Section 16.1. What development tools are available for Java developers?

16.1. What development tools are available for Java developers?

SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio provides Java developers a standards-based and fully featured development environment. It is based on Eclipse, a popular open source development environment, and it provides support for the full range of J2EE development tasks. Since SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio is based on Eclipse, developers can enhance it using custom plug-ins, which are available from many Independent Software Vendors (ISVs). Like Eclipse itself, SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio helps organize development by offering various perspectives, including the following:

• The J2EE perspective supports the development of entities defined by this standard, such as EJBs, JavaServer pages (JSPs), servlets, and so on.

• The Web Services perspective combines tools to define, discover, and test web services.

• The Web Dynpro perspective provides a comprehensive environment for the model-driven design of user interfaces (UIs).

• The Java Dictionary perspective supports developers in defining data types and data structures as well as in creating and maintaining tables in the database.

• The Debugging perspective helps developers control debugging processes and thus analyze bugs in running applications.

With SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio, developers can immediately tap into the software life cycle management features of the SAP NetWeaver Development Infrastructure (NWDI), as shown in Figure 16-1. With a comprehensive offering in source code management, build automation, and software distribution, SAP's NWDI is designed for organizing the work of large teams of Java developers.

Figure 16-1. SAP NetWeaver Development Infrastructure