The Eclipse Platform is designed for building integrated development environments (IDEs) that can be used to create applications as diverse as web sites, embedded JavaTM programs, C++ programs, and Enterprise JavaBeansTM.

The Eclipse Platform (or simply "the Platform" when there is no risk of confusion) is designed and built to meet the following requirements:

• Support the construction of a variety of tools for application development.
• Support an unrestricted set of tool providers, including independent software vendors (ISVs).
• Support tools to manipulate arbitrary content types (e.g., HTML, Java, C, JSP, EJB, XML, and GIF).
• Facilitate seamless integration of tools within and across different content types and tool providers.
• Support both GUI and non-GUI-based application development environments.
• Run on a wide range of operating systems, including Windows® and LinuxTM.
• Capitalize on the popularity of the Java programming language for writing tools.

The Eclipse Platform's principal role is to provide tool providers with mechanisms to use, and rules to follow, that lead to seamlessly-integrated tools. These mechanisms are exposed via well-defined API interfaces, classes, and methods. The Platform also provides useful building blocks and frameworks that facilitate developing new tools.