JDJ: If org.eclipse.swt.widgets.List were called ListBox, for example, there wouldn't be naming clashes with java.util.List. Do you wish you'd named List differently, and are there other places like that where you think the names used clash with base classes in an "annoying" way when doing imports.

Steve: Both the AWT and SWT List existed before java.util.List. At the time, we had a big debate over whether or not we should prefix the SWT classes. I forget which side I was on. I suppose that had we prefixed them, name clashes would have been avoided, but Java has a mechanism to resolve clashes.

Carolyn: It's annoying when I'm trying to open class Button in Eclipse, and the AWT version is always at the top of the list!

JDJ: How is the Vista work going? Are there any problems with it, and also are there any cool new things you're going to put into SWT to take advantage of such as 3D support, some of the stuff they use graphics card APIs for transparency, fading, animation and so forth.

Steve: Vista is going well. The very first step is to get the Win32 port running well and taking advantage of some of the new Vista features. That's what I'm working on right now.

Silenio: It's going well. We are attacking two fronts. First, we're making sure that the Win32 port works well and has the right look and feel for Vista. This is well under way. Second, we're writing a port to WPF. It's still early to comment on this, but there is good work in progress.

JDJ: What's the coolest SWT application you've seen, and what inspires you most about how people are using SWT?

Silenio: I still have to say that Eclipse is the coolest SWT application. It's certainly the biggest and most famous. But there are others out there.

Steve: Really, I interact with people mostly through the bug system. Sometimes I see their applications and sometimes I don't. I'm not an evangelist or anything like that. I use RSS Owl. It works well. Interesting things are happening at NASA JPL, JP Morgan, and Lotus.

JDJ: What's the ugliest SWT application you've seen, and what horrifies you most about how people are using SWT?

Silenio: I haven't seen anything yet that puts a knife through my heart.

JDJ: SWT, like the rest of Eclipse, is open source. How do you think this has been a benefit for both the development of the toolkit and clients who build applications with it? Would you say that there are also some disadvantages when compared to closed source?

Olivier: I like the fact that it's open source, because when we experience a bug, or some weird behavior, we can look into the source code and try to understand why SWT behaves that way. I really don't see any disadvantages to it being open source, on the contrary. The fact that the community can help fix bugs is really something great, and so far the development of SWT has been good with new and improved features.

Florian: Stuff like having users send crash logs, then attaching them to bug reports, allowing the SWT team to debug things more directly; plus providing nightly downloads, which in turn lets developers quickly release updates by repackaging the patched JARs with their applications (as opposed to having to wait for a JRE update, and then for all users to catch up, as would be the case with other closed source systems).

Olivier: I like the fact that SWT is not an MVC framework, and that SWT and JFace are separated. Performance is great, and native widgets make Java desktop applications a reality. It is also a great thing for open source projects, as they can be compiled/interpreted with the GCJ compiler, which made it possible for Azureus to be included in the latest Fedora, for example.

Benjamin: I began RSS Owl in the summer of 2003 with the intention of learning and using SWT. At that time I had been using Eclipse 2.1 for only a short time and was very impressed by the fast and good-looking UI. After a couple of months I found out about the release process of Eclipse. Every Tuesday, the SWT team delivered a new integration build of SWT, including a detailed log about the changes from the past week. I became a happy reader of this change log and adopted the latest integration build as soon as it was released. Kudos to the stability of these builds. I only had to step back a few times to a previous milestone build.

The bigger RSSOwl became, the more features I wanted to add. The introduction of the Browser widget in early SWT 3.0 was exactly what I was looking for. I was finally able to render news content that included HTML. Of course there were quite a few bugs and some missing features in the early days of the Browser widget. I became a frequent user of the Eclipse Bugzilla. Up to today I have filed 152 bugs and feature requests, of which 106 have been closed/fixed. A lot of missing functionality has been added during the various major releases: Eclipse 3.0, 3.1, and 3.2. During each release there were a couple of new widgets and APIs. It's great to have the SWT library provided as open source with the SWT team doing an awesome job keeping the quality at this high level. Looking forward to what comes during the 3.3 release cycle!

Matthew: I am a huge fan of Java and open source software. Often, I find myself reading the Eclipse source code more than I read the documentation. Eclipse and SWT are quite well done. Reading the Eclipse source code has made me a better developer. I can't say this about every open source project.

I have enjoyed watching and participating in the evolution of the Eclipse project. Eclipse and SWT get better with every release. The dedicated contributors, whether they are reporting bugs or committing patches to fix bugs, are what make Eclipse and SWT so great. I have used many toolkits and SWT is my toolkit of choice.

John: The decision to launch eclipse.org and open source Eclipse was based on our business goals. We wanted to establish an open integration platform, get ISVs on board, capture the hearts and minds of developers, and, in general, create a community. We, IBM, also wanted a vehicle with which we could compete against the growth of Microsoft and Visual Studio. As a programmer, which would you prefer: an open platform driven by the needs of the larger community, or a closed, proprietary one under the control of a single vendor? As an ISV making an investment decision, which terms would you prefer: an open source license or a commercial license agreement with a single vendor? We felt that doing Eclipse as an open source project was the best way to accomplish our goals. Eclipse has succeeded, better than we ever could have imagined.

Steve: That's telling them.

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CONTRIBUTORS

Benjamin Pasero - RSS Owl, an RSS Reader
Carolyn MacLeod - IBM, committer
John Kellerman - IBM, Product Manager, Eclipse
Kevin Barnes - IBM, contributor
Felipe Heidrich - IBM, committer
Florian Priester - contributor
Grant Gayed - IBM, committer
Matthew Hatem - Lotus, Lotus Notes, Advisory Software Engineer
Olivier Chalouhi - Azureus, a BitTorrent client
Silenio Quarti - IBM, SWT Technical Lead, committer
Steve Northover - IBM, SWT Team Lead, committer