Moving to Eclipse I - Magic Bullet?
Seeking Development Convergence ...
Over the past few weeks, I've almost written an entry about juggling multiple development tools for work and home projects - CSS editor, HTML editor, web site code generation tool, remote terminal sessions to web server, and two or three browser windows, wildly flipping between them all to get even the most basic changes done to a site. There's even more stuff going on when I'm interacting with the database - Enterprise manager for quick queries, Visio for data modeling, and another browser for googling SQL syntax and hacks.
I've experimented / played with Eclipse a bit last year, but haven't given over to it; however, I've been monitoring RSS feeds with updates about Eclipse plugins and other developments. I've amassed quite a collection of interesting things, all tying in with the areas listed above, plus other things I need to get into, such as Java/Struts, Python, PHP, BPL, XML/XHTML/DHTML/AJAX, etc. So, I'm nuking my old Eclipse installation and re-install from scratch - and capture some thoughts along the way.
Today's Goal: Use Eclipse as my One Development Tool for cazh1.com ...
(okay, except for the blog entries)
Uninstalling: Starting with a clean slate is preferred, and I am reintroduced to what I believe is Eclipse' multi-platform style - there's no integration (dependence) with the Windows registry, so uninstallation is basically nuking the folder. Ok, not that I'm that picky about process, I really just tried to start the thing after a few months and it refused, throwing up a slightly cryptic message that I recognized might have something to do with my big folder re-organization in the first part of this year.
Still, it gives me an opportunity to go through some tutorial / get started stuff, and also exposed me to temptation; at this moment, the latest Stable Build for Release 3.1 is available for download. Ach! Ah well, I'm going to stick with a fresh download of 3.0.2, assuming that most of the stuff (plugins and documentation) out there is fairly mature with that release.
Downloading: Ah, now what exactly to download? This is really taking a long time, but I am making two major pulls ...
- Eclipse 3.0.2 - almost 88MB
- Eclipse Web Tools - 165MB, a big one. This may be overkill, but after scanning a bit, it looks like the wtp project is the best current collection that will give me the HTML, CSS, XML, DTD etc. basics, plus some DB stuff that I'll have to check out.
- BTW, there is a nicely executed open-source business model in play with YOXOS, bundling up developer-friendly Eclipse and plugins on a CD, with some reasonably interesting-sounding value adds - yes, I agree that there are ways to make money in this world!
- Of course, I'm not ordering the CDs, I insist on doing it myself <hhh> ...
Keeping Track: While I wait for the interminable downloads, I'm loading up del.icio.us with my fav Eclipse links, although the plugins page and RSS feeds deserve a spot on my daily browse list.
Installing Eclipse: Don't Panic, there are no secret hidden tricks - it's deceptively simple. You download the zip file, and expand it into the folder from which you want to run Eclipse; no fancy INSTALL.EXE involved (see Uninstalling, above). Just make sure to use the folder names stored in the the ZIP file. Next, make sure you've got a Java Runtime Environment (JRE) installed on your system; from a command prompt, enter java -version as a quick check.
- Note: I found that I had to uninstall any and all existing Java Runtime Environments on my machine, get a nice clean latest-and-greatest from Sun. Another Very Long Download ...
So far, we've only installed the basic Eclipse, not the Web Tools just yet - need to check out the basics, first. The help system that comes delivered is excellent; absolutely need to go through the tutorial section, mostly to make sure you learn the Eclipse terminology for widows, workspaces, views, and perspectives. If you like variety, here's a nice little write up I found that walks through things nice and slow.
Installing Web Tools: Again, a simple unzip into the Eclipse directory; note to self, this is a tad disconcerting at this point because I am anticipating uninstall issues, spaghetti'd up stuff, and hoping the open source community have seen me coming a mile away ... Now, this big file just replaced my eclipse.exe file, that was definitely interesting, but on we go ...
I ended up taking the Yes to All option in my unzip program, with the sneaking suspicion that I am re-installing Eclipse and the Really Big Download was all-inclusive ... ahh, experiential learning, comfortable with uncertainty ...
And the Results: Well, somewhat anticlimatic in the beginning. Yes, I have a nice, somewhat robust looking environment, and the big effort at first is replacing the little things I had set up with Crimson, like routines to pull log files and run them through Report Magic, or push content updates up to my production environment. Still, I've flipped to play mode vs. read online help, and I am finding out some interesting things, like how many special file-type editors I now have - because I wanted to edit .BAT files, not run them when I click on 'em.
I was also a little dismayed at first at the liberties the environment wanted to take with my "source file" formatting - some things are pretty subjective, yes, I know ...
I haven't figured out browser preview yet - WYSIWIG-type programming, yet I do have a two-monitor setup and shouldn't be so lazy. The real challenge will come in soon, as I want to get more aggressively into the LAMP-style scripting languages ... but enough for now ...
Technorati Tags: eclipse, development, magic, plugin
posted by James P. MacLennan at 2:06 PM
| Permalink
| 0 Comments
