developer toolbox

http://johlrogge.wordpress.com/2009/01/06/making-swt-shine-with-scala/

http://github.com/mikegr/gsl-swt

http://bitbucket.org/djo/xscalawt/

http://johlrogge.wordpress.com/2009/02/26/more-scala-and-swt/

http://github.com/nafg/ScalaSWT

http://github.com/rodant/SSWT

http://www.coconut-palm-software.com/the_new_visual_editor/doku.php?id=blog:simplifying_swt_with_scala

Using Scala to Create Eclipse RCP Applications

http://www.coconut-palm-software.com/the_new_visual_editor/doku.php?id=blog:more_xscalawt

Declarative Data Binding using XScalaWT¶

http://www.coconut-palm-software.com/the_new_visual_editor/doku.php?id=blog:declarative_data_binding_using_xscalawt

This article builds upon the previous work showing how Scala can simplify SWT user interface development by introducing Declarative Databinding (DDB) for XScalaWT. DDB uses Eclipse / JFace Data Binding under the hood, and was designed with the following features in mind:

• The API should follow–not hide–the underlying data binding API design
• DDB will be implemented by applying common Scala idioms to reduce and/or eliminate Java syntax overhead
• Code using DDB will more readily describe the programmer's intentions than the equivalent Java code (be more intentional)

Although XScalaWT's overall design is largely my own, DDB in particular owes a great debt to Shine, Andy Maleh's Glimmer data binding syntax. Thanks, Andy, for pushing the Eclipse community's data binding work farther than any of us imagined it could go and ultimately inspiring me to create XScalaWT with DDB.

Brief recap and Administrivia

(If you've read all my previous posts on this topic, you can make sure you have the latest nightly Scala Development Tool build and skip to the next section.)

In my previous posts Simplifying SWT with Scala and XScalaWT Stylesheets, I introduced the idea of using Scala to simplify one of the most painful parts of Eclipse RCP programming, user interface coding. We observed that the pain of SWT interface coding does not have to do with SWT so much as with the imperative style of coding. By creating a domain specific language (DSL) in Scala called XScalaWT that represents user interfaces declaratively rather than imperatively, we were able to eliminate all of the Java boilerplate code, leaving us with very simple, straightforward, intuitive code.

And for those who are not ready go jump ship from Java wholesale (ie: probably nearly all of us now), I started this series with the post, Using Scala to Create Eclipse RCP Applications, describing how to create mixed Scala and RCP applications.

One last administrative detail before we get started: Since I started this series I've gotten reports that the latest nightly Scala Eclipse builds are better than the latest stable build. I recently upgraded and have found this to be true.

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