• Post Reply Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic
programming forums Java Mobile Certification Databases Caching Books Engineering Micro Controllers OS Languages Paradigms IDEs Build Tools Frameworks Application Servers Open Source This Site Careers Other Pie Elite all forums
this forum made possible by our volunteer staff, including ...
Marshals:
  • Campbell Ritchie
  • Tim Cooke
  • paul wheaton
  • Jeanne Boyarsky
  • Ron McLeod
Sheriffs:
  • Paul Clapham
  • Liutauras Vilda
  • Devaka Cooray
Saloon Keepers:
  • Tim Holloway
  • Roland Mueller
Bartenders:

Contributing to Eclipse-Principles, Patterns, and Plug-Ins by Erich Gamma, Kent Beck

 
Bartender
Posts: 962
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
<pre>Author/s : Erich Gamma, Kent Beck
Publisher : Addison-Wesley
Category : Miscellaneous Java
Review by : Nathan Pruett
Rating : 9 horseshoes
</pre>
Eclipse is the name of both an open source IDE and the extensible framework that it is built upon. A little experience of using Eclipse as an IDE, and a desire to extend the framework further are needed for this book. Before you know it, you'll be developing your first plug-in. Of course, it's a 'Hello World', but it introduces the concepts you need to go on to bigger and better things. The 'bigger and better' thing the book provides is a JUnit plug-in that performs automatic unit tests during builds. The authors don't just teach you how to build a plug-in, but how to build a plug-in that 'plays well with others' and allows for your plug-in to be extended in the future. Wrapping up the book are a collection of 'pattern stories' describing some of the design patterns used in Eclipse. The clear writing style and the flow of topics will help you get up to speed and writing plug-ins in no time. If you need further details on a topic ample references to the Eclipse documentation or other books that will help you on the subject are provided. All-in-all this book is a great resource for anyone that wants to extend the functionality of Eclipse.


More info at Amazon.com
More info at Amazon.co.uk
 
Book Review Team
Bartender
Posts: 962
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
<pre>Review by : Ernest Friedman-Hill
Rating : 9 horseshoes
</pre>
"Contributing to Eclipse" is a great read. More importantly, as someone who is in the middle of their first major Eclipse plugin development project, I learned a lot -- even though I've previously read every other available book on the topic. Gamma and Beck take you through the development of a fairly sophisticated plugin, step by step. Perhaps most welcome, the plugin they develop isn't a syntax-highlighting text editor (an example that's already been done to death,) but a set of tools for running JUnit tests on Java code!

This is the only book I've seen that discusses testing and Test-Driven Development of plugins, a must for serious plugin developers. As you'd expect from the developers of JUnit, they use JUnit to test every piece of functionality they add. Surprisingly, even though you'd expect some confusing in writing about using JUnit to test a JUnit plugin, there's none. Gamma and Beck are both excellent writers, and they know this subject matter inside out.

A word of warning: this is neither an introduction to nor a reference for Eclipse plugin programming. I don't think I would have gotten nearly as much from this book if I hadn't read "Eclipse in Action" and "The Java Programmer's Guide to Eclipse" first. But if you've gotten beyond the novice level with Eclipse, I guarantee you'll learn something by reading this book.


More info at Amazon.com
More info at Amazon.co.uk
 
When people don’t understand what you are doing they call you crazy. But this tiny ad just doesn't care:
We need your help - Coderanch server fundraiser
https://coderanch.com/wiki/782867/Coderanch-server-fundraiser
reply
    Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic