5 reasons to become a friend of Eclipse

One of the best Java development tools (and I suspect a major reason for Java’s success) has been the phenomenon known as Eclipse. When I started writing Java, the best tools were proprietary ones such as VisualCafe and JBuilder. These have now all gone due to the success of Eclipse and it is the main development platform not just for Java but many other languages. It provides not only a Java development tool but also a flexible development environment and a flexible plugin architecture (we released our our PDF viewer plugin in for it).

The most amazing thing about Eclipse though is probably how they manage to provide so much for free with regular updates. We have a free Open Source version of our PDF viewer software  and I wrote another blog article (Is JPedal free?) on the implications and costs of trying to have an Open Source version.

Well, they are now trying to encourage donations to raise money to help fund development.  So why bother. Well, here are 5 reasons:-

1. If you are using it for professional work, 35 US dollars is a pitifully small amount to pay towards something you depend upon. Many developers probably spend more than that in a week at Starbucks. Supporting Eclipse will make you feel much better (and have less impact on your waistline).

2. The Eclipse foundation had demonstrated that they really know how to drive Eclipse forward and you can be sure it will be used to improve the product (they are not a profit-making operation).

3. You get early access to the Indigo release (rather useful if you develop for of rely on Eclipse).

4. You can put the rather tasteful friend of Eclipse logo on your blog or website.

5. Ian Skerrett does a tireless job of driving Eclipse forward and deserves our support and encouragement.

That is 7 bucks a reason! I’ve signed up and I hope you will at http://ianskerrett.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/500-friends-of-indigo/

Related Posts:

• Writing a JavaFX PDF Viewer plugin for Netbeans – 11. Creating a Submenu for our plugin in the NetBeans platform
• 3 things Bitcoin and PDF have in common
• What is new in PDF Spec 2.0?
• Improved Shape Rendering with Soft Clipping
• PDF Portfolio support added to JPedal, so what are they?

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Mark Stephens

System Architect and Lead Developer at IDRSolutions

Mark Stephens has been working with Java and PDF since 1999 and has diversified into HTML5, SVG and JavaFX. He also enjoys speaking at conferences and has been a Speaker at user groups, Business of Software, Seybold and JavaOne conferences. He has a very dry sense of humor and an MA in Medieval History for which he has not yet found a practical use.

Latest posts by Mark Stephens (see all)

• Introducing the new XFA Parser in FormVu - May 16, 2018
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• How we are improving our code quality with NetBeans in 2018 - March 1, 2018