Basic conclusion after running Eclipse for 2-3 days:
It's slow. Just typing in the editor is slow. It's fairly pretty. It makes it easy to see file trees. CVS integration broke after a day. It's so java-oriented that I don't think I really saw its strengths. I was able to configure it to do maybe half of my routine dev/doc tasks (that I do with emacs and cvs in the command line) with a few days work. The ability to save "perspectives" is tempting.
A few more notes on things I succeeded in doing:
Database access:
file:///usr/share/eclipse/plugins/com.quantum.Quantum_2.2.2/doc/connect.html
(currently failing on ident problem)
http://jdbc.postgresql.org/doc.html#install
I was able to set up project-wide build to call svc to restart the website. I also set up an external tool link so that one click while viewing an xml Docbook file regenerates (by calling the Makefile that's already there).
filter out emacs and cvs detritus in navigation:
edit /usr/share/eclipse/plugins/org.eclipse.ui_2.1.1/plugin.xml
and add
<extension point="org.eclipse.ui.resourceFilters">
<filter pattern=".#*" selected="true"/>
<filter pattern="#*#" selected="true"/>
<filter pattern="*~" selected="true"/>
</extension>
but the 'normal' way to do it would be to create your own plug-in that contains this information:
(16:39:05) jaufrec: how long does it take to learn to do that from scratch if you've been using Eclipse for 2 days?
(16:39:10) jaufrec: and don't know java?
(16:41:21) Sky_: jaufrec: you need to understand how works the plug-in system. In your case there is no code needed