[sam_goody]

Eclipse is known for being clunky, but at least it is _known_.

It is also trusted. When I wrote my first Android app, it was the only practical way to write and test. Not sure if that has since changed (am no longer doing apps), but my guess is that a lot of people have Eclipse on their system.

There is a saying that even negative publicity is still publicity.

The most important thing that Theia needs to convince would-be contributors, is that they will still be around tomorrow. Eclipse has been around forever, and most devs assume it will stay around. That has a value that should not be underestimated.

[ken]

> Eclipse has been around forever, and is going nowhere.

That's true of everything, right up until the day it's gone. I heard the same thing about Borland. And Perl, Fortran, 1-2-3, Netware, Lycos, Blackberry, ... The history of computers is littered with brands which were once impossibly dominant, and now just a footnote.

[fock]

In my research field, about 80% of the software is Fortran. Actively developed Fortran. I wouldn't really compare it with 1-2-3/other DOS-apps or blackberry which are basically the software equivalent of consumables.

[ianwalter]

Is your research publicly available?

[markstos]

Fortran is no longer dominant.

[ryl00]

Neither is it a "footnote", especially in its strongest domain, numerical computation.

[tempodox]

That obviously depends on the field.