What is cool in Europa?

June is Europa month. Denis is getting the IT infrastructure ready and I need to get started on the press plans. I am interested in the communities opinion on what is cool in the Europa release. Is there a new project or new feature that you think will be a big thing for the Eclipse community?

Some of my favourites include DLTK and their Ruby support, Mylar is always cool :-), SWT support for Vista and WPF, some of the new server side services in Equinox, and there seems to be a lot of interest in SOA Tools.

What do you think? I would ideally like to get 5-7 key cool new projects or themes that we highlight at the launch.

Help Wanted: We need a graphic for Europa

Europa is fast approaching.   To help promote the Europa release, I would like to create a graphic that we can use on eclipse.org and others can use on their web site.   My graphic capabilities are very limited at best; in fact my four year olds can now draw better. 

Therefore, I’d like to solicit help from the Eclipse community.  If you would like to help and have some graphical talent, I’ve open a bug to collect ideas.

Is Eclipse a small fungi?

David Berlind has written a follow-up post to Sun’s JavaOne announcements regarding JavaFX. Basically noting that Sun is going head-to-head with Adobe and MS and that the battle is for RIA style applications for the mobile handset market.

David did point out one limiting factor to Sun’s potential success:

Sun has one other small fungus eating away at the Java community that may need reconciliation before it can battle Adobe and Microsoft at full strength: the religious division amongst Java developers that’s expressed through their loyalties to either the Eclipse or NetBeans integrated development environments.

Hmmm, a small fungi? I’ve must say I have never seen Eclipse described as a mushroom. According to wikipedia, over 90% of all plant species engage in some kind of mycorrhizal relationship with fungi and are dependent upon this relationship for survival, so I guess David thinks Eclipse is important for Sun’s chance of success in the mobile space.

The weird thing is that Jonathan Schwartz still wants to drive a wedge between Eclipse and NetBeans.  Jonathan has suggested David run a poll to see which IDE is most popular for mobile development, suggesting a potential resurgence of NetBeans.  Oh please, I hope this doesn’t mean we are about to experience another round of NetBeans FUD.

IMHO, Eclipse is very well positioned in the mobile and RIA space.    Nokia, Motorola, Symbian, Adobe and others are all basing their tools on Eclipse.   Eclipse is enabling a wider ecosystem of mobile development, far beyond one that is controlled by Sun.

BZ Media IDE Stats

BZ Media, the people that publish SD Times, does an annual Java survey of their readership.  Alan Ziechick has published the results of the IDE and Java app server usage questions.    Nice to see Eclipse continuing to command a huge lead with 69.6% of the respondents indicating they use Eclipse; an increase of 4.5% from 2005.   Second place goes to NetBeans with 23.3%; an increase of 5.4% from 2005.  IBM is in third and fourth place with Websphere Application Studio and Rational Application Developer; both Eclipse based tools.

As with all stats and surveys this is just one data point but I think it reinforces an important trend that I experienced at JavaOne - the Eclipse community is thriving and growing.

In Harmony with Eclipse

One of the things we are doing this year at JavaOne is giving away CDs of Eclipse SDK 3.2.3 running on a milestone release of the Apache Harmony project.   We ordered 1000 CDs but have already run out.   Lots of people are interested in learning more about Harmony and how it works with Eclipse.  If you did not get a CD or were not at JavaOne, you can always download it from Sourceforge.

I think this  is a great example of Apache and Eclipse communities working together.

Why JavaFX Script and not JRuby?

The news this week from JavaOne is that Sun has decided to create a new language called JavaFX Script. I am still shaking my head wondering why does the software industry need another scripting language? Also, what has happened to Sun’s support for JRuby?

Before JavaOne, I was convinced Sun was heading down a strategy of pushing JRuby as their dynamic language. They hired the key guys on the JRuby project; the new news about NetBeans is all about JRuby; there are sessions about JRuby at JavaOne; everything pointed to Sun adopting a big strategy for JRuby. However, at the keynote JRuby was barely mentioned and there just seems to be no buzz about JRuby at JavaOne. Instead Sun decided to create a new language, that was created by an individual Sun engineer as a research project, there does not appear to be tools support but it is being positioned as the killer of MS Silverlight and Adobe Flex? I just have to think MS and Adobe are laughing at the thought.

I certainly hope the work on JRuby keeps going. To me that seems like a winning strategy for Sun and Java.

Eclipse T-shirts at JavaOne

It has become a tradition to give out Eclipse t-shirts at JavaOne and this year is no different. We are able to make this happen thanks to the sponsorship of 18 companies, including Actuate, Adobe, AvantSoft, BEA, Business Objects, CodeGear, Intel, IONA, Klocwork, Motorola, Oracle, Parasoft, Prosyst, SAP, DevZuz, Sybase, Teamprise and TIBCO.

To get a t-shirt, we are doing a passport game, so you will have to visit seven of these companies to collect a stamp and then come get a shirt at the Eclipse booth. I hope this year’s t-shirt design passes a review by our community fashion critic.

Looking forward to seeing everyone at JavaOne and the Eclipse party on Wednesday night. btw, we also still have JavaOne passes for the exhibit hall so if you want a pass let us know.

Most Important Open Source Applications of All Time

eWeek has named their ‘Most Important Open Source Applications of All Time‘.  It is nice to see Eclipse named in this category.  I especially like the description they have for Eclipse:

It’s becoming harder and harder to find development tools that aren’t based on Eclipse 

Can’t disagree with that.