For the uninitiated, Ed Burnette offers a quick theory session on the new features and upgrades in the Eclipse IDE and its Java Development Tools (JDT). In a 3-page article at ONJava.com, Burnette begins by explaining the making of JDT.

“In 2001, Eclipse 1.0 was released. It was described as ‘an IDE for anything and nothing in particular.’ From the beginning, both Eclipse and the JDT were built as a platform for other development tools. The workspace was stored on disk and open to others. Instead of a proprietary repository, Eclipse 1.0 shipped with CVS integration,” he says. Burnette goes on to elaborate on the Eclipse compiler, the rules it was built on, its functions and uses.

He then moves on to the features of the JDT and explains how they are used in editing and running. The tutorial is complete with screenshots and carefully explained code.