INTRODUCTION TO ECLIPSE

Eclipse is a multi-language Integrated development environment (IDE) comprising a base workspace and an extensible plug-in system for customizing the environment. It is written mostly in Java. It can be used to develop applications in java and, by means of various plug-in other programming languages including Ada, C, C++, COBOL, Fortan, Haskell, Javascript, Perl, PHP, Ruby (on Rails framework), Scala, Clojure, Groovy, Scheme, and Erlang. It can also be used to develop packages for the software Mathematica. Development environments include the Eclipse Java development tools (JDT) for Java and Scala, Eclipse CDT for C/C++ and Eclipse PDT for PHP, among others.

The initial codebase originated from IBM VisualAge.The Eclipse software development kit (SDK), which includes the Java development tools, is meant for Java developers. Users can extend its abilities by installing plug-ins written for the Eclipse Platform, such as development toolkits for other programming languages, and can write and contribute their own plug-in modules.

Released under the terms of the Eclipse Public License, Eclipse SDK is free and open source software (although it is incompatible with the GNU General Public License). It was one of the first IDEs to run under GNU Classpath and it runs without problems under IcedTea.