Over the summer, students from the Computing Talent Initiative partnered with CodeDay to contribute to the Eclipse IDE. For many, this was their very first experience working on a large-scale open source project. Their contributions, reflections, and persistence show how mentorship and community support can transform curiosity into impact.
This would not have been possible without the support of the Eclipse IDE Working Group, which funds our Community Mentors program. Experienced committers Olivier Prouvost and Hannes Wellmann have a clear mission: to grow the user and technical community around the Eclipse IDE, and ultimately the number of committers.
Student Experiences
Several students recently shared their journeys:
- Phinhas Asmelash explored Eclipse PDE (Plug-in Development Environment) and worked on clarifying configuration around jars.extra.classpath vs additional.bundles in the Manifest editor. His persistence in debugging and documenting a complex system demonstrates the kind of attention to detail that benefits plugin developers and enterprise tool builders: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/eclipse-pde-open-source-contribution-phinhas-asmelash-taatc/
- Wannida Polchan contributed to an automatic version-matching feature in Eclipse PDE. She highlighted the challenge of navigating a large codebase and the importance of documentation, showing that sharing lessons learned can be just as impactful as shipping features: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-i-learned-contributing-eclipse-pde-summer-wannida-polchan-rujnc/
- Sabrina Diaz-Erazo implemented an option to automatically update the BREE (Bundle Required Execution Environment) to the highest of all dependencies. Beyond the code, she reflected on how mentorship and the CTI community gave her confidence and a sense of belonging in tech. This was her second pull request to Eclipse IDE projects: a strong signal of her growing engagement in open source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/adding-option-automatically-update-bree-highest-all-diaz-erazo-cijgc/
- Keith Bui also contributed to Eclipse PDE by enhancing the jars.extra.classpath feature to better handle compile-only dependencies and by improving the UI to reduce confusion with additional.bundles. His detailed write-up shows both the technical depth of the challenge and the importance of documentation and mentorship in overcoming it: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/open-source-experience-eclipse-pde-issue-1407-support-keith-bui-mtdpc/
Each of these contributions moves Eclipse PDE forward, while also strengthening the community of future committers.
The Role of Community Mentors
The achievements of these students were amplified thanks to the guidance of our Community Mentors, Olivier Prouvost and Hannes Wellmann. Their role goes far beyond answering questions or providing technical tipsWelcoming and onboarding new contributors:
- Triaging and responding to pull requests
- Helping with process items such as Eclipse Contributor Agreements (ECA), version bumps, documentation, and API reviews
- Responding on developer mailing lists and Matrix rooms
- Introducing newcomers to the community to build trust and acceptance
- Writing and improving contributor documentation, and ensuring resources are easy to find
- Proactively answering questions to smooth the developer workflow
- ...
They have also provided a single entry point for new contributors on GitHub: https://github.com/eclipse-ide
This mentorship and structured support are essential for transforming one-time contributors into long-term community members and, eventually, committers.
Thank You
A big thank you to Phinhas Asmelash, Wannida Polchan, Keith Bui and Sabrina Diaz-Erazo for their energy and dedication, as well as to all the mentors and coordinators at CTI and CodeDay who made this program possible.
We are especially grateful to Olivier Prouvost and Hannes Wellmann for their daily commitment to growing the Eclipse IDE community, and to the CodeDay leadership: Tyler Menezes , Toukir Khan, and Lola Egherman for their support in empowering the next generation of developers.
Finally, our thanks go to the Eclipse IDE Working Group whose sustained support makes all of this possible. Special recognition to its members and representatives
Call to Action
The #EclipseIDE has thrived for more than two decades thanks to contributors around the world. If you are curious about getting involved, we invite you to join us:
👉 Explore our contributor resources and entry point here: https://github.com/eclipse-ide
👉 Join our Matrix room: https://matrix.to/#/#eclipse-ide:matrix.eclipse.org and the mailing list: https://accounts.eclipse.org/mailing-list/eclipse-ide-wg
👉 Contribute code, improve documentation, or simply share feedback
If your company builds products or tools on top of the Eclipse Platform (#RCP) or Eclipse IDE, we’d love to hear from you. Reach out to me directly, and learn more about how to get involved in the Eclipse IDE Working Group here: https://eclipseide.org/working-group/
Open source is built by people like you. Whether you’re a student making your first pull request or an experienced engineer looking to give back, your contributions can help shape the future!
