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[news.eclipse.newcomer] Re: NEWBIE: Eclipse Vs. IBM Rational Developer - A few questions
Terry-OMAF wrote: 
Forgive my terminology here if not correct but...My employer has
standardized around IBM WebSphere and many of our applications will be
deployed on its application server.

When looking at getting started to develop applications, the first question
that has come up is what we will develop in. IBM Rational Developer
(previously called WebSphere Application Developer) appears to be the best
fit but it also costs over $4000 Canadian.  In researching alternatives, I
quickly found out that IBM's tool is based on Eclipse which is free.

So my questions are:

1. What are the key differences between Eclipse and IBM Rational Developer?
2. Can we still develop applications destined for WebSphere in Eclipse?
3. Is it possible to get Eclipse (via plugins) functionaly closer to that of
IBM Rational Developer?
4. If it is possible, what do the plugins do?
5. If it is possible, which plugings can do this?
6. If it is possible, do I really want to even do this or should
applications be developed a neutrally as possible?

There is a reason that RAD costs that much money - it adds a ton of features over basic Eclipse (but also a ton of weight - the recommended memory for running RAD is 2GB!)

There are other commercial and free add-ons and plugins that can get you good J2EE development features. One that I have used is MyEclipse Enterprise Workbench (http://www.myeclipseide.com/). It is $30 per user per year and has a very large feature set. Not as tightly integrated with WebShpere as RAD is, but you may not need the level of integration that RAD provides.
You can also search at http://www.eclikpse-plugins.info for other plugins - there are many out there.

HTH,
	Eric