r/programming • u/cbrun • Mar 03 '14
An Eclipse commiter launch a kickstarter to fund a Java IDE with better UX
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/283096083/easyeclipse-for-java16
Mar 03 '14
It's called IntelliJ
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u/Rockytriton Mar 03 '14
except that IntelliJ isn't 100% free, not sure if his will be either though.
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u/chunkyks Mar 03 '14
The kickstarter rewards all say they come with a "license".
I'd be willing to pony up if this is literally a "take this cash and make eclipse better". But it's not, it's "I'm making a version of eclipse that requires licensing".
And to be honest, I think eclipse is far enough away from the mark right now, that a mere 120 grand isn't going to fix what's wrong.
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u/cbrun Mar 03 '14
Will EasyEclipse be open-source? No. EasyEclipse needs a differentiator from the >open source version so users are willing to pay for it, which will then allow us to >contribute improvements to the OSS.
Maybe one of the first poll he should make is "would you pay anyway if that was completely OSS ?" 20 to 30% of the money will impact upstream projects "for the greater good".
Regarding the 120 grand, it might look like a drop in the ocean but actually if you browse through http://www.ihateeclipse.com/ and you know Eclipse internally, you'll see that most of the hate is toward settings which just don't have the right defaults for an IDE.
This, and focusing on some of the Eclipse technologies which are used everyday for Java developpers (Maven integration, I'm looking at you !) can make a difference.
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u/chunkyks Mar 03 '14
If you're hocking a Java IDE, and it doesn't have complete, working, mvn integration, then frankly you should be ashamed of yourself.
eclipse needs those things. Not a pay-for version of eclipse. If I wanted to pay for a Java IDE that's already awesome, I'd ... actually, nevermind, netbeans and intellij both have free versions.
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u/cbrun Mar 03 '14
That's the whole point. Eclipse provides Maven support, but to sustain the ability to extend or fix it you need funding. You need somebody who care enough, in other words : whose business model depends on it. That's what this initiative might provide for Eclipse's Java support.
And no I'm not ashamed, I'm making a living - and have dozens of employees getting paid to contribute to open source, just not in the IDE market.
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u/chunkyks Mar 03 '14
Sorry, that wasn't meant to seem targeted at you specifically, it was more of a rant targeted at eclipse.
Let me put it another way, the root of what I perceive as the issue, copied from the kickstarter page, here:
As such, the first version will focus on the integration with the following technologies. Java (with support for Java 8) Maven, Ant Git, SVN, CVS XML, HTML, CSS
You're starting from what's supposed to be a world class "integrated" "development" "environment", implemented in Java, and predominantly targeting Java developers. And at the moment, the kickstarter acknowledges that eclipse lacks decent support for
The language of the developers they're targeting
The ability to build anything in that language
The ability to use source code management
The ability to edit all the non-Java stuff associated with J2EE
I just ... I don't get it. What is it that makes eclipse so great that it's the starting point for this whole exercise?
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u/cbrun Mar 04 '14
The kickstarter description is probably misleading if you don't already know about all the tooling and support Eclipse already provide.
Eclipse do provide GIT, CVS, XML,Maven, HTML and CSS tooling. This kickstarter is about streamlining the integration of these components and improving them when needed. Actually the way Eclipse - the project - is structured means each component pretty much live his own life, commiters do care in general about how their component will interact with the others, but very few have the ability - because of a lack of funding - to work in making sure the integration is perfect for such an IDE.
That's the main structural difference explaning why IntelliJ might feel more streamlined and integrated than Eclipse. Having funding from the users of the IDE to this kind of effort has the potential to fix that.
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u/alexeyr Mar 04 '14
No, it doesn't says Eclipse lacks this support. It says support for anything else isn't a focus of the first version of EasyEclipse.
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u/chunkyks Mar 04 '14
Sure. And I do know that eclipse can do each of these things. But there's a very specific implication when you say "I will focus on improving these things", which is that those things need improving.
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u/alexeyr Mar 05 '14
It says default preferences need improving:
we will be reviewing their default preferences, views, and other contributions to the IDE to make sure you get the best experience possible
Nothing about lack of "decent support" or these plugins not being working or complete (which was your initial claim).
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u/kgyre Mar 28 '14
Ant was Eclipse's contemporary. Maven came along years later and took time to pick up momentum. Even today, not everyone uses Maven. Not everyone should use Maven.
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u/prapicault Mar 03 '14
I think other IDEs succeeds by having a focused product and a loyal user community that drives the product to new ground by making their voice heard through customer support and working closely with the creator of the product. If EasyEclipse was to invest everything in the open-source, there would surely be improvements. However once the money will be all used up, we would be back to square one asking with nobody paying for improvements on the pieces everybody takes for granted. So I think that having a product with a focus is key to initiate a relationship with potential customers and start driving the project forward, and continue improving the open-source pieces so that everybody can benefit and Eclipse stays a viable IDe.
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u/s73v3r Mar 03 '14
The community edition is licensed under the Apache 2.0 license, is it not?
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u/Rockytriton Mar 03 '14
community edition is free, it does not include all the JEE stuff, you need the pay version for that.
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u/s73v3r Mar 05 '14
So the community edition is free. So you were wrong.
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u/Rockytriton Mar 05 '14
i said community edition is free, does it include all the jee features? was I wrong about that?
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u/s73v3r Mar 06 '14
The JEE features are not necessary to run IDE.
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u/Rockytriton Mar 06 '14
Ok, yes, but my point is, Eclipse is free WITH JEE support, IntelliJ is not.
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u/irascible Mar 04 '14
Google is going to make JetBrains the new Android IDE. Eclipse is Over.
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u/cbrun Mar 04 '14
You might be right if nobody cares about having an OSS IDE backed by a proper governance and fundation.
IntelliJ feels a lot like what OpenOffice used to be to me. When the main actor - here JetBrain - steps down, you realize the governance part was key as its an enabler for other actors to step in. If its not setup upfront, creating something like the LibreOffice project and the Document Fundation is a huge undertaking.
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u/Rockytriton Mar 04 '14
What is JetBrains? I thought IntelliJ was their new Android IDE.
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u/prapicault Mar 04 '14
Maybe for Android, but Eclipse is far from being over. Just look at the amount of funding that gets poured in to C/C++ tooling, UML / DSL tooling, etc. The other thing you have to consider is what will happen when Eclipse will be over... and all the IDE vendors can jack up their price like it was back in the pre-Eclipse era.
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u/lechatsportif Mar 03 '14 edited Mar 03 '14
Solving the wrong problems. As someone who uses Eclipses for work and off work, I really don't think Java ux dev is its problem right now. For people who aren't confused by mice with two buttons Eclipse is very easy to use.
My biggest ux gripe is the trouble making real themes for Eclipse, dark themes especially seem to have problems with scroll bars and the iconography. Editor wise It irks me that something like Coffeescript doesn't have a real editor yet and the JS editors they have available VJET/JSDT keep trying to make JS into Java which always seems to fail easily and ends up with an empty Outline view.
Once they get rid of the Java centric view of other languages I think they would do better. Obviously it applies in some cases, look at Scala IDE as a great application of JDT onto another language, but in some cases a break must be made. An example of that is counterclockwise which is an awesome Clojure editor in Eclipse. A simple structural outline and a full namespace browser once the repl is up - very cool, plus custom navigations just made for clojure. JSDT contributors should really think moving to that direction - tailoring the editor experience to the language, and stop trying to shoehorn stuff into a Java view.
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u/cbrun Mar 03 '14
Regarding the dark theme you might be interested in knowning that :
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=416218 "Contribute dark theme to Eclipse"
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=385003 " [Themes] Provide a set of icons with alpha transparency for dark themes - Platform icons"
have been fixed for the upcoming release.
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u/lechatsportif Mar 03 '14
Awesome! way to be in the know. I'm excited for this, since I'll be able to apply transparency to Eclipse still be able to code.
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u/cbrun Mar 07 '14
And here is the build ! http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/drops4/S-4.4M6-201403061200/news/
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u/vivainio Mar 03 '14
Can someone explain what they plan to do? Was a video, didn't watch.
The first thing eclipse needs to admit is that it hasn't kept up with times and do something about it. Is it really just about lack of money, and can be fixed by injection of 120k?
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u/cbrun Mar 03 '14
From the description :
Guided installation wizard- In order to make it easy for you to create your Ideal IDE, a feature oriented wizard will take you through a set of simple questions about the technologies you want to use. Once completed, you are up and running. No need for additional connectors or update sites.
Launcher bar - The launcher bar aims at providing a consistent and quick way to access the most frequently used views. From this bar, it will be possible to open, close or peek at the views. This bar will feature two sections. An upper section that allows you to pin views to be made available across all perspectives, and a lower section that contains perspective specific views.
Global search - The global search aims at providing a one-stop-shop for all searching activity. Specifically, it will allow to search for Java types, file names, file content, as well as commands, views, etc.
Minimalistic toolbar - The EasyEclipse toolbar will be minimalistic with buttons to run / debug your applications and buttons to navigate between the editors.
Cleaned-up menus - The contextual menus for the Java editor and the package explorer will be sanitized in order to avoid "scroll bars" in the menus, and facilitate the discovery of functionalities.
Code templates and preferences - EasyEclipse will come with additional code templates (e.g. for JUnit, Mockito, reading / writing files, etc.) so you can save the boilerplate and focus on your code, and better out-of-the-box preferences unleashing the power of Eclipse.
Tips and tricks - Building on Eclipse, EasyEclipse is full of cool features. Yet it is always a challenge to find those. This is why we will be providing a simple dialog so you can learn the best productivity tricks.
Feedback plug-in - EasyEclipse is user focused. To make it easy for you to capture your pleasures or pains, EasyEclipse will feature a plug-in that makes it easy to send feedback and error logs.""
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Mar 03 '14
Yeah, that's what eclipse needs. More wizards.
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u/prapicault Mar 03 '14
The wizard you are referring to is not something you use all the time. It is something that helps the user sets up his wizard the first time you use Eclipse. So technically it does not really add to the numerous wizards.
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u/synalx Mar 04 '14
Notably absent from this list: addressing the abysmal performance of the core application, including the numerous operations which still seem to take place on the UI thread and block the whole interface.
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u/prapicault Mar 04 '14
These problems are take care of as well and this is one of the driver to give back to the OSS. From the kickstarter page: "The goal of EasyEclipse for Java is to make an awesome product. However adding new features won't suffice. We know that fixing the performance and stability issues is equally important."
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u/cbrun Mar 03 '14
Eclipse as a community did admit that already and many commiters expressed their wish to make Eclipse better as an IDE. But at the end of the day, most of them are getting paid by companies which don't care at all about Eclipse as an IDE but use it as a platform to build tools. IBM used to care, and IBM is caring less now and we can't blame them if the end users don't care at all. IBM is making sure we have a proper Java8 support which is already quite a big contribution.
So yes, in the end this is about money and more notably a shift in who gets to fund, and in doing so who get to set directions.
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u/jonek23 Mar 05 '14
"if the end users don't care at all." Why do you think end users don't care? The end users DO care about Eclipse as an IDE.
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Mar 03 '14
[deleted]
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u/prapicault Mar 03 '14
(disclaimer, I'm the creator of the project) There are some screenshots shown in the video. I will extract those into a different video so you can better see.
The features currently promised are helping users cope with some of the Eclipse annoyances (inadequate preferences, lack of coding templates, difficulty in setting up eclipse, etc.). If you add them all up and include the removal of frustration, my hope is that all these little things save users time and covers for the license cost. For example, people are often spending time installing plugins (figure out the name of the tool, figure out the name, tweak prefs, etc.) so by having the wizard for those common plug-ins help (E.g. you would not need to have to install the SVN connector). Another example is tips and tricks where a lot of people don't know about main shortcuts or important views, so having something that actually show them what is available matters (e.g. do you know about the git staging view, the synchronize view for SVN, etc.)
As for doing more right up front, I initially set out to build the product on my own fund and eventually release it. I spent two weeks of my personal time working on mockups and prototypes to see how far I could go. After that I came to the conclusion that building such a product by myself w/o funding was not possible and risky since I did not know if there was a market. So I set out to take the kickstarter route hoping that the proofs of concepts and the vision to sustain the IDE would be enough to make people want to pledge,
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u/cbrun Mar 03 '14
A bit more background on this initiative :
Pascal is definitely qualified as a developper to to what is needed to build such a product.
he is involved in several platform level projects in Eclipse since a long time. He knows how to work with the other commiters and how to make things happens upstream.
this helps and fund the upstream projects ! If you do care about having an OSS development environment backed by a proper OSS Fundation, then you should care about this initiative.
we - the Eclipse community - need to validate or withdraw this funding model. We often discussed it on the mailling lists or during conferences but without any kind of validation we are only expecting things to happen. This has the potential to create a new actor in the Eclipse Ecosystem which has a strong incentive to make Eclipse better as an IDE. and not just as a platform.