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Microsoft Support for Eclipse

Once again, I'm late, but it looks like the Eclipse Foundation has extended an invitation to Microsoft to join its efforts. I guess they think their new directions on web services and SOAs might be of interest to Microsoft, since they're the market leader, right now.

Personally, I don't expect Microsoft to support this. First off, Eclipse has a long way to go to compete with Visual Studio. Secondly, do you seriously think Microsoft will support development for a product on a platform that it is a direct competitor for? Would anybody? I know I wouldn't. I mean, if there was some sort of integration that .NET developers, or the .NET platform might get out of it, then that's one thing. Otherwise, it just doesn't make sense.

One thing being looked at is whether or not to add a platform-neutral layer to its Eclipse Web Tools project. I don't know if this is in addition to a Java approach or not, however. I would hope that this wouldn't be a duplicate. That would be more code to update, which just doesn't make much sense. I'm sure each of you have tried to maintain two similar code bits (small or large) at some point in time. It's a pain. I just see the open source community not supporting that for long.

Anyway, above all of that, Microsoft has just released its Express line of products. They are all in Beta, but I believe these will all be free tools. So, why would Microsoft support a competitor whose tool would require new code, especially when it is so far behind Visual Studio? Life will only get better when VS 2005 is release. (By the way, the Express line will not include Team System.)

posted on Monday, July 12, 2004 1:27 PM

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# re: Microsoft Support for Eclipse 7/12/2004 5:28 PM bk
> Eclipse has a long way to go to compete with Visual Studio.
> ...
> especially when it is so far behind Visual Studio.

Hope your not flaming just by guessing. Those statements are dangerous without context ;) I use both VS and Eclipse on daily basis but don't feel anything extreme to use the word "way to go" or "far behind".


# re: Microsoft Support for Eclipse 7/12/2004 8:42 PM Michael Flanakin
I use and like both tools. I've considered doing .NET development on Eclipse, but there are just too many features that aren't there. VS makes things so nice and after getting used to them, it's hard to not use them. I'm starting to find that a lot of developers don't even realize all of the cool tricks you can do (i.e. alt-click-drag for block selections). There are a number of features that I use constantly in VS, Word, Excel, and Windows in general. And, when those features aren't available in another tool, I get agravated.

On the other hand, I'd like to say that Eclipse has a better plug-in structure than VS. However, I can't. I don't know enough about VS plug-ins to say whether one is better or worse. Considering Eclipse is completely functional based on its plug-in framework, I want to say that it is superior, but like I said, I can't.

Another thing that I'd like to see is a VS-like environment available for any type of desktop application. For instance, one of Eclipse's goals is to be a foundation for any type of application (i.e. DBMS, CRM, productivity app). If we could build plug-ins for VS and deploy that to customers, I would be severely happy. I can guarantee you that I'd develop more Windows-based apps.

Anyway, I like both, but I think Eclipse still has a lot to do to catch up. I'd like to see that happen, but it is yet to be seen. Especially as an open source app.

# re: Microsoft Support for Eclipse 9/29/2004 6:25 AM Philip Stockwell
I too use both platforms, originally Visual Studio then to Eclipse and unfortunately back to Visual Studio as I take a rest from Java/J2EE to do .NET development with a new employer. For Java development Eclipse is extremely powerful and easy to use once you get past the perspectives and view concept. If Eclipse supported .NET then I think it would be much better environment for development than the Visual Studio IDE - and best of all it would be free. I beleive that even the express editions of Visual Studio will be around £80 as they seem to be the replacement for the standard editions of the separate language tools.

It would certainly be interesting if Microsoft did get involved especially as Sun remains outside with its Netbeans. Maybe we might see a C# port with the languages being so similar ;-)

# re: Microsoft Support for Eclipse 1/9/2005 8:11 AM Byron Guernsey
I've been searching for some instructions on integrating Eclipse's IDE with Visual Studio 6. I prefer the tools in Eclipse, but I don't have the time to spend learning how to integrate the two so I can easily do builds in Eclipse.

If anyone knows of a how-to on this, please do post it and hopefully your link will be picked up by search engines. I've had a hard time finding any info on integrating the two. I realize its simply a matter of getting eclipse to call the Makefiles from Visual Studio with nmake, but as I mentioned- I am lucky to have time to work on my project much less work on figuring out the integration of the two. I was hoping there was an eclipse module that would just magically do it for me...sigh, I guess I'm lazy...


# re: Microsoft Support for Eclipse 6/2/2006 8:44 AM Patrick Farrell
I've also used both platforms. Now that Visual Studio 2005 is no longer new. I am of the opinion that Eclipse is better equipped to handle the real world development needs than Visual Studio. VS is very good at quickly creating new applications, but lacks some very cool features that Eclipse brings to the table in Java development. A short list includes automated imports, flexible code formatting (although, VS may be on par with this), deep debugging capabilities (ability to dive into external libraries, not just your own code), inline comments along side the intellisense, not just code completion, and best of all, the refactoring capabilities! What this adds up to is this: Eclipse is better able to handle loading and modifying existing codebases. VS is designed to create new ones. 6 of one? Ask yourself this, How often are you coding new apps and how often are you modifying existing code?

MS could support Eclipse if they were confident that their platform was better. After all, this would bring more Java mindshare into their world which, I argue, is more valuable than locking in existing developers.

# re: Microsoft Support for Eclipse 7/28/2006 6:12 AM Patrick
I've been working on trying to get Eclipse and nmake talking to each other as well, I've found the following link... http://eclipsewiki.editme.com/InstallingCDTWithMSVisualC, but it's all about an older version of eclipse, not the one I'm running. If anyone knows how to get this to work with version 3.2, I'd be a very happy person!

# re: Microsoft Support for Eclipse 8/15/2008 8:10 AM Thorn
for "bk": nothing dangerous to say about shit "it's a shit".
Eclipse is an ugly instrument to do applications. But java world has nothing except it, so they are happy. Windows people has best product at all - VISUAL STUDIO. Try it and catch how far Eclipse from handy, productive IDE. :)

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