Eclipse This!

We've got a saying at work: Open-source is a ghetto.

As much as I love open-source software, as much as I love the idea of open-source software, so much of it is just, well, crap. One of our most frustrating day-to-day ordeals is to work with Eclipse, a Java IDE (and then some) that is often considered to be a pinnacle of what open-source software can be.

Now take a look at the following screenshot (package names redacted for corporate anonymity):

Click to expand

Notice the Problems tab at the bottom. This lists the current problems with my code; until all the little red x's go away, things are bad and I really can't move forward. There is exactly one problem in the above example, with the oh-so-helpful description: "Syntax error on tokens, delete these tokens."

Normally, I'd be frustrated by such an ambiguous error message, but that's...ahem...eclipsed...ahem...by a bigger issue. You see, our helpful Problems tab indicates that the problem occurs on line twelve of the currently opened source file. Go ahead and find line twelve. I'll wait.

...8, 9, 10, 11...14!

That's right, lines twelve and thirteen of this file somehow don't exist. But until I delete some mysterious "token" on line twelve, my project is fubar'd.

Grrr.