I was so much into Jython that I hardly bothered to look at Eclipse 2.1 I had downloaded a copy earlier this year. Had a quick look and had given it up. However, this time I gave it more than a quick look and was impressed with what I saw. I must say it is a pretty impressive IDE. For all those who are looking for a GUI designer, I think NetBeans is still a better option, but for one who wants an "editor" will enjoy working in Eclipse better.
If Java is what you work in Eclipse is definitely a superb IDE for you. Even on my PIII 799MHz with 256 MB it was pretty fast. Yes, I am getting 512 MB, can't do without it. The editor is so much better than the one in NetBeans. Personally, I always liked jEdit to NetBeans editor. Folding is something I use a lot.
The refactoring stuffs looks pretty cool and CVS support is nice. I need to give both a more detailed use. Just the amount of stuffs it does in the editor is cool. Checking unused imports, quite useful auto-completion. Nice task manager that scans the TODOs in the source to generate a todo list. Many nice features that I need to check out.
Importing existing files and libraries weren't a problem. However, it wasn't perfect for the existing directory structure I had. I haven't checked out the Ant integration. While the IDE's build looks nice, I would definitely require Ant. I would love it to just work with the existingo directory structure without having to import the files to my project or setting the packages start directory as project folder. The existing directory has dir1\dir2\src as the source directory. I would love to work with it as it is without setting the project directory at src. Any tips?
Anyway, if one were to start with it completely from scratch, an eclipse definitely seems like a nice option.
I definitely enjoyed fooling around with Mozilla the new version 1.4 was not exception. However, I realised I was using Konquerer more and more on Linux and Internet Explorer on Windows. Mozilla didn't feel so responsive compared to them. Since all I really wanted was the browser and not the complete suite with mail and all I decide to give Firebird 0.6 a try. I must say it has been a very pleasant experience. The speed is pretty cool. Feels cleaner than the standard Mozilla 1.4 The most interesting thing was the plugins seems to just work with out any problem.
Firebird is now my default browser.
I have always enjoyed working in Python. Given the choice I would almost certainly use it as the language for the next project I do. I believe there are few projects that aren't suitable.
Anyway, here's Kevin's effort at promoting Python. Why definitely worth checking it out.