Professional Eclipse 3 For Java Developers

Just now i finished reading Professional Eclipse 3 For Java Developers

Great book written by Berthold Daum.We can easily conclude that author is having 100% authority in eclipse development.

I throughly enjoyed the duke speaks example and the code.

I skipped below chapters.

a) Chapter 3 i.e Visual Editor for Java (VE) as i have not much interest in downloading this plug-in.
b) Chapter 9 and Chapter 8 which includes about SWT and Jface integration and currently i am not interested in swing development.
c) Chapter 11 - 15 as i am only a application developer and have no interest in Eclipse Plugin Development and it is way out of my knowledge scope and frankly i have other priorities in life rather than programming alone.

I wanted to share few points from this book.

1) The first version of Eclipse was released in November 2001.Eclipse was announced by IBM as a $40 million donation to the Open Source community. The first reactions to this gift, however, were mixed. While many Java programmers hailed the release of Eclipse enthusiastically (when would one not be enthusiastic about a $40 million present?), Sun Microsystems was initially less than amused.

In the meantime, Eclipse has taken the Java world (and not only the Java world) by storm, despite the fact that Sun Microsystems is still not onboard. Eclipse is now completely managed by eclipse.org, an independent, nonprofit organization in which, however, IBM plays a major role. Despite the fact that the membership fee is quite hefty ($250.00 per year) and commitment is asked in the form of staff members
working actively toward the development of Eclipse, the membership circle is not at all small: the Eclipse consortium has about 150 member companies, and people from Ericsson, Genuitec LLC, IBM,Hewlett Packard, Intel, MontaVista Software, QNX Software Systems Ltd., SAP AG, SAS, Serena Software, and the University of Washington belong to the board (Microsoft, you guessed it, is not a
member).

2) Modifying this \eclipse\configuration\config.ini file allows us starting Eclipse in different configurations without having to use command line parameters.

One of the most important command-line options deals with the selection of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) under which the Eclipse platform is executed. If you don’t want to use the standard JVM (the one executed when invoking the java command), you can specify a different JVM by using the command-line option -vm.

3) When the Eclipse loader is invoked it uses a three-stage strategy to determine the JVM under which the platform is executed. If a JVM is explicitly specified with the command-line option -vm, then this VM is used. Otherwise, the loader will look for a specific Java Runtime Environment (JRE) that was deployed with the Eclipse platform. Such a JRE must be located in the directory \eclipse\jre\. If such a JRE does not exist (as in our case), then the location of the VM is derived from the PATH environment variable.

By the way, this strategy affects only the JVM under which the platform is executed. Which JVM and which SDK are used for Java development is specified separately in the Eclipse workbench.

The command-line option -vmargs can be used to specify parameters for the Java Virtual Machine. For example:

eclipse.exe -vm C:\java13\bin\javaw -vmargs -Xmx256M

Here Eclipse is started with a specific JVM and sets the JVM heap to 256 MB. With very large projects this can help to prevent instabilities of the workbench.

4) Formatting Code

Formatting code can be very helpful, because it is easier to detect violations of the control structures of a program (such as open if or while statements) when the program is formatted. In the preference category Java > Code Style > Code Formatter you can configure how the Eclipse code formatter works,as shown in Figure 1.14. The best method is to try some of the settings and to select those that work best for your application. To modify these settings you must first create a new profile (by pressing the New button). Then you can edit this profile by pressing the Edit button. You can create multiple profiles and switch easily among them. When you publish your code, for example, you may use different profiles for different sorts of publications.

5) The Scrapbook

Eclipse also inherited the Scrapbook from Visual Age. A scrapbook page is nothing other than a small file in which you can try out Java expressions or just jot down a new idea.

You can create a new scrapbook page by invoking the function File > New > Other. In the wizard select Java > Java Run/Debug > Scrapbook Page. In the dialog that appears specify a name for the new page and, if necessary, the target folder. The result is the creation of a new empty scrapbook page in the target folder. Scrapbook pages have the file extension .jpage.
Now, how do you use a scrapbook page? You simply type in arbitrary Java expressions. If you use external types in these expressions, you either have to qualify the type names fully or add import statements. The context function Set Imports allows you to add import statements for single types or whole packages.

The selected expression is executed with the help of the Execute context function. The scrapbook context function appears on the workbench’s toolbar at the far right.

6) Execute is not the only function that you can use to run a Java expression. In cases where you want to know the result of an expression, it would be better to use the Display function.

For example, executing the expression

6*7

with the Display function returns the result
(int) 42


Hope you enjoy reading the book.

About the Author

Berthold Daum has a Ph.D in Mathematics and is a professional Java and XML developer who has been using Eclipse since it was first developed. Mr. Daum specializes in innovative electronic business technology and electronic content production; his clients include SAP Integrated Services AG and Software AG. His experience in software training and ability to anticipate the needs of professional developers has been demonstrated in his previous books, including Eclipse 2 for Java Developers (Wiley) and Modeling Business Objects with XML Schema (Morgan-Kaufmann).

Mr. Daum Studied photography in Melbourne and has both exhibited and published his images of Australia's natural beauty.