The other week I was attempting to describe Eclipse RCP to someone who was an experienced software developer but had no experience with Eclipse. I stammered and sputtered and couldn’t really do it without a lot of gesticulation and suggestion of imaginary box diagrams.
So I ask you, what is RCP? What is the one sentence blurb? The three sentence blurb?
Here’s my attempt:
One sentence: “Eclipse RCP is a set of reusable Java components that allow developers to easily create rich, full featured applications.”
Three sentence: “Eclipse RCP is a set of reusable Java components that allow developers to easily create rich, full featured applications. Included is a widget library (SWT), tools for common higher-level application tasks such as wizards (JFace), an plug-in extension framework (runtime), and reusable and extensible application life-cycle management (workbench). These features are presented à la carte and may be used in various combinations depending on the requirements of the target application.”
Can anyone else beat these? I’m not exactly satisfied with them but this is definitely a canned response I want to keep in my back pocket for future reference.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Anonymous // Jan 16, 2006 at 10:40 am
RCP is an integration platform
designed to allow building applications with components and extensions from abritary vendors. It provides its own gui library and an application framework for building complex java client applications.
2 Blaine // Jan 16, 2006 at 1:55 pm
I don’t have the words yet, but the unanswered question is why this tool set?
The answer is connected to a) the archiecture for extension, which addresses many longstanding issues with object systems — smalltalk, etc.
b) the synergy with other projects.
3 Andre Oosthuizen // Jan 16, 2006 at 3:00 pm
Eclipse RCP is framework for creating native looking desktop applciations build from a reusable components called plugins that seamlessly integarte at runtime.
4 AlBlue // Jan 16, 2006 at 8:39 pm
Eclipse Rich Client Platform is a framework upon which highly modular graphical (and non-graphical) applications can be developed, that can leverage all of the features of the Eclipse platform, including help, update, UI management and at the same time provide a mechanism to allow other extensions to be added by independent third parties.
5 Anonymous // Nov 14, 2007 at 4:06 am
RCP is a platform that makes your application feature-rich for your client, without requiring you to do a lot.
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