Eclipse Summit that was organized in Germany brought fresh news: Microsoft together with its partners Tasktop and Soyatec are going to release a range of tools and updates for Eclipse.

• Eclipse will support Windows 7 and all its new interface functions;
• Eclipse Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT) will be expanded to work with new features in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2;
• The open source tools Windows Azure Tools for Eclipse will be available for PHP developers;
• The open source Windows Azure Software Developer Kit (SDK) will be available for Java developers;
• The Eclipse Tools plug-in will be available for Silverlight.

So, Windows Azure SDK for Java allows leveraging Azure storage service while developing Java applications. Its logical architecture is quite simple:
It is reported that according to the voting (see The Open Source Developer Report 2009 based on Eclipse Community Survey), conducted among Eclipse users, more than 64% are using it in Windows OS. It’s obvious that PHP and Java programmers will appreciate this significant commitment from Microsoft.

Today we continue our list of 14 the most relevant technologies for software developers adding some Web-oriented technologies to it:

#4. Rich Internet Applications (RIA)
No matter you can love RIA or hate it, today developers use Flash not only for cartoons about politicians who sing silly songs, but also for more serious things. Flash has rich functionality to create applications using technologies such as Flex and AIR. Companies that develop Flash analogues, for example JavaFx and Silverlight, also improve similar features and increase productivity.

HTML5 soon will combine the full functionality of RIA, including connection to the databases and putting the official seal of W3C on AJAX technology.

It means that in the near future, the differences between RIA platforms will be decreased.

#5. Web Development
Web development won’t sink into oblivion in the near future. Many Web developers ignore, or at least only familiar with the basics, providing frameworks. However, companies want more and more people who able to work with these technologies. So, JavaScript, CSS, and HTML will be still successful even in 2014.

#6. Web Services
JSON or XML? REST or SOAP? This choice depends on the project, and work complexity increases without Web services technologies. Even those areas, where developers used ODBC, COM, or RPC, are gradually moving towards Web services.

to be continued…