title: Why does Eclipse use a native launcher?
body: <p><a href="http://www.eclipse.org" rel="noreferrer">Eclipse</a> the IDE is one of the best examples of a huge desktop application written in Java.</p>
  
  <p>Most Java applications I've seen usually rely on a batch or shell script to build a string with the class path of the application, and launch the JVM with the class path as an env variable.</p>
  
  <p>Eclipse, on the other hand, relies on a native launcher. Why is that ? What does this launcher do that scripts don't ?</p>
  
  <p>I remember reading an article about a year and a half ago that explained that "we're better off with a native launcher", but id did not explain the inner workings of the launcher.</p>