The APLNext mail chain indicated MS port of APL into VS.NET as one more
language compatible to CLR.

This led me to think of an Eclipse integration for J.

[Not a new idea per se as I see many posting on the forum that have asked
similar questions. If there are clear technical problems, I am not aware of
them. So do excuse if this is an old and closed topic. However, it will help
if I can get pointers to postings that indicate conclusive positions on this
topic. Thanks]

Eclipse has a basic platform called EclipseFp that currently supports Haskel
and OCaml [1]. Erlang has an integration to Eclipse that is independent of
EclipseFp.

Advantage? Eclipse is fast establishing itself as a development platform -
not only for programming languages but also as business development studio
[2]. Many tools are converging onto Eclipse - graphical, source control,
modeling, etc. This allows for sharing effort put in by various groups to
achieve a better integration to ultimately serve a programmer.

I was struck about this point again when I tried the subversion repository
for J today. I had the subversion plug-in into eclipse. So all that I needed
to do was to set a new remote repository and get the contents. Fast and
reliable!

My view is that this can be a good strategy to build a stronger community
around J. And that can mean a longer lifespan for this amazing language...

Taking this thought one step further, there can be two options:
a) Try to get on the EclipseFP platform.
b) Follow Erlang Strategy of having own integration. When I checked out why
this was the case, the response was that EclipseFp has a few utility
implementations that were either already implemented in the Erlang plug-in
or were simple enough to reimplement with low cost.

To start with option (b) might be a good choice so as to reuse many features
that J Editor has. Guess the biggest concern would be the C-Java integration
part....

Any thoughts here?


[1] http://eclipsefp.sourceforge.net/
[2]
http://www.sap.com/platform/netweaver/components/developerstudio/index.epx
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