the corner office

I figgered I should see what the Eclipse Rich Client Platform malarkey is all about, and so I've taken some time this weekend to work through Ed Burnette's tutorials on creating a simple RCP application. The rush of seeing a blank window pop up on screen and all that. I must admit, I didn't know what the hell I was doing, but after making my way through a few chapters of the Official Eclipse FAQ (great content, utterly shite obfuscatary presentation), things hold a hint of a chance of making sense.

I always wondered what the big deal was with the "Eclipse way." You have this horrendously complicated IDE that does a zillion things, and my first impression when I started using it was that people had just kept slapping features on it like layers on a mud hut. Not so. The underlying Eclipse architecture is actually quite intriguing. A very simple core really just acts as a control centre and bootstrapper for more advanced chunks of functionality. The ultimate in extensibility. It's like software Lego on a grand scale. Clearly a lot of thinking has gone into the platform - certainly a lot more than I'd originally imagined.

Reading through explanations of how it hinges together, I can see why people are excited about the possibilities.