Eclipse Foundation has announced its annual release train called ‘Oxygen’ that upgrades a total of 83 projects. Alongside many new tweaks, the latest release highlights Java 9 support as the most anticipated upgrade.
The simultaneous releases by Eclipse Foundation are the result of coordinated efforts and communication across all Eclipse Open Source Project teams. The new release train includes two million new lines of code and comes with improves functionality and performance across all the projects.
Having said that, the highlight of the Oxygen release is the native Java 9 support. The support is still beta stage as the final build of JDK 9 is not out yet. However, the latest integration will help users add Java Runtime Environment for Java 9 as well as backing for the Java 9 execution environment. Developers can also leverage the Oxygen release for compiling modules using Java 9.
“The Eclipse Oxygen release includes many improvements in functionality and performance, includes new tools for Java code coverage analysis, and can be extended to support Java 9 development via an early access preview,” the Eclipse team writes in an official announcement.
Enhanced Docker security
In addition to Java 9, the latest Eclipse Linux Tools 6.0 has enhanced the security of Docker tools. Developers can now also use C/C++ IDEs with Eclipse Linux Tools 6.0. Similarly, Eclipse PDT (PHP Development Tools) has added support for PHP v7.1. This inclusion enables developers the use case of nullable types and void return types.
The Oxygen release also updates the Eclipse Sirius 5.0 platform. You can use the platform for building domain-specific modeling tools. Additionally, Eclipse Foundation has worked on enhancing the performance and usability of Java implementation of Git in Eclipse EGit 4.8.0.
This is not the first time when Eclipse Foundation has brought a large number of changes. The organisation is known for its annual release trains since 2006. Last year’s release train notably introduced the native tools for Docker and JavaScript.
