Others may
think of a mustached rogue on a race to win money, running from the law. Well, this
tough guy also isn't what we are talking about.
So what exactly is BIRT? This is a complex question to answer. Some people would
tell you that BIRT is a Report Designer, built on top of Eclipse that provide users
with a visual WYSIWYG design interface, for rapid report development. Others may
tell you it is a plug-in for Apache Tomcat that allows you to view reports from J2EE
web portals. And others still may tell you that it is a Report Engine that can be
imported into Java applications. There is also a chart engine that may come up in
some peoples answers.
Chapter 1
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Truth be told, all of these are correct. BIRT (which stands for Business Intelligence
and Reporting Tools) is actually a development framework. Adding the word
"Tools" to the title acronym is appropriate; BIRT is in fact a collection of development
tools and technologies, used for report development, utilizing the BIRT framework.
BIRT isn't necessarily a product, but a series of core technologies that products and
solutions are built on top of, similar in fashion to the Eclipse framework.
The focus of this book will be on the most visible and familiar product built with the
BIRT framework, which is the BIRT Report Designer. The BIRT Report Designer is an
Eclipse plug-in that utilizes BIRT technologies, which allow users to design reports
in the BIRT document format.
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