The Eclipse Platform forms the basis for an application by providing all Core and UI elements to create a full application for any OS (Windows, Linux, Mac). The JDT and PDE are plug-in tools for the Eclipse Platform. Together, these three pieces form the Eclipse SDK, a complete Java development environment.
The Eclipse Platform can also form the basis for applications that are not an IDE. Thousands of applications have been based on the Eclipse Platform.
Eclipse based applications are being used to control the Mars Rovers, analyse the results of high energy light in synchroton installations, and to control robots in the International Space Station.
Besides scientific applications, the Eclipse Platform is used for business applications at IBM, SAP, Intel, BMW, BOSCH, Red Hat and many more. Visit the Eclipse Membership page for an impressive list of companies associated with the Eclipse Foundation.
The Platform project defines a set of frameworks and common services that collectively make up “integration-ware” required to support the use of Eclipse as a component model, as a rich client platform (RCP) and as a comprehensive tool integration platform. These services and frameworks include a standard workbench user interface model and portable native widget toolkit, a project model for managing resources, automatic resource delta management for incremental compilers and builders, language-independent debug infrastructure, and infrastructure for distributed multi-user versioned resource management.
The JDT provides the tool plug-ins for the platform that implement a Java IDE for power-users, that supports the development of any Java application, including Eclipse plug-ins. The JDT adds the notion of Java projects and a Java perspective to the Eclipse platform, as well as a number of views, editors, wizards, builders, and code merging and refactoring tools. The JDT allows Eclipse to be a development environment for itself. The JDT plug-ins themselves can also be further extended by other tool builders.
project provides a number of views and editors that make is easier to build plug-ins for Eclipse. Using the PDE, you can create your plug-in manifest file (plugin.xml), specify your plug-in runtime and other required plug-ins, define extension points, including their specific markup, associate XML Schema files with the extension point markup so extensions can be validated, create extensions on other plug-in extension points, etc. The PDE makes integrating plug-ins easy and fun.
The e4 project is an incubator for developing the next generation of the Eclipse platform.