Eclipse Ganymede

Well, being the abject loser that I am, I downloaded Ganymede (Eclipse 3.4) ASAP, and after running it for a few, allow me to tell you what's really awesome about it:

1) Software Updates

Wow, this is a world of improvement. If there was one thing that really really sucked about Eclipse it was the software update system. One bad update in a huge list and nothing got updated. Most times, clicking Software Updates led to the system spinning for about 45-60 seconds, on a beefy Macbook Pro. Don't even get me started on dependency management. They seem to have solved all these problems. The site is more intuitive, much more nimble, and when you say you want to download 3-4 packages, it just grabs the dependencies for you. Kudos!

2) Search Results

Netbeans has always been playing catchup to Eclipse. That's a well-known fact. The thing is, since I think Netbeans 5, performing a search showed the instances in each file hit of the search term. That is a really handy feature, especially when you are doing maintenance work (much of what I do falls under that category). Now Eclipse has the same. Well done.

These are the two things I've found to be really awesome so far, in the hour and a half I've been using it. If I find more, I will definitely be back to blog about them. Eclipse is an amazing platform, and a true testament to what a bunch of people can do in the Open Source realm with some decent backing. Another great release!