The Eclipse Juggernaut Moves On (Part 2)

I've been an Eclipse fan ever since version 1.0, that's simply because I was a VisualAge fan before that. However, I've always advocated Swing over SWT simply because it's more agile. However, after browsing through this "Eclipse Forms Programming Guide", I'm beginning to think, the hell with agility, I need convenience and ease of use!

I'm looking for a dirt quick way of putting together a nice slick looking professional fat client. So, I'm thinking how best to do it using Swing, maybe I'll use JGoodies Forms, L2FProd Common Components, SwiXML, UIHierarchy and I'll tie it all together with Werx. However, this Eclipse Forms stuff in addition to the RCP and Swing embedding is making it look like it's no contest!

Now add to this mix the news report of the Lotus Workplace Client technology that merges portal technology with rich clients using "RCPML", a rich client markup language. The pressure is just immense. It's becoming painfully clear, the combined resources of Eclipse, IBM and Lotus is rapidly widening the technology gap. I just hope that Eclipse takes the necessary effort to maintain compatability amongst all relevant platforms (i.e. Windows, MacOS X, Linux etc.).

Back in November 2002 I wrote about "The Eclipse Juggernaut" which was relevant for programming environments. However looks like we are watching Part 2 of this body snatcher monster movie, subtitled "Eclipse takes over the Fat Client".