
WebSphere Development

This is good news for the Java community and the Eclipse project. Looks like Sun's Netbeans project is dying a slow death.