Platform architecture

The Eclipse platform is structured around the concept of extension points.  Extension points are well-defined places in the system where other tools (called plug-ins) can contribute functionality.

Each major subsystem in the platform is itself structured as a set of plug-ins that implement some key function and define extension points.  The Eclipse system itself is built by contributing to the same extension points that third party plug-in providers can use.  Plug-ins can define their own extension points or simply add extensions to the extension points of other plug-ins.

The platform subsystems typically add visible features to the platform and provide APIs for extending their functionality.   Some of these components supply additional class libraries that do not directly relate to an extension point, but can be used to implement extensions.  For example, the workbench UI supplies the JFace UI framework and the SWT widget toolkit.

The Eclipse SDK includes the basic platform plus two major tools that are useful for plug-in development.  The Java development tooling (JDT) implements a full featured Java development environment.  The Plug-in Developer Environment (PDE) adds specialized tools that streamline the development of plug-ins and extensions.

These tools not only serve a useful purpose, but also provide a great example of how new tools can be added to the platform by building plug-ins that extend the system.

 

Copyright IBM Corporation and others 2000, 2003.