Re: [ jEdit-devel ] CodeAid and Jane

[Robert F. <rfl...@ya...>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Thelmo Loisio" <the...@em...>
>
> Right now these infos are in the JIndex plugin (correct me if i'm wrong)
> so it's only a matter of change their location from JIndex to JavaCore.
> Then JIndex could retrieve that info from JavaCore.
>

The thing is that JavaCore doesn't store the information itself. It provides
a framework to link any provider of the information with any consumer of the
information. Okay, it does provide a default provider implementation, but
it's pretty basic & most people would probably rather use a more
project-centric implementation.

>
> Anyway this kind of issues/arguments are the same for the sourcepath
> since usually don't have the source of all the libs you are using...
> isn't it !?
>
> Having the source of all (or better of most) of your libs/projects
> JavaCore could auto-provide the docpath (generating javadoc from
> source)... but i'm not so sure if this is suitable neither for JavaCore
> and for developers who should have a lot of sources (for ex:
> xerces,xalan,dom,commons-*)
>

But it's a question of usage. You don't need all the source for the various
libs. Classpath & sourcepath basically provide you with a sort of extended
reflection framework, answering questions like "does class x exist?", "what
are the classes in package y?", "what are the methods of class z?". That's
the kind of thing needed by code completion, import checking, skeleton code
generation, etc. In those scenarios the only source code you really need is
your own & you only need that for classes you haven't compiled yet or that
have changed since the last compile. Docs would, presumably, be used for
interactive help, etc. and unlike classpath/sourcepath are unlikely to be
physically located in a project-centric way (other than the very specific
docs for the project classes). Providing docpath info is easy & logical for
something like the default service in JavaCore where nothing is
project-centric anyway. It's more difficult for something like AntHelper
that has no business knowing anything about where the docs for commons-*
live, for example.