SWT/JFace or Eclipse RCP?

java swt eclipse-rcp rcp jface
Giuseppe picture Giuseppe · Oct 1, 2009 · Viewed 7.7k times · Source

Which are the reasons to choose the Eclipse Rich Client Platform as the base of my application, instead of just using SWT/JFace?

Answer

VonC picture VonC · Oct 1, 2009

Eclipse RCP is not just a GUI (SWT/JFace), but an OSGi-based platform.

So, you would choose the RCP framework in order to:

  • have a better definition of your different modules
  • manage their lifecycles, and versions compatibility
  • isolate classloader issues.

If your application is just one monolithic GUI font-end, RCP might be a bit overkill.

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