Is "Diversity" Eclipse's Secret Weapon?

Eclipse is the type of platform that lends itself to diversity. You can see that in the wide array of plugins that are available to download, and the variety of languages that people use Eclipse as an IDE for.

• Aptana's iPhone Plugin
  [img_assist|nid=1155|title=|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=150|height=300]One article that really caught my attention was this article about developing iPhone applications with Eclipse using Aptana. No doubt Aptana will add in support for the official iPhone SDK once it becomes available.
• Rich Ajax Platform
  While on the web stream, any unaware Ajax developers should take a good look at the RAP project. The demos can be easily run from the site, and there was a webinar just last week covering the technology - it's still available to view on the EclipseLive site.
• Embedded Rich Client Platform
  For those that want to get a bit more embedded, the recently released version 1.1.1. Gorkem Ercan wrote about some devices that ship with eSWT, which eRCP is build on in his blog this week - a total of 4 Nokia devices. Both RAP and eRCP are growing projects, and it's great to see the Eclipse Platform extending from the desktop to other targets.
• SQL Development Tools
  Towards the end of last week Embarcadero released their a beta of PowerSQL. This tool provides a developer focused SQL IDE, to make your interactions with databases much easier. Other more established products, such as MyEclipse, include database development plugins also.
• Eclipse MDT
  The Model Development Tools project contains tools for UML2, XSD and other modelling languages. The MDT is a prime example of efficient usage of current Eclipse frameworks. Using GMF for visualisation and EMF as the metamodel, it provides an excellent way of visualising your UML models in the comfort of Eclipse.

Previously, we covered a lot of plugins for languages other than Java. We'll continue highlighting this diversity throughout our EclipseZone articles, showing how Eclipse can be used for different project needs. If there's any particular tool support that you're looking for in Eclipse let us know, and we'll try and find it for you.