Upcoming Eclipse Release Train: 'Glad Tidings for Java Developers'

As I mentioned earlier in the week, I was able to meet up with Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation, as he was prepping for the fifth annual EclipseCon, which runs through Thursday at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Santa Clara, Calif.

I snagged a few minutes with Milinkovich on Friday to talk about the event, but our discussion wandered to the annual Eclipse Release Train. It's not due until June, but Milinkovich is already excited about the sixth annual synchronized launch of multiple Eclipse projects.

"Eclipse is an open source community, and we take what people contribute, so a big part of the release train is serendipity," Milinkovich said. "But this is shaping up to be a perfect storm of glad tidings for Java developers from Eclipse."

This year's release train, dubbed Indigo, is shaping up to an interesting and potentially important release for Java jocks, largely because of three projects: the WindowBuilder Java GUI designer, newly contributed by Google; the latest developments from the eGit team, which is providing support for the popular Git version control system; and improved integration of Apache Maven project build manager.

Milinkovich is also hoping for new editing features for Java 7's new language extensions in Indigo. "That one is pretty aggressive," he said. "So we're crossing our fingers and toes."

He's also expecting to include a project, dubbed Runtime Packaging (RTP), which aims to build a single, downloadable, installable Eclipse package that pulls together the various bits and pieces of the Eclipse Runtime technology stack -- things like Equinox, Virgo, Jetty and Gemini. Milinkovich mentioned versions of this package for Linus and the Amazon cloud.

"You'll be able to consume the Eclipse Runtime stack with a lot more ease," Milinkovich said.

The current list of Indigo projects is posted here. It's a whopper.

Posted by John K. Waters on March 23, 2011