Open source Eclipse task interface updated

Tasktop Technologies, lead developer of the Eclipse Mylyn task focused interface for the Eclipse platform, will offer upgrades to both Mylyn and the company's Tasktop Pro tool to integrate Mylyn with commercial ALM (application lifecycle management) tools.

Mylyn, according to Eclipse, reduces information overload and makes multi-tasking easy by making tasks a "first-class" part of Eclipse. The technology also integrates rich and offline editing for repositories such as Bugzilla, Trac, and JIRA.

"It gives developers focus so they see only the code relevant to what they're doing, and it gives them one click multi-tasking," said Mik Kersten, CEO at Tasktop.

With Monday's 3.3 release of the open source Mylyn platform, support is being added for C and C++ development. "C and C++ developers get the one-click multitasking when they're working on C and C++ code," such as developers building Symbian mobile applications, Kersten said. Mylyn already has supported development in Java.

Mylyn is offering a standard tool, said Jeffrey Hammond, principal analyst for application development at Forrester Research.

"A task focused interface that connects Eclipse with change requests and SCM (software configuration management) change sets has traditionally been the exclusive domain of high-end ALM tools from ISVs like IBM and Borland (now Micro Focus). What Mylyn does is create a de facto standard that anyone can plug into, even with low cost open source tools like Subversion or Bugzilla," Hammond said.

The vast majority of Eclipse developers have downloaded Mylyn, said Kersten. Mylyn can be accessed at Eclipse's web page.