views:

264

answers:

4

Is it possible to create Eclipse plugins/program Eclipse RCP apps without Java? (preferably in Jython)

+4  A: 

No. An Eclipse plugin is an OSGi bundle, and that requires interacting with a variety of things that can't implemented in Jython as far as I can see.

If you want to avoid Java, you can look at other things that target the JVM, but you will have to figure if you can produce and consume the specific items needed to call the necessary things and be called in the necessary ways.

bmargulies
What about other JVM languages?
Imran
+2  A: 

OSGi bundles may be written in other JVM languages like Scala. Eclipse plug-ins, as of now, does not support any language other than Java. The Eclipse Plug-in Development Environment heavily makes use of JDT which ties it to Java. However there are some plans I heard that plug-ins might be supported in other languages. But I don't see that coming in near future.

Ankur
As far as I know, the e4 project will bring such support. It is another question when will the e4 replace the current 3.x line in the mainstream.
Zoltán Ujhelyi
I guess you can use JavaScript to write plug-ins in e4 http://www.eclipse.org/e4/resources/e4-whitepaper.php#web2desktopI doubt it will trickle back in 3.x stream.
Ankur
+1  A: 

You can write your main code in Jython and use Java interfaces to call then from Java. Take a look at this for details. Also, I am writing a utility library (github.com/abhin4v/jywrapper) to do the same. It has very little documentation right now, but you can look at the examples provided.

abhin4v
+5  A: 

This will be possible in the next Eclipse major release e4:

One of the goals of e4 is to provide support for writing plugins in other languages.

The quote is from http://wiki.eclipse.org/E4/JavaScript which summarizes the current state of using javascript to implement eclipse plug-ins in e4.

This issue in eclipse's bugzilla issue #227058 also has some discussion on that, but I believe it is outdated.

I am currently not aware of activity regarding other languages.

wwerner