Project

open source
Editor: Christof Ebert
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Ve c t o r C o n s u l t i n g

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c h r i s t o f . e b e r t @ v e c t o r- c o n s u l t i n g . d e

Using Eclipse as a Tool-Integration Platform for Software Development
Zhihui Yang and Michael Jiang, Motorola
It’s the most powerful tool-integration platform ever in the software world, and it’s open source. Eclipse has achieved what many industry associations have tried since the 1980s—to provide an easy-to-use, robust, open, industry-level platform for plugging in tools so that they can interact and integrate seamlessly with each other. It’s a proof point for the business and spirit that drives the Free and Open Source Software movement—and will continue to grow it. This summary of Eclipse’s practical use comes from an industry giant, Motorola, and we thank the authors for illuminating the benefits and best practices from their experience. —Christof Ebert

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clipse is an open source software project dedicated to providing a robust, full-featured, and commercial-quality platform for developing and supporting highly integrated software engineering tools. The Eclipse platform defines a set of frameworks and common services that collectively make up the “integrationware” required to support a comprehensive tool-

ect phases and to manage the interactions of tools and the deliverables they produce.

integration platform. Excepting the small Eclipse runtime kernel, all the platform components are plug-in tools integrated seamlessly through predefined extension points. As a universal tool-development platform, Eclipse supports deliverables throughout the development and maintenance life cycle (see figure 1). By using the plug-ins corresponding to each life-cycle phase, developers avoid having to switch between tools to work on different proj0740-7459/07/$25.00 © 2007 IEEE

Comparison with other platforms Many software development tools use XML for tool integration. The XML standard lets developers...