Eclipse Che cloud IDE joins Docker revolution

Eclipse Che 5.0 is making accommodations for Docker containers and Language Server Protocol across multiple IDEs. The newest version of the Eclipse Foundation’s cloud-based IDE and workspace server will be available by the end of the year.

The update offers Docker Compose Workspaces, in which a workspace can run multiple developer machines with support for Docker Compose files and standard Dockerfiles. In the popular Docker software container platform, a Compose file is a Yet Another Markup Language (YAML) file defining services, networks, and volumes; a Docker file is a text document with commands to assemble an image. Che also has been certified for Docker Store, which features enterprise-ready containers. In addition, Docker is joining the Eclipse Foundation and will work directly with Che.

Along with Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code editor, Che 5.0 supports Language Server Protocol. “Today, available language servers include JSON, C#, Java, and now PHP,” which was recently added to the protocol, said Tyler Jewell, Eclipse Che lead and CEO at Codenvy. “Language servers provided by Sourcegraph for Go, Python, JavaScript, and Typescript are planned to support the protocol by Q1 of next year.” Eclipse 5.0 expands support for PHP in general, with such capabilities as syntax validation, autocomplete, search, and debugging.

OpenShift, Red Hat’s cloud application platform, gets a thumbs-up in Che 5.0. “Che will support running on OpenShift, including distributing workspace runtimes to operate as OpenShift pods. This will complement our existing OpenShift plugin for deploying your projects to OpenShift,” Jewell said.

Developers who adopt the 5.0 upgrade can live-sync workspaces and projects to desktops so that they can be used with local IDEs. To improve deployment, Che can take a production image and mount source code inside while adding an artifact repository and injecting agents for SSH, terminal, or Intellisense. This helps eliminate surprise production deployment problems, said Jewell. The stack editor in the upgrade, meanwhile, creates custom runtimes for Che workspaces based on a user’s software and environment, while controlling required resources and agents.