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The Pillars of Eclipse


By Ian Skerrett
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March 15, 2006 —  (Page 1 of 5)
In the past four years Eclipse has enjoyed considerable success in the software industry. Most famous for its widely used open-source Java IDE, Eclipse also has become an important platform for building software development tools and general purpose applications. In fact, there are now more than 58 different open-source projects at Eclipse, and most of these have little to do with building Java development tools.

We also have a growing ecosystem of vendors and other open-source projects creating Eclipse-based products that span many different technology markets. Therefore, the answers to the questions “What is Eclipse?” and “Where is Eclipse going?” often depend on your point of view.

When we think of Eclipse, we often think of different user communities or technology groupings. Right now, we think of seven different pillars as a metaphor to explain the breadth and wealth of technology brought to developers by the Eclipse community. Over time we expect that these pillars will evolve and change.

A Foundation
To begin to answer these questions, it is important to understand that when Eclipse was started, the goal was never to simply build a Java IDE. The goal was to create an extensible platform for building and integrating a myriad of different development tools.

When IBM started Eclipse, it wanted to consolidate its different development tools onto a single platform, and more important, enable a broad ecosystem of open-source and commercial tools sharing a common platform. Having organizations, like ISVs or enterprises, use these frameworks to build their software is how we define success for Eclipse projects.

Contrary to popular belief, Eclipse projects do not focus solely on building tools. They are tasked with the added responsibility of building both frameworks and exemplary, extensible tools. So the focus is not just on building tools—it is on building a platform intended for reuse in products and applications.

The Eclipse Java IDE or Java development tools (JDT) was the first, and is probably the best-known of Eclipse’s exemplary tools. If an organization is going to create frameworks for building tools, having a really good example of how to do it is critical to teaching others. That is the purpose of JDT, and it is the purpose of all of the tools you find at Eclipse. The great thing for the developer community is that most of these tools are very good, and as a result, a lot of people use them.




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