When I started hacking on
EclipseME
way back in 2001, I never would have guessed that it would still be going in 2012 in use in the form of the
Eclipse Mobile Tools for Java (MTJ)
project and a shipping product. A few days ago, Gorkem Ercan of Nokia announced that the
latest version of Nokia SDK for Java is now based on Eclipse MTJ
. Even though I don’t really spend any time on the MTJ project these days, it is very cool to see the software still being put to good use.
Along with the
3.5.1 release of the Eclipse platform
earlier this week, the
Eclipse Mobile Tools for Java
project has released version 1.0.1. As you can see from the
New and Noteworthy page
, not only did the team fix more than 100 bugs since the 1.0 release but they also provided some cool new features. According to Gustavo Paula, this release features contributions from a variety of different contributors including:
-
Motorola
-
Nokia
-
SonyEricsson
-
Research in Motion
-
Several individual contributors
This new MTJ release has been included in the first service release of the
Eclipse Pulsar project
. In addition, the Pulsar QuickInstall now includes an SDK from SonyEricsson.
Given
Motorola’s push into the Android space
, it comes as no surprise that they are trimming down the number of developers on the Eclipse Mobile Tools for Java project. MTJ project lead, Christian Kurzke,
announced via the mailing list
that three of the key “Motorola sponsored” developers have been reassigned to a different project and will no longer be sponsored to develop the Eclipse MTJ features. The good news is that Gustavo, Diego and David have expressed interest in continuing to be involved as individual contributors. In addition, Jon Deardon from Research In Motion will most likely be joining the list of official contributors very soon.
As Christian pointed out via his email, now would be an excellent time to consider getting involved in the Eclipse MTJ project. Even something as simple as being involved on the mailing list can help us out. If you are a mobile developer using Eclipse Mobile Tools for Java, consider contributing a patch to provide a cool new feature or to fix the bug that annoys you the most. Not a developer, but still want to contribute? We can always use help with documentation and project marketing. Pitch in and lend a hand!
Eric Cloninger of Motorola has started the process of combining Eclipse Mobile Tools for Java, Eclipse Tools for Mobile Linux and Eclipse Pulsar projects under one combined project. Although the specific name has not been decided yet, a leading candidate is simply the “Eclipse Mobile Tools” project. In Eric’s
presentation
to members of the various projects he mentions a number of compelling reasons for pulling these projects together:
Read more…
Along with the
Galileo Release of the Eclipse projects
, the first early look at the
Eclipse Pulsar
project was released. The
Eclipse Packaging Project
provides a
packaged version of the Pulsar project
along with the 1.0 version of the Eclipse Mobile Tools for Java project.
Read more…
The Eclipse Project has released version 3.5 of the Eclipse platform as part of the Galileo Release Train. There are announcements and discussions all over the place, like
here
,
here
and
here
. The question is where is the love for the
Mobile Tools for Java
? The Galileo release marks the graduation of the
Mobile Tools for Java
project from incubation, providing a solid set of tools for JavaME development in Eclipse. The involvement from the various member companies has been excellent during the development of MTJ and transition from EclipseME. I have to admit that I’m a bit disappointed at the lack of coverage of the release. Pass the word that MTJ is
the
way to develop for JavaME.
The Pulsar project also saw an initial early release with Galileo. I will provide some background on this project in an upcoming post.
Over on Chris Aniszczyk’s blog, he
mentions
that the Eclipse Mobile Tools for Java and Eclipse Pulsar projects have passed the Galileo release review. Although Eclipse Mobile Tools for Java isn’t quite 1.0, it is getting very close. This is the culmination of the work I started in 2003 on the
EclipseME project
. When I started that little hobby project, I would not have dreamed that it would have more than 700,000 downloads from Sourceforge or become the base of the official
Eclipse Mobile Tools for Java
project.
Thanks to the help from Motorola and the other members of the Eclipse Mobile Tools for Java project, the EclipseME code has grown and matured far beyond what I could have done in my own free time. There are many more support options now available and users should find a much smoother environment. If you need any proof of the commitment from members of the MTJ development team, take a look at the developers
mailing list request
to begin work on the first service release beyond MTJ 1.0.
I’m looking forward to continuing my involvement with the MTJ project going forward both as a code committer and as a voice for the average mobile developer. I want to thank all of the users of EclipseME over the years for their continued support and urge you to make the jump to MTJ if you have not already. The final Galileo release is scheduled to be available on June 24th, but the versions available right now are pretty close to what you can expect at that time. The differences between this first MTJ version and the last EclipseME release make it a very worthwhile upgrade to your development environment.