************************************* * * * DB/C Newsletter * * December 2003 * * * ************************************* News and Comments 2003 has been another good year for DB/C Software Company. I would especially like to thank the employees of DB/C Software - Sean Neeley, Joe Remes and Vicki Liszewski - for their dedication in providing great software and support. And thank you to the customers of DB/C Software Company for your continued support. The release of DB/C DX 13 with DDT this year was an important milestone in the history of DB/C. Eclipse with DDT is a great development environment. Unfortunately, getting started using Eclipse/DDT isn't simple. Several customers have asked for an overview of how to get started, so that's what this month's article attempts to provide. Happy holidays! don.wills@dbcsoftware.com ****************************************************************************** How To Get Started Using Eclipse With DDT Eclipse with DDT, the DB/C DX Developer Toolkit, is a great development environment. However, getting started is somewhat daunting if you've never used Eclipse. Using CVS for source code control provides an even greater payback in productivity when used in conjunction with Eclipse/DDT. Getting started with CVS is also non-trivial. This article will provide an overview of what is necessary to get started with both Eclipse and CVS. You don't need to set up CVS to get started with Eclipse. CVS is completely optional. You can set up CVS first, or you can set it up later and then just start using it when you want to. I'll describe how to set up CVS later in this article. To get started with Eclipse/DDT, you first need to install Eclipse. Generally, we recommend that you use Eclipse/DDT under Windows, but it will also work under LINUX and UNIX. Before you can install and run Eclipse, you will need to make sure you have a Java 1.4 or later runtime installed on your computer. If you don't already have one, you can get one from either IBM or Sun. Both companies provide very good Java runtimes for free - the IBM JVM can be found at www.ibm.com/developer/java and the Sun Java runtime can be found at java.sun.com. To run Eclipse, you need to install either the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) or the full Java Development Kit (JDK). The JRE is smaller and is all you really need to run Eclipse. After you've installed Java, you can download Eclipse from the downloads page at www.eclipse.org. The download of Eclipse is more than 50MB, so you'll have to be patient if you are downloading it over a phone line. Unzip the file downloaded from Eclipse, and run the executable named Eclipse in the unpacked directory. Eclipse will start. The next step is to download DDT from the Online Sales and Update system at www.dbcsoftware.com. Unzip or untar that file into a directory which will then contain a file named "site.xml" and subdirectories named "features" and "plugins". Start Eclipse. Choose Help -> Software Updates -> Update Manager from the main menu. The Install/Update perspective is started. The window titled "Feature Updates" should be in the lower left corner of the Eclipse window. In that window, browse to the directory you created that contains DDT. Open that directory and select the line titled "DB/C DX Development Toolkit 1.x.x". Click the "Install Now" button in the "Preview" window. When you click the "Finish" button, DDT is installed. All of the information about installing and using DDT is found in Chapter 4 of the DB/C DX 13 Programmer's Reference. Now on to setting up CVS. Here are the essential steps for setting up CVS: 1. Install the CVS server software if it is not already installed 2. Create the repository files on disk 3. Start the CVS server process You must first choose a computer to be your CVS server. The load that CVS places on a computer is very small so you can choose any existing server to be your CVS server. It should be behind your firewall unless you want access to it from the outside. We generally recommend that your CVS server computer be a LINUX or UNIX computer, but it can also be a Windows server. If CVS isn't already installed on your server, you will need to download the CVS server software for the operating system you have chosen. CVS is generally pre-installed on LINUX and UNIX computers, but not on Windows. The main web site for CVS is www.cvshome.org. You can get the CVS server for Windows executable software at www.wincvs.org or at www.cvsnt.org. Note there is a distinction between CVS server software and CVS client software. You won't need any CVS client software - Eclipse is your CVS client software. When the CVS server software is installed, you will need to create a repository for your source files. In general terms, a CVS repository is just a directory structure that will be used to hold source files and their change histories. To create a CVS repository, execute a command like this from the command prompt of the CVS server: cvs -d /usr/local/cvsrepository init where '/usr/local/cvsrepository' is the name of the directory where the CVS repository will be created. Next you will need to start the CVS server process. It is typically started when the operating system boots via the normal process initiation scripts or, in Windows, as a service. To start the CVS server manually, execute a command like this from the command prompt: cvs -f --allow-root=/usr/local/cvsrepository pserver This will cause a process to start and wait for a TCP/IP connection on the port designated for CVS. CVS client software can then connect with the CVS server to do all of the tasks necessary for source code control. There are several CVS connection protocols - "pserver" is the most common. To use CVS from Eclipse, choose a project in the DB/C DX Programs window (or in the Navigator window in the Resource perspective) and then choose the Team -> Share Project... action from the context menu (the right-click menu). This will display a series of dialogs to create the CVS project in your CVS repository. Eclipse will remember that your Eclipse project is "connected" with the CVS project at your CVS repository. Any time you do the Team -> Synchronize With Repository action from the context menu, the changes that you have made to the files in your Eclipse project will be saved in the CVS repository. Eclipse's handling of file conflicts, history and other CVS aspects is quite sophisticated. As I've said before, you won't know how you got along before you started using CVS! There are several good books about Eclipse and CVS. If you only want to purchase one of them, I recommend "Eclipse in Action" by David Gallardo and others published by Manning Publications. The folks on the dbctalk email list are also very helpful. So if you have any questions about Eclipse, DDT or CVS, don't hesitate to ask there. ****************************************************************************** DB/C DX Class Schedule Class: DB/C DX Fundamentals Date: February, 2004 Location: to be determined For information, send email to admin@dbcsoftware.com. ****************************************************************************** Subscribing to the DB/C Newsletter If you don't already have the DB/C Newsletter delivered to your email address and would like to have it emailed to you monthly, just send an email message to 'dbcnews-subscribe@dbcsoftware.com'. The newsletter will be delivered to the email address from which the message was sent.