I appreciate the flexible structure of Eclipse. I really want to know what programming language is used to write such software, and what design concepts are used in it to make it so flexible.
+1
A:
It's open source - you can download it and examine to your heart's content.
ceejayoz
2009-08-24 15:47:50
+2
A:
One way to visualize programming/markup languages used to write a piece of free or open source software is using Ohloh. Ohloh's code analysis for Eclipse shows that many languages were used, but mostly Java, XML, and HTML.
Adam Monsen
2009-08-24 15:47:51
XML is part of the Java ecosystem in a way - it's just a configuration format used by Java. My guess is that the HTML is just documentation.
Wahnfrieden
2009-08-24 16:30:09
A:
When you look at http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/ you can actually read the source. That should answer all your questions.
S.Lott
2009-08-24 15:55:19
+4
A:
Eclipse is written in Java. The GUI toolkit is called SWT (Standard Widget Toolkit) which is also written in Java, but with small portions in languages like C to allow the native binding.
The architecture is highly plugin-based. With the exception of a minimal core, everything is a plugin. The plugin can provide extension points that other plugins can implement. With this mechanism, the mesh of plugins allows the high flexibility of the overall system. Wikipedia provides a nice summary of the plugin architecture.
The source of Eclipse is (to a large extend) very clean and provides lots of nice use s for the central design patterns, like Vistitors, Adapters, and so on.
dmeister
2009-08-24 16:02:59