RE: Java and Visual Basic, how to learn?

> From: Booth Martin
>
> What do you mean?  Are you suggesting there might be an alternative to
> NET?

Well, since I have no idea what .NET really is, I can't say that, but I can
say that Eclipse is a great IDE (it's also the foundation for WDSc), and it
is built on a great GUI.


> Tell us a bit more Joe.  Eclipse runs on Linux?  And on Windows?
> Are there
> any decent Java tools to build attractive GUI programs with Eclipse?  For
> both Windows and Linux?

Ah, it's better than that, Booth!

Eclipse itself is built using the Open Source SWT GUI that is freely
available to anyone who wants it.  So if you'd like to see what the SWT
looks like on various platforms, simply download the completely free Eclipse
development tool from http://www.eclipse.org and start playing with it.

If you run both Windows and Linux, you can compare the two side by side and
see just how powerful SWT is.  It's not perfect, it's not the universal
solution, it won't grow hair or make you lose weight, but it's a very
powerful GUI.

Not only that, it's Open Source.  You don't like how something works?
Change it!  And if you find something broken, you can fix it, and submit the
change, and if you've done a good job, it will get accepted!  (I'm sure it's
a little more complicated than that, but you get the idea.)

And even if you DON'T want to fix it, you can still report it.  Release 2.1
was scheduled to go to General Availability on a Friday.  That's the last
release of a six-month development cycle - sort of like a gold disk in game
releases.  It's not alpha code like some companies insist on releasing in
order to get free testing from the public.  This is supposed to be finished
code, and so they're understandably reluctant to open it up that late in the
game.

I reported a bug on Monday morning while copyediting my Eclipse book.  This
was a new bug that had just been introduced, and very subtle, and only came
up under pretty specific circumstances, and even had a workaround, but it
would have caused me to recapture at least 30 or so screens (out of some 350
in the book).  Since the Eclipse team recognized it was a step backwards
from the previous release, they were willing to address it, fix it, and
incorporate it in the gold release.  And this all occurred in under 36
hours.  Not too shabby.


> Have you a couple of screen shots of a simple application built
> for Windows
> and also built for Java?  Running on a Windows Desktop and a
> Linux Desktop?

I suppose the best thing would be to take a look at the screen shots of
Eclipse itself.  While they don't have the very latest and greatest release
on display, you can see shots of the main Eclipse workbench in various
flavors:

Windows XP:
http://www.eclipse.org/eclipse/presentation/eclipse-slides_files/slide0420_i
mage304.png

Windows XP (skinned):
http://www.eclipse.org/eclipse/presentation/eclipse-slides_files/slide0441_i
mage307.png

Linux GTK:
http://www.eclipse.org/eclipse/presentation/eclipse-slides_files/slide0421_i
mage310.png

Linux Motif:
http://www.eclipse.org/eclipse/presentation/eclipse-slides_files/slide0439_i
mage313.png

MacOSX Carbon:
http://www.eclipse.org/eclipse/presentation/eclipse-slides_files/slide0422_i
mage316.png

Or just download the entire presentation in PDF format:

http://www.eclipse.org/eclipse/presentation/eclipse-slides.pdf

Note that all these versions are running THE SAME CODE.  There is no
programming effort involved in making the software look native on different
platforms.  And the GUI is quite fast as well.


P.S. I don't know how long those direct links will be valid; you can find
the latest version at http://www.eclipse.org/eclipse/index.html.