What You'll Need

All the software you'll need in this book can be downloaded from the Internet for free. You'll need Eclipse—this book was written using Eclipse 2.1.1—and we'll discuss where to get Eclipse in Chapter 1. Other software packages that we'll be downloading throughout the book include the Tomcat web server and various CVS servers (which will allow you to share Eclipse projects with others).

Eclipse is built to be extendible, and hundreds of Eclipse plug-ins are available for free downloading. Plug-ins let you add functionality to Eclipse—new built-in editors, code generators, software launchers, and more—and we'll take a look at a number of the most popular plug-ins in this book. And in Chapter 11 and Chapter 12, we'll develop our own Eclipse plug-ins.