The Penumbra project that is being developed by Purdue University has been tested by approximately 350 students in their computer science course. The goal of the project is to provide simplicity, process integration, focus on Java concepts and an easy transition to professional Eclipse. It will also provide a specialized help documentation. It is designed to be a good Java development environment for beginners.

A few features arer as follows:

• Simplification - hiding of functionality (some features can be revealed when users become more experience), simplified one or two step procedure to create a new project, and one click to run a project.
• Process Integration - provides one project file with all skeleton files and instructions, develop plug-ins to simplify Eclipse's import functionality, and to be able to sunbmit files from within Eclipse.
• Object-Oriented Views - a view that shows how classes are related, sets up class hierarchy using drag and drop.
• Tailoring Toolbars - create toolbar to highlight features, allows features that can be highlighted, implements testing features.
• Help Tutorial - also provides a short tutorial of Eclipse.
• Enforced Coding Style - coding styles can be specified, rule violations is flagged, provides hints, project can't be submitted if formatting isn't fixed.