* While the promise of Java has always been "Write Once, Run Anywhere," SWT and JFace make it a reality. Write it once but run on all different platforms. * Major revision of Eclipse 3.0 is coming out (probably April or May, 2004)- this book will be up to date (3.0) with no "time bomb" shelf life. Covers SWT 3.0 (in development) and 2.1. * Eclipse is free and open source and will become even more important over next year or so/ Eclipse will be the editor of choice for all developers going forward - the standard IDE for open source development. * Offers GUI designers an alternative to developing with Swing.