I have seen several post comparing emacs as IDE with IDEs such as Eclipse.
Usually it is assumed that all activities will be done through the emacs facilities and facilities provided by command line tools.
How easy would it be to integrate an IDE such as Eclipse with emacs, emacs being either an editing component, or an interface to Eclipe’s features?
Both projects are open-source and both support extensions.
I believe emacs-eclim is an appropriate option for you. https://github.com/senny/emacs-eclim.
Empowerd by eclim which import the Eclipse functionality to your editor, you can do what you want: emacs being either an editing component, or an interface to Eclipe’s features.