Eclipse

Eclipse is an extensible open source development platform mainly written in java. It is simply a framework consisting of the Java Development Tools (JDT) for building a development environment from plug-in components. Fortunately, Eclipse comes with a standard set of plug-ins, including the Java Development Tools (JDT) but users can also extend its capabilities by installing plug-ins written for the Eclipse software framework, such as development toolkits for other programming languages. It also provides the capabilities of developing and contributing their own plug-in modules.

Language packs provides translations into a number of natural languages flavors, therefore a lot of users use Eclipse as a Java IDE and their ambitions do not stop here. User can extend the capabilities of eclipse by including Plug-in Development Environment (PDE). Since Eclipse is written in java, it doesn't mean that it is limited to the java language. Eclipse supports the plug-in for the programming languages like C/C++ and COBOL also. The Eclipse framework can also be used as content management systems.

The Software Development Kit (SDK) of Eclipse includes various development tool such as Eclipse Java Development Tools, a full model of the Java source files and an IDE with a built-in incremental Java compiler. Due to the rich featured SDK Eclipse allows advanced refactoring techniques and code analysis. The IDE also creates a workspace, a set of metadata over a flat filespace allows modifications in the external files.