Embedded development using Eclipse
Big milestones were announced today from the Eclipse Device Software Development Platform (DSDP, in Eclipse-speak), as two core projects hit their “1.0” releases and one came close:
Target Management (TM), release version 1.0
Mission: The goal of Target Management is to create data models and frameworks to configure and manage embedded systems, their connections and services. Since there are many different vendors and solutions in the device software space, the main charter of target management is to provide data models and frameworks that are flexible and open enough for vendor-specific extensions. For the 1.0 release, sample implementations will be provided for TCP/IP connections, FTP data transfer and GDB remote launching in the CDT environment. The base technology for the TM project is an open-source version of the IBM Remote System Explorer.
Embedded Rich Client Platform (eRCP), release version 1.0
Mission: The goal of this project is to extend the Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP) to embedded devices. eRCP enables the same Eclipse development model used to create applications on desktop machines to also be used on devices. The project includes a subset of RCP components tailored to mobile devices.
Mobile Tools for the Java Platform (MTJ), release version 0.7
Mission: The goal of MTJ is to extend the Eclipse platform to support mobile device Java application development. The purpose is to develop both frameworks that can be extended by tool vendors and tools that can be used by third party mobile java application developers. Mobile Java domain contains several combinations for configuration (CLDC and CDC) and profile (MIDP, Foundation Profile and Personal Profile). Currently the most common combination is CLDC+MIDP.0.7 Features: A device and emulator framework, a deployment framework, generic build processes for mobile application development, mobile device debugging, application creation wizards, UI design tools, localization, optimization and security.
It is astonishing how quickly the Eclipse toolchain has taken over the embedded development world. Nearly every major embedded player has embraced Eclipse. The participants in these projects are a who’s who: Wind River, IBM, Monta Vista, PalmSource, Symbian, Tradescape, Nokia, Motorola and SonyEricsson.