Europa - Better Packaging

One of the notable things in this years Eclipse Release (Europa) is the way the Eclipse packages are released. In previous releases each project(WTP,DTP) had to be separately downloaded and installed.

For e.g. if you wanted a XML editor in Eclipse, you had to download and install the Web Tools Platform (WTP) package. With Europa there are set of 4 well defined packages targeted towards specific segment of developers.

Eclipse IDE for Java Developers

This package consists of the basic IDE with superior Java editing, incremental compilation, code assist etc. Also it includes the XML Editor (from WTP package).

The other packages included are:

• Base Platform
• JDT - Java Development Tooling
• CVS Client
• XML/XSD Editor
• Mylyn - Task Focused UI for Eclipse
• GEF
• EMF

Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers

This package is specially targeted for web developers. Many eclipse users are still not aware of Eclipse WTP project and hence I had encountered in many of the forums, where users complained of not being able to use Eclipse for Web Development.

Eclipse IDE for Java EE includes:

• Base Platform
• JDT
• Eclipse PDE - Plug-in Development Environment
• CVS Client
• Java IDE
• EMF
• GEF
• XML/XSD/HTML and JSP Editor
• Mylyn
• Datatools - Which help you quickly work with different DB’s.

Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers

If you are just interested in doing C/C++ development with Eclipse, you should download this package.

It includes

• Base Platform
• CDT - C/C++ Development Tooling
• CVS Client

Eclipse IDE for RCP/Plug-in Developers

This packages contains a complete set of tools for developers who want to create plug-ins and Rich Client Applications based on Eclipse.

It includes:

• Base Platform
• Eclipse SDK with complete source code
• EMF
• GEF
• Mylyn
• XML/XSD editor

If you do understand the different Eclipse packages, have a look at the official page detailing the different features in each Eclipse distribution.

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