Scala IDE 2.0 adds code completion and smarter building

After nine months of work, the developers of the Scala IDE for Eclipse have released version 2.0 of the plugin for coders working with the Scala programming language. The new version of the IDE includes features such as error reporting "as-you-type", a dependency tracking project builder, hyperlinked identifier definitions, code completion, and inferred types displayed for identifiers. The improved error reporting type-checks code as it is entered, thereby reducing the number of times a Scala developer needs to build their code, while the project builder uses a dependency tracker to rebuild only files which depend on changed files.

There are two versions of Scala IDE, one for Scala 2.8 and one for Scala 2.9.1; it is currently not possible to install both plugins at the same time. The developers say that this will be the last version of the IDE to support Scala 2.8 as the support load is "way too high and slowed us down too much". A third version of the IDE is used in development and is targeted at the in-development version of the Scala language, 2.10.

"Faster compilation, better debugging and better integration" are what the community is asking for, according to the developers and they plan to address these issues in future versions. In the next development cycle, the developers will be building on 2.0's foundation and plan to make "significant gains in large project compile times" and develop a "solid debugging capability".

The project's web site has been revamped and includes screencasts on new features and getting started with the Scala IDE. Version 2.0 of Scala IDE can be downloaded from the refreshed site, as can nightly development releases of Scala IDE 2.1 (which has just added the ability to highlight implicit definitions and will soon add semantic highlighting). Scala IDE is distributed under the terms of the Scala licence (a 3 clause BSD licence).

(djwm)