Tim Anderson interviewed David Intersimone and Jason Vokes of Borland, to gain insight into what was happening with JBuilder, the company’s Java IDE. The company had announced last year that JBuilder was moving to Eclipse with a new release code-named Peloton.

The question Anderson asks the folks at Borland is whether Peloton will be “more like Eclipse with JBuilder features, or more like JBuilder but using the Eclipse framework underneath.” David I answers: “Borland talked to its JBuilder users and discovered distinct lack of enthusiasm for an Eclipse-based hybrid that omitted features from the current product. Therefore Borland is going for a full implementation of JBuilder's existing designers and tools in Peloton, complete with all the designers and including full Swing support.”

Anderson comments that this will be good news for JBuilder developers, who are promised a familiar environment with few compatibility issues. On the other hand, he is not convinced that it is such a good idea. “If Peloton is more like the current JBuilder and less like an upgraded Eclipse JDT (Java Development Tools), it won't present such an attractive upgrade for existing JDT developers,” he says.