While Eclipse may very well be one of the greatest breakthroughs in programming since the graphical user interface, this book may be the greatest breakthrough you will experience in learning a new programming environment. The systematic, step-by-step approach will teach you how to use Eclipse in the most effective way possible, systematically guiding you through each screen telling you what to type, which buttons to push and walking you though building your first application in Eclipse. Where you go from there is up to you! Eclipse is the new integrated, open-source development environment for everything . . . meant to be a framework for every language . . . a universal approach to computer programming for virtually any platform and any language. Eclipse is also the basis for WebSphere Development Studio--an essential tool for the programmer of the future. Both novice and experienced developers can make use of this book, since it will cover three areas that are of crucial interest these days: Eclipse, IBM's Software Widget Toolkit (the SWT), and JDBC. If you've wanted to see a working application using any of those technologies, then this book is for you. The book is broken down into steps--each step has a checklist of tasks to perform, and each task is documented with screen shots and editorial comments. Nothing is assumed, nothing left to your imagination. Once you've finished going through the steps, you will understand the subjects well enough to continue learning more on your own. You won't just learn the names of classes and methods, or see simply a list of every menu option along with a brief description. In this book, you will create, from scratch, a complete functioning application. This book will show you where to get the software, how to install it, how to configure it. It will then focus on those options that you would use in a real production environment - options that will quickly allow you to be productive in Eclipse. Written by an expert application developer for applications developers, this book will teach you: * How to use the new Eclipse Integrated Development Environment * IBM's Software Widget Toolkit (the SWT) and JDBC * How to create a complete functioning application with Eclipse * Where to get the software, how to install it, how to configure it * Options that you would use in a real production to be instantly productive in Eclipse * What steps you would need to take to create a program or modify an existing program