Plug-in Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
HP Softbench was one of the first plug-in Integrated Development Environment (IDE) tool based on the UNIX operating system, UNIX tools and the X Window System.
The main ideas were:
- Tools and data can reside on many different systems across the network
- Tool communication using a Broadcast Message Server
- Common user interface
- Integrated help facility
- Tool Slots
- Encapsulator: tool for encapsulate any CASE tool into a Tool Slot if it supports standard I/O.
History
SoftBench was released in 1989 and presented in the June 1990 HP Journal.[1] It was an early adoption of some of the IDE ideas that are common today in well known IDEs like Eclipse.
References
- ^ Cagan, Martin R. (June 1990). "The HP SoftBench Environment: An Architecture for a New Generation of Software Tools". Hewlett-Packard Journal. 41 (3): 36–47.