Any experience with Eclipse RCP?

[Patrick]

Hello,

I consider using Eclipse RCP to develop a standalone Java application.
But I wonder if the framework is really as powerful as it promises.

If you have some experience in this area, could you please tell some
advantages and drawbacks of using Eclipse RCP framework, over developing
from scratch with just the IDE and Java (SWT) APIs?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Rob@Bedford]

One major advantage Eclipse RCP has over custom design is that it is a
standardized design which allows for a greater level of extensibility
down the road. But it all boils down to what you are designing and
what you want to do with your product I guess. For my major projects,
Eclipse RCP is a must, but for most of my smaller projects I tend to
use Swing since I spent years doing GUI's in Swing and I am able to
quickly fire off application GUI's that way.

 

[gal]

You may also consider to use NetBeans platforms
(http://www.netbeans.org). We find it more powerfull than Eclipse RCP
(for example integration with Java3D). In fact we have had a project
using Netbeans Platform, then Eclipse RCP and finally back to Netbean
Plaform 5

Anyway oth are interesting platforms for medium to big sized projects.

Regards
Guillaume

 

[Patrick]

gal a écrit :

You may also consider to use NetBeans platforms
(http://www.netbeans.org). We find it more powerfull than Eclipse RCP
(for example integration with Java3D). In fact we have had a project
using Netbeans Platform, then Eclipse RCP and finally back to Netbean
Plaform 5

Other developers in my team don't like Netbeans because of their GUI
which isn't native and not very responsive, and because it's supported
by Sun who has pledge allegiance to Microsoft.

Latest version of SWT can also integrate OpenGL.

Netbeans GUI editor (Matisse) seems superior, but this is a feature of
the IDE, not the platform.

What precisely do you find more powerfull in the Netbeans platform?

What I find most hard in Eclipse RCP is the complexity of the framework,
which seems overcomplicated for many tasks. Is it the same for NB platform?

Eclipse is backed by big vendors, but I don't know if there is a
commercial support. How do you compare reactivity and support of the
community for Eclipse and NB?

TIA!

 

[Patrick]

Rob@Bedford a écrit :

One major advantage Eclipse RCP has over custom design is that it is a
standardized design which allows for a greater level of extensibility
down the road.

What I'd like to know is what Eclipse RCP concretely brings to
application development. I already know about the windowing system,
automatic update, and online help. But do they really translate into
development productivity? Wouldn't this be easier to code one's own
windowing with a simple layout, and help with simple HTML pages?

Youur advice is welcome!

 

[Rob@Bedford]

As I said, it all really boils down to the situation. There are a lot
of factors to consider when decided if its beneficial to use Eclipse
RCP, nature of the project, number of programmers, methodology of the
shop, design of the app, etc.

Eclipse RCP brings with it a set of ready-made components, design and
methodologies to use. More importantly, it is what I like to think of
as the "geek standard". And 10,000 geeks can't be wrong .

From the sounds of it however, your project is a one man job, probably

not a large (note: relatively used of course) project and you wouldn't
be envisioning much revisions, updates, redesign etc? In this case, I
definately would not use Eclipse RCP, but fire off the gui yourself
using Swing/SWT and go from there. HOWEVER, if the project is expected
to grow, or you are planning for that possibility, you may want to bite
the bullet and go with Eclipse RCP now. Extra time spent now, saves
tonnes more down the road.

As for what Eclipse RCP brings to the table, it brings nothing special
at unless you use the features. i.e. what is sense of having an
update system if you don't plan on releasing any updates.