Eclipse :: Ah... I finally get it now

[contink]

For anyone who is a new coder and more in touch with the changing fortunes of code tools, etc.. this may seem like a very odd post but as someone who started cutting their teeth on HTML using wordpad and Notetab I feel like I've just discovered the secret to coding all over again.

I've seen hype gallore about "Eclipse" on The Register and various other places but unfortunately all any of these articles ever did was leave me confused and lost with all the marketing and techno ("We're cleverer than you and can speak a secret code language, Nyah!") babble... so I never actually bothered or found myself wanting to look deeper into what it actually was.

Now though, after a gentle nudge from someone who's collaborating on a Gallery2 module with me, I took a closer look and found a very useful tool indeed.

Eclipse is indeed a very well thought out tool and from a PHP perspective has a lot more bells and whistles that will improve my coding skills no end (Eclipse-speak translation "productivity coefficients will soar to new heights") so for anyone else who was likewise afflicted with a feeling of "not for me", it is worth a peek...

[webman]

Ugh... it uses Java :?

[ajbritton]

I have always wondered if there is an Eclipse plug-in that would allow it to be used as an IDE for scripting languages like VBS and AutoIt...

[contink]

@webman:
Yeah I thought that for a long time but it's actually very stable..

@ajbritton:
I did some searching on that score today and found the mygeneration editor as a result (see coding forum) but AFAIK there's no IDE plugin for Vbscript, etc...

[localzuk]

Ugh... it uses Java :?

What's wrong with Java? Excellent language.

[webman]

From my experience it's slow and big and eats resources like there's no tomorrow.

[Cravon]

From my experience it's slow and big and eats resources like there's no tomorrow.

it does depend on how you program it though.

moving on...

Eclipse classic is great, I know it can do Java, and Java 3D. but i believe it can do only a few other languages without plugins (eg XML, perl...).

[PaulBM]

I've used Eclipse for ages now, at home and at work.

It's great and meets all my needs and best of all, the c:\eclipse directory can be copied to another PC and just works. Having recently dumped Vista in favour of XP again, moving Eclipse was a doddle.

There are many plugins for other languages. I have PHP, Javascript and CSS plugins that handle colour coded source code and syntax checking etc.