How similar is it between Eclipse and WSAD?

[Ko Ko Naing]

I have been hearing that Eclipse is kinda limited version of WSAD and I have no idea about the WSAD... But I have been playing around with Eclipse for about 5 months already... Since the company I am working does not have any policy about the IDE usage, I just would like to know whether I should ask them to use WSAD instead of Eclipse....

If both of them got the same look and feel, shortcuts and so and so, the learning curve would not be that high... So can anyone comment on this issue? Thanks a lot...

[Jeroen Wenting]

WSAD is Eclipse 2.1 (maybe still 2.0 even) with a load of custom plugins.

[Ko Ko Naing]

Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting:
WSAD is Eclipse 2.1 (maybe still 2.0 even) with a load of custom plugins.

Are the custom plug-ins that are in WSAD from IBM? Or are they from other third-party plug-ins like Lomboz, M7's editors and so and so? What I mean is whether WSAD is just a (Eclipse+Other Free Plug-ins integrated together) or not...

Thanks for your answer, Jeroen...

[Jeroen Wenting]

AFAIK they're IBM specific.
Maybe some have been released into the public domain or purchased by IBM for inclusion, I don't know (my knowledge of WSAD is limited to what I read as well).

[Nicholas Cheung]

Even WSAD and Eclipse provide the same functions, however, WSAD's functionalty is more delighted. Eclipse's download is to public, while IBM's only for WSAD.

Nick

[Avanish Kant]

WSAD (Websphere Developer Studio) is an IDE used for developing J2EE application that run on WebSphere application server (WAS).

Not sure how much help it will for developing J2EE applications that need to run on other App Servers.

Hope this answers you query.

[Naina Si]

My understanding is that Eclipse is just an IDE to write code, and any J2EE applications developed in Eclipse can be deployed on any application server (WebSphere or WebLogic).

Please correct me if i'm wrong.

[Mark Binau]

WSAD is Eclipse 2.1 (maybe still 2.0 even) with a load of custom plugins.

WSAD 5.x is based on Eclipse 2.x. IBM's RAD (Rational Application Developer) is supposed to be based on Eclipse 3. Unless there is some specific feature you need in RAD or your company has deep pockets, you probably don't need to spend the money for RAD.

[Ko Ko Naing]

Originally posted by Avanish Kant:
Not sure how much help it will for developing J2EE applications that need to run on other App Servers.

Originally posted by Naina Si:
My understanding is that Eclipse is just an IDE to write code, and any J2EE applications developed in Eclipse can be deployed on any application server (WebSphere or WebLogic).

Guys, do you mean that WSAD is good just to use with WAS? I haven't heard that WSAD is such server-specfic IDE... Can anyone comment on this? Thanks a lot for your great opinions on the issue of Eclipse and WSAD...

[Carlos Valcarcel]

Originally posted by Ko Ko Naing:


Guys, do you mean that WSAD is good just to use with WAS? I haven't heard that WSAD is such server-specfic IDE... Can anyone comment on this? Thanks a lot for your great opinions on the issue of Eclipse and WSAD...

WSAD/RAD is meant to be used with Websphere and Tomcat though there is support for Weblogic with the addition of a plug-in (at least that's what I've heard). If you are not deploying to Websphere WSAD may not be for you.

Carlos

[Bill Dornbush]

I don't know much about Eclipse out of the box, but I have used WSAD some for developing applications. Yes, it targets WebSphere as the server. It adds a complete environment for doing so, including support for all aspects of J2EE, web, database, XML, and more. It includes a debugging server that allows you to "deploy" your application on your development machine for testing. I have found it to be a very productive environment that has a lot of features that make development and testing fast. It handles almost all web.xml type files for you so you can focus on code development and testing. There may be similar packages for other environments but I doubt that they add any features that are missing in WSAD, and I would not be surprised that WSAD has some features that are missing in other packages of plug-ins. It also extends to other IBM products such as Portal so you can use the same environment for all development.

[Morten Moeller]

Most of WSADs extentions to Eclipse, IBM Open Sourced through the Eclipse Web Tools Platform (http://www.eclipse.org/webtools)

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Originally posted by Naina Si:
My understanding is that Eclipse is just an IDE to write code, and any J2EE applications developed in Eclipse can be deployed on any application server (WebSphere or WebLogic).

Please correct me if i'm wrong.

Naina. Any J2EE application developed in any IDE can be deployed to any app server. It's just that some combinations are easier than others. Eclipse needs a plugin to provide J2EE support.

WSAD/RAD provides those plugins, although you can get them elsewhere for free. More importantly, WSAD/RAD allow you to edit the IBM specific deployment descriptors within the IDE. This makes deployment much easier. I'll leave it to you to decide whether that is a good thing

[Ko Ko Naing]

Originally posted by Carlos Valcarcel:


WSAD/RAD is meant to be used with Websphere and Tomcat though there is support for Weblogic with the addition of a plug-in (at least that's what I've heard). If you are not deploying to Websphere WSAD may not be for you.

Thanks for your suggestion, Carlos... Since you might have read my original post above, the company I am working for is using ATG Dynamo Application Server as the main AppServer and people are free to use any IDEs... For now, I am using Eclipse as my primary IDE, even though I come from JBuilder background and here they won't invest such expensive IDE for the employees... That's why I need to use Eclipse...

As your suggestion, I should not use WSAD, since we are not emphasizing on WAS environment.

So can we conclude that Eclipse is good for all in general, while WSAD is good for WAS-specifc environment, even though it supports other app servers using suitable plug-ins? Thanks a lot for your warm reply...

[David Ulicny]

WSAD itself has support of WAS and Tomcat. I think it's possible to use it with another app server if there are suitable plugins.