Recovering from EclipseConsternation

Dictionary.com defines consternation as a state of paralyzing dismay. Ok this has to do with fear, but I needed a "Con" word and it seemed appropriate. The number of projects and companies embedding and working with Eclipse is dizzying. Eclipse projects and plugins that do amazing things are popping up everywhere and it appears that we may be only scratching the surface.

Being on the BIRT PMC, my chief responsibility is BIRT and its adoption. It was very informative to see what some BIRT users are doing with the technology. Of particular interest is the JFire project. JFire is an Open Source ERP system focused on distributed trading. The JFire client contains a customized BIRT Perspective. This allows their users to customize report layouts and save them to the JFire server. Additionally they developed and ODA to read JDO objects, which JFire is based on. Last but not least reports are displayed in a browser or the JFire RCP application. This is a project that is definitely worth taking a look at, especially if you are in the process of embedding BIRT.