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Eclipse is an integrated development environment (IDE) used in computer programming. It contains a base workspace and an extensible plug-in system for customizing the environment. Eclipse is written mostly in Java and its primary use is for developing Java applications, but it may also be used to develop applications in other programming languages via plug-ins, including Ada, ABAP, C, C++, C#, Clojure, COBOL, D, Erlang, Fortran, Groovy, Haskell, JavaScript, Julia, Lasso, Lua, NATURAL, Perl, PHP, Prolog, Python, R, Ruby (including Ruby on Rails framework), Rust, Scala, and Scheme. It can also be used to develop documents with LaTeX (via a TeXlipse plug-in) and packages for the software Mathematica. Development environments include the Eclipse Java development tools (JDT) for Java and Scala, Eclipse CDT for C/C++, and Eclipse PDT for PHP, among others.
Eclipse software development kit (SDK) is free and open-source software, released under the terms of the Eclipse Public License, although it is incompatible with the GNU General Public License. It was one of the first IDEs to run under GNU Classpath and it runs without problems under IcedTea.
Installing Eclipse in Windows is pretty straight. It never requires to install like any other executable binaries. Download Eclipse from https://www.eclipse.org/downloads/. Pick suitable pacakge for your computer. Please be mindful about your computer bit version. I've shot a video on as how to install Eclipse inside Windows. Watch the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_lTcpdY3ro&feature=youtu.be.
Eclipse greets with a welcome-page just as it is shown in Figure 2.7. Eclipse provides tab based scripts. Whenever a script is opened or created it is just tab in Eclipse. One can safely cancel Welcome-page by pressing little cross button available at top left corner of the tab-head.
We need to open a new file (File -> New) in Eclipse to write a Java script. It is also possible to create a new script by executing shortcut key combination Alt + Shift + N. Create a new project using the menu File -> New -> Java Project. This shall open a new project window such as 2.2. Choose the title HelloWorld. The window now creates a project explorer such the one shown in the Figure 2.3.
Find the folder src in the project explorer. Right click on the same and create a class (Figures 2.4 & 2.5)
Copy or write the source code shown in the listing 2.1. Now this class can be executed with the help of small green color run button located in the task bar just beneath of the main menu in Eclipse. The result will appear in the Console located at the end of the Eclipse Window (See Figure 2.6).
The above process is a common task for each and every code block given in this text. This text has so many code blocks (known as listings). Results produced by these code blocks are obtained by creating a class inside Eclipse and executing the same by performing above steps.
