[simon]

Hello,

I just found out this site tonight. MyEclipse seems to be an excellent plug-in to Eclipse. However, in order to get a clear picture, please allow me to ask this question…

There are many wonderful J2EE plug-ins for Eclipse out there that are open-source. For example, Lomboz and SOFIA just to name a couple. Can someone please tell me what are the advantages of MyEclipse over Lomboz or SOFIA?

My company is shifting from other programming languages/tools to all J2EE, and I am heading up the internal Java Users Group. Standardizing development tools will be the first priority. Therefore, a detail answer to my question will help us tremendously.

Thank you very much for the help.

[Todd Williams]

This is a good set of questions, so I’ll do my best to walk through them and give you specific answers as best I can.

First, here’s some background on MyEclipse. MyEclipse was conceived in October 2002 because we recognized that the market needed an inexpensive, simple, supported way to use Eclipse for J2EE development. Until MyEclipse came along, many developers were attempting to cobble together a workable J2EE IDE from Eclipse and the literally hundreds of individual plugins that were available. Productivity losses while using Eclipse were already a concern for development managers as their developers’ constantly evaluated the latest plugins, worked around reliability issues, and struggled to manage functional overlap and conflicts between plugins. It wasn’t unusual for developers to maintain several instances of Eclipse to help them deal with these challenges. In a nutshell, MyEclipse solves this problem by assimilating the unique capabilities contributed by our member companies, and the best of the open source efforts, to create a cohesive J2EE IDE that double-click installs as a product extension to the latest Eclipse release build.

Can someone please tell me what are the advantages of MyEclipse

Since you’re looking at transitioning your company to a new environment, here are some things to consider:

1) What company stands behind the product you select?
In our case, it’s Genuitec LLC (http://www.genuitec.com). Genuitec is a company dedicated to J2EE and Eclipse technology, as shown by its full membership in the Eclipse Consortium and seat on the Eclipse Board of Stewards (http://eclipse.org/org/index.html). We’ve been consulting, training, and mentoring on the use of Eclipse for J2EE development since Eclipse was first introduced. As a quick test, go to Google and type in the search terms: eclipse J2EE training
2) How easy is the product to install and use?
I don’t think there’s any doubt that a native double-click installer is by far the easiest option, especially for users that are new to Eclipse. MyEclipse is the only one that uses this technique to make installation and upgrade a breeze.
3) How much visibility or influence do you have on the product’s growth path?
MyEclipse publishes and updates its product roadmap regularly. You always know what we’re working on and where we’re going. Additionally, we actively solicit feature requests from our user community and then allow the community to prioritize the new features through polls on the site.
4) What is the development model used to grow and enhance the product?
MyEclipse has a very unique approach in this area. We are both a content author and aggregator. We will aggregate any useful capabilities from any open source projects, as needed to grow the Enterprise Workbench in the direction desired by our user community. Additionally, we will continue to build our own unique and innovative capabilities that are not available anywhere else. By both aggregating and building we believe we’ll be able to move faster than any other product.
5) What kind of support is available?
Good support for your primary development tool is critical. MyEclipse offers a multi-level approach with everything from forum-based to dedicated to match your organization’s needs.

Therefore, a detail answer to my question will help us tremendously.

Well, I hope that hit the high points of what you needed to know because I think I’ve rambled on long enough. 🙂 If you have any follow-on questions just post them here and I or someone else will do our best to answer them.

Regards,
Todd
VP Technology, Genuitec LLC

[wayne]

Good questions. I just discovered that Todd posted a reply but since I drafted this note I thought I would proceed with posting it.

Let me start by pointing you to the following link and noting that we are moving in a direction to be much more than just another J2EE IDE:

http://www.myeclipseide.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=7

Our business model is “Eclipse” and it consists of three primary components: integration, innovation, and information.

1) Integration – Our success model does not require us to develop every feature from scratch but recognizes and respects the potential of the Eclipse developer community. Therefore we identify and integrate the best-of open-source and commercial plugins into a seemless J2EE IDE. This approach enables us to deliver MyEclipse Enterprise Workbench at an ultra-low subscription price and at pace much quicker than any J2EE IDE product team whether Eclipse-based or other. Thus, you’ll get the features you need here before any other source.

2) Innovation – Our group is steeped in J2EE application development experience and with an number of the IDEs. Our focus is productivity-centered features – nothing else. In areas where solutions are needed or can be improved upon we innovate and extend the platform. We are constantly searching for ways to go faster with less. Examples of MyEclipse innovations include: the “Sync-on-Demand” deployment service, the feature rich JSP editor, and preview modes for the HTML and JSP editors. We will be updating our road map with new features very soon.

3) Information – We continuously evaluate new plugin products from many sources. Naturally, we are developing a broad knowledge base of plugins that are useful and those that are junk. We also use our products in our consulting practice on a daily basis. So we have a real-world pespective of what works and what doesn’t. In the very near future we introduce regularly published plugin reviews and how-to articles. Additionally we are working on a certification program. Lastly, we are on the Eclipse Board of Stewards and interact with a number of companies. We work to influence the direction of Eclipse in a positive manner as well as have visibility into what is coming down the Eclipse road well before the general public.

For related discussions you can read our thread on the 2Y plugin site:

http://eclipse-plugins.2y.net/eclipse/plugin_comments.jsp?id=317&pager.offset=0

I trust this provides you a broader perspective of what MyEclipse is about.

Regards,

Wayne Parrott
MyEclipse Product Manager and Architect

[Author]

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