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 edit
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 edit
- ^ 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.
- HP Softbench has reserved ports 6110-6111 in the IANA list of port assignments List of TCP and UDP port numbers
- Bark, R. (4 November 1991). "HP SoftBench-support for distributed working". Architectures for Distributed Development Support Environments, IEE Colloquium on. Architectures for Distributed Development Support Environments 1991. Savoy Place. pp. 7/1–7/5.