Role of Eclipse in Flash development
Eclipse is a superb open source IDE widely used for software development. I was first introduced to Eclipse in 2003 by my college professor, who happens to work for IBM, a major contributor to Eclipse development. It was a shame that I did not use it on a more regular basis until recently. Reason was because I was intimidated by the many functionality buttons all over the IDE. ;p
I am more interested in discussing its role in the future of Flash development, however, in case anyone is interested in trying it, first you need to download the following softwares, which are all free:
So how big is Eclipse’s role in future Flash development? I believe that it is going to play a big role in the future.
Reason 1: Completely free
Eclipse is completely free, and so does all the plug-ins required to do Flash development in it. Besides, not too long ago, Adobe said that there will be a free version of Flex. It was said that this free version only comes with the compiler and the framework. But hey, there is an Eclipse, Flex plug-in, allowing you to do development in an IDE environment, FREE.
Reason 2: Project management
New features added to Flash with each release has enabled more and more complex projects to be made. To accomplish the increasingly complex projects, more people from the different divisions (database, programming, online, designers) are going to get involved with the development. When that many people are involved in a project, there is the need to do versioning. There is an Eclipse plug-in for Subversion and CVS, allowing development to be done on 1 window instead of having to keep on changing your windows.
Reason 3: New Flash users
Right now it is not uncommon for designers to do some programming and programmer to a some design, especially in smaller firms, which is acceptable for small projects. However, imagine building an RIA application with that same practice. Not very recommended. That’s why if you take a look at job postings today, there are jobs for Flash Developer and Flash Designer. Where do these developers come from? Mostly Java programmers. Guess what? Most of these Java programmers’ favourite development tool is Eclipse.
I am sure there are some other good reasons of why Eclipse will play a big role in future Flash development, which is not crossing my mind now.
Having said all that, it does not mean that the Flash IDE is bad. It is a very useful tool itself. So a balance (”Yin Yang”) use of the two would be the best.