I am new to to Eclipse RCP and SWT/JFace. I intend to purchase the Second Edition of the well known Eclipse Rich Client Platform book by Jeff McAffer, Jean-Michel Lemieux, Chris Aniszczyk. I wish to know from people who have read any of the editions of the book whether the book serves as a good introduction to both the topics (RCP and SWT/JFace)? Or would I need separate reading material for SWT/JFace?
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A:
I read the first edition of the book in 2007 when I started a project with Eclipse RCP development.
It was a really useful introduction on how to build RCP applications and what concepts are used by Eclipse.
Two other books that I read later are good follow-ups when you finished that book:
- Eclipse plug-ins by Eric Clayberg & Dan Rubel
- Contributing to Eclipse: Principles, Patterns, and Plug-Ins by Erich Gamma & Kent Beck
Although the second one is a bit dated, the concepts explained are still the same in the heart of Eclipse.
Another thing I did to learn more Eclipse RCP/JFace/SWT was to look at the source code of two great open-source projects built on Eclipse:
- RSSOwl
- MP3M by Kai Tödter
MP3M is especially interesting since the author tries to keep it up to date with the changes that newer Eclipse versions bring to the platform.
Johannes Wachter
2010-08-20 06:45:44
Thanks jwachter. So can I count on the book for introduction to both RCP as well as SWT/JFace?
msj
2010-08-20 09:21:24
In my opinion it provides a good starting point and introduction since you're working on the same example throughout the book.
Johannes Wachter
2010-08-20 09:42:11