My personal journey with the Eclipse Rich Client Platform began 6 years ago. I was starting work on a financial analysis application, and was looking for a cross-platform framework to build upon. Eclipse was my IDE, and I began to see some interesting Bugzilla entries that pointed me to what would become Eclipse RCP.
Like many, I was originally attracted to Eclipse RCP because it promised to shorten my development cycle. It gave me a workbench, perspectives, editors, views, wizards and much more. And you know what, it worked! I did develop an application that would have been impossible to create without such a framework.
But while working on that application and in my subsequent work on other projects, I’ve come to appreciate that Eclipse RCP is not a normal framework. Much of its power comes from its support for creating modular user interfaces. The ability to flexibly assemble and package user interfaces has opened up many possibilities for myself and my clients.
And I’m not talking about geeky development-type benefits here. Modularity allows us to create (or assemble) applications that are more targeted to the specific needs of users. In short, modularity makes software more
And now that I’ve finally come to see modular software development in this way, I’ve decided to make it the focus of my training and consulting practice. I’ve renamed my blog (and my company) Modular Mind. I’ll still be focusing on Eclipse RCP and OSGi training, but in the broader context of modular software development. I can’t wait to see what the next 6 years will bring. If they’re anything like the last 6 years, this is going to be a lot of fun!
Note: As part of my broader focus, I’ll be writing posts which will no longer be aggregated on Planet Eclipse. If you’d be interested in reading these posts, you may want to subscribe to my feed directly.