RE: Eclipse -- MIDRANGE-L

> From: Buck Calabro
>
> Joe, I think you missed a step.

Nope.  You did.  You're all caught up in this web-based stuff <grin>.  We're
talking thick client.


> Booth,
> Eclipse is the development environment; a super-editor, if you'll allow me
> the liberty.  It has personalities (called perspectives) for each
> different
> language you want to work with.  There's a Web perspective, an RPG
> perspective, etc.  Unless I missed something big, you can edit
> your RPG and
> Java in Eclipse but you can't actually run the binary code there.

You can absolutely run binary Java inside of Eclipse.  RPG doesn't enter the
picture here, Buck.  That's all WDSc stuff, and not pertinent to the Eclipse
discussion.

In fact, most of the perspectives you're talking about are WDSc specific.
The only perspectives included with Eclipse are Resource (sort of a default
view), Java, Plug-In and Debug.  All the Web and RPG stuff are WDSc, so
let's leave them out of the discussion.  (Although there are plug-ins
available or in development for JSPs and for Tomcat and other web servers.)


> Also, Java can be targeted to the desktop like any other thick client (say
> VaRPG) or the web via a servlet engine like Tomcat or WebSphere
> Application
> Server.  And before I get dinged for it, I know that WDSc has a version of
> WAS that comes with it, so technically you CAN run your web-based
> Java from
> there, but it's not intended for production.

Like I said, I wasn't talking about web-based.  Booth and I were talking
about a thick client (the question was "will it run on Windows, Linux, and
so on").  Specifically, using Eclipse as opposed to the VB.NET stuff.
Eclipse is indeed an IDE, but it includes and an Open Source GUI
environment.


> So, a desktop-based Java app can indeed run on any platform which
> has a JVM,
> including Windows, Linux and Mac.  It is possible that the Java
> application
> can even run on platforms that the Eclipse IDE does not support, like
> iSeries (for instance, I've written some stored procedures in
> Java which run
> on the iSeries.)  A web-based Java app can run on any platform
> that supports
> a browser.

Again, not the issue.  We're talking about thick client, not browser.
Remember, Buck, not everybody in the world wants browser-based applications.
Eclipse (and specifically SWT) provide an alternate option to the VB crowd
(and to the Swing crowd, for that matter).


> The bottom line is that Eclipse is the development/edit/test tool and is
> absolutely not needed at runtime.

No, but the SWT support that comes with Eclipse allows you to develope
SWT-based thick clients that can run anywhere Eclipse runs.

Joe