Chris Cruft

I have only ever found one good use for Java on the desktop -but it is a big one: Eclipse.  For some time, I have been using plugins for Subversion (subclipse), Rails (RadRails) and Nullsoft Scriptable Install System (EclipseNSIS).  And about two months ago I stumbled across a great tool for JavaScript editing: JSEclipse.  These plugins cover about 95% of the development work that I do.  Some details on each:

Ruby Development Tools: Eclipse Update URL: http://updatesite.rubypeople.org/release
RDT form the core of the Ruby functionality that is exploited by RadRails.  It has a debugger (which doesn’t work for shit under RadRails), syntax highlighting, code folding and plenty of other handy tools.

RadRails   Eclipse Update URL: http://radrails.sourceforge.net/update
RadRails is the component that makes developing Rails apps enjoyable.  It has helpers for Rake, RI, RDOC, Rails Generators, Rails Plugins (which I have not yet tested), Testing (!!!) and the console.

JSEclipse    Eclipse Update URL: http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/jseclipse/autoinstall/
On those few occasions when I am working with javascript, it’s nice to have a editing tools tuned to that task.  JSEclipse does the job in style.

Subclipse   Eclipse Update URL: http://subclipse.tigris.org/update_1.2.x (strangely, for the latest version 1.1.10)
Generally an excellent tool -it even supports extensions for working with bug tracking systems like Trac.   My only real problem has been getting the branch/tags feature to work consistently.

EclipseNSIS    Eclipse Update URL: http://eclipsensis.sf.net/update
NSIS is a Windows open-source software application packaging tool.  EclipseNSIS makes it easier to edit the .nsi files, amongst other things.

SQL Explorer   Eclipse Update URL: http://eclipsesql.sourceforge.net/
A very complete tool for working with SQL DDL.  Works nicely with MySQL 5.  Note that SQL Explorer also requires Connector/J to work with MySQL.  I’m using the 5.04 version with good initial results.  Here is a great tutorial to setting it up.