Charles Gieseler
Iowa State University RePast Study Group
6/28/04
This document is meant to provide helpful information to those interested in learning about Eclipse. In particular the information presented here is targeted towards those who are new to Java and are looking to use Eclipse as a development environment to get started in. Though this document was originally intended for members of the ISU RePast Study Group , others who are interested in learning about Java and Eclipse may also find helpful.
Scott Storkel's Turorial: Overall an alright introduction, but assumes working knowledge of Java. He does use an example with provided coded to show how to start a new project and demonstrate the basic concepts of Eclipse.
John Murphy's tutorial: Assumes less previous Java knowledge, but it is brief. This is clearly written and doesn't assume as much Java knowledge, but it lacks screen shots or in depth explanation.
Here are a few other resources for learning Eclipse in addition to what is listed on the RePast Study Group page.
Eclipse packaged documentation: Eclipse comes with fairly decent documentation accessible through the help system. In fact, when first loaded Eclipse opens a welcome screen with pointers to various included tutorials.
3plus4 Software Eclipse tutorials (English): A German software company that provides extensive tutorials for Eclipse. Broken into subjects an interlinked, these tutorials. They are clear, easy to follow (with screen shots), and they do not rely too heavily on the reader having previous Java knowledge. So far they seem to be the best tutorials I have found.
I have not looked at these books myself yet, but these are what I ran into in looking around. Included are links to Amazon which has descriptions, reviews, and previews.
Eclipse:
Step-by-Step, A Practical Guide to Becoming Proficient in Eclipse
by
Joe Pluta
Eclipse
in Action: A Guide for the Java Developer
by David Gallardo,
Ed Burnette, Robert McGovern
The
Java Developer's Guide to Eclipse
by Sherry Shavor, Jim
D'Anjou, Scott Fairbrother, Dan Kehn, John Kellerman, Pat McCarthy
These are for the C# aficionados. There are plug-ins available for Eclipse that allow you to develop in C#. As of yet, they do not provide the full powered environment available for Java, but they do provide useful editing capabilities.
improve-technologies.com: When you want to develop .NET application (or Web service), you have two choices: either you write your code using your favorite text editor, or you use Visual Studio.NET, Microsoft's IDE for developing .NET applications. If you opt for the second solution, you have to buy the product, which can be quite expensive if you just want to test C# and the .NET framework. Thus, the aim of this plugin is to offer an advanced text editor to discover C# and develop and build simple applications.
Black-sun: A C# source file editor. It would be a long way to be comparable to Eclipse Java Editor and JDT. For now, the goal is just to be useful for simple editing like an EMACS mode
IBM Alphaworks CodeRally: CodeRally is a Java-based, real-time programming game based on the Eclipse platform. It uses the Eclipse platform and a very simple API that allows users unfamiliar with Java to easily compete while they learn the Java language.
This seems like a really interesting idea. Actually this is the second one they have done. I haven't tried it out, but it sounds intriguing.
Eclipse Community Education Project: The goal of the Eclipse Community Education Project (ECESIS) is to promote the creation, improvement and distribution of commercial and academic quality Eclipse courseware, education and training technologies, and resource material.
I looked around a little and they have an entire course module devoted to introducing Java programming with Eclipse. This includes a course outline, lecture slides, and lab activities with included source code. The first lab goes over how to install Eclipse.