If you are a Java developer, Christmas came early this year.
Today Google announced that they are making many of the key assets that they acquired from Instantiations. Specifically, GWT Designer, CodePro AnalytiX, WindowBuilder Pro and WindowTester Pro are now all available for free from Google. Many thanks to Google for taking this step! I expect that today’s announcement will significantly improve the productivity of millions of Java developers using Eclipse.
This is a big deal for Java developers. These are professional-quality tools from which Instantiations made a very nice business for many years. And free is a great price. I expect to see lots of happy developers using them, and soon. There were certainly many very happy and congratulatory comments on the announcement.
This is also a big deal for Eclipse. These tools provide a great boost to the productivity of developers using the Eclipse platform. The most obvious example is in the area of GUI building. Let’s face it, the “available for free” GUI building story on Eclipse has been painful for a long time. (Just take a look at the commits meter.) Having this suite of tools available for free can only help to increase the value of the Eclipse platform to the community of Java developers. And with support for Swing, SWT and GWT you can use whichever Java-based UI framework that best meets your requirements.
All in all, a great day for Java developers!
