pluginbuilder-development

[Pluginbuilder-development] Pluginbuilder experiences

[Tom Wickham-J. <tw...@wo...>]

Hi


We build a collection of eclipse plugins to add
development support for Mathematica.  We also
ship an RCP version of this, one that is very
close to eclipse.


eclipse is a great platform, but I have
always found its build system/tools to be
complicated, confusing, and hard to work with.
This is in enormous contrast to just about
everything else in eclipse.


Last year we switched to use pluginbuilder
to create the build system for our plugins,
and it works very nicely. It helps enormously,
for example it is good at preventing organic
drift of build files.  We have our own build
system that kicks of nightly builds and handles
configuration management tracking etc...


We have not managed to use pluginbuilder for an
RCP build (based on the p2 system for eclipse 3.4).
Would this be a good list to send questions to?


 From what I can see of Buckminster,  I don't
think it would be useful for us.


Anyway,  pluginbuilder is great!


Tom Wickham-Jones

Re: [Pluginbuilder-development] Pluginbuilder experiences

[Markus B. <Mar...@gm...>]

> We have not managed to use pluginbuilder for an
> RCP build (based on the p2 system for eclipse 3.4).
> Would this be a good list to send questions to?
If you stumbled upon a specific issue a bug report would suite better I guess.
If it is something more general, let's go on and discuss it here.

Thanks
Markus

Re: [Pluginbuilder-development] Pluginbuilder experiences

[Werner S. (murphee) <wer...@gm...>]

Markus Barchfeld wrote:
>> We have not managed to use pluginbuilder for an
>> RCP build (based on the p2 system for eclipse 3.4).
>> Would this be a good list to send questions to?
>>     
> If you stumbled upon a specific issue a bug report would suite better I guess.
> If it is something more general, let's go on and discuss it here.
>   

One question is: what's the level of p2 support in PluginBuilder 0.6.0?
The release notes state that it's supported, but it's necessary to 
delete postBuild.xml.

Also: as I understand p2, it's necessary to run the p2 Director task. 
Having PluginBuilder (or something - dare I suggest the PDE...) set up 
something that works would be great.
(I tried for ages to get this right - but apparently one needs to be a 
Mensa member and infinite patience to get even the most trivial things 
to work with the PDE Build).

murphee

PS: I'd like to second the opinions already stated: PluginBuilder is a 
life saver - Thanks Markus B.,  also thanks for your old Developer Works 
Article on the PDE Build system which permitted me to get started with 
PDE Build before the age of PluginBuilder.
Also: I'm surprised the PDE team would spoil their otherwise excellent 
tools with a mindblowingly ghastly blemish such as the undocumented 
torture instrument that is the PDE Build system (or at least it's 
configuration).

Re: [Pluginbuilder-development] Pluginbuilder experiences

[Markus B. <Mar...@gm...>]

> One question is: what's the level of p2 support in PluginBuilder 0.6.0?
> The release notes state that it's supported, but it's necessary to
> delete postBuild.xml.
hm, as far is I remember the deletion of postBuild.xml was related to
the pre-p2 update site. Pluginbuilder 0.6.0 does not support p2. But
it is quite easy to create a p2 repository since the PDE provides a
couple of p2 related properties:
http://help.eclipse.org/stable/index.jsp?topic=/org.eclipse.platform.doc.isv/guide/p2_metadata_generator.html
The properties are already included in the Pluginbuilder nightly and
can be set via the Properties tab of the Pluginbuilder Editor.
>
> Also: as I understand p2, it's necessary to run the p2 Director task.
> Having PluginBuilder (or something - dare I suggest the PDE...) set up
> something that works would be great.
Have a look at http://rcpsample-3-4.pluginbuilder.org/nightly/p2-updateSite/
which has been set up with the pluginbuilder nightly.
Still unclear: how to set a category,
https://sourceforge.net/forum/message.php?msg_id=6025032.

> (I tried for ages to get this right - but apparently one needs to be a
> Mensa member and infinite patience to get even the most trivial things
> to work with the PDE Build).
I would not blame PDE for that. I think it is intrinsic to all build
related development because it takes so long to get feedback. That is
the difference between developing code where you get immediate
feedback from your test suites as opposed to developing build scripts
where you have to wait minutes or even hours to see results. So, one
of the principles of writing build scripts should be to make them as
modular as possible and reduce time to feedback. For example it should
be possible to re-run the tests without doing all the compilation
steps before.

Markus

Re: [Pluginbuilder-development] Pluginbuilder experiences

[Werner S. (murphee) <wer...@gm...>]

Markus Barchfeld wrote:
>
> hm, as far is I remember the deletion of postBuild.xml was related to
> the pre-p2 update site. 
Ah yes (from the 0.6 release notes):
"The target of this release is Eclipse 3.3. A user has reported that 
building  with Eclipse 3.4 also works but postBuild.xml must be disabled 
(e.g. by renaming or deleting it)."


> The properties are already included in the Pluginbuilder nightly and
> can be set via the Properties tab of the Pluginbuilder Editor.
>   
Have there been changes in the nightlies? I was watching the CVS for a 
while but there didn't seem to be significant modifications since 0.6? 
(Just wondering if I should move to a nightly update site).

> Have a look at 
> http://rcpsample-3-4.pluginbuilder.org/nightly/p2-updateSite/
> which has been set up with the pluginbuilder nightly.
> Still unclear: how to set a category,
> https://sourceforge.net/forum/message.php?msg_id=6025032.
>   
Yeah - I know.  I sampled code from this and some other blogs, eg
http://aniefer.blogspot.com/2008/06/example-headless-build-for-rcp-product.html
helped me along, mostly by pointing out all the bugs that one needs to 
know about when dealing with p2 (eg. which config option not to use 
because it's broken, etc).

But still - a tool that sets up all the different string identifiers and 
version numbers and whatnot in exactly the way p2 & friends expect would 
be great.
(I spent ages on it - but any kind of approach of working with the PDE 
Build system (when working with a non-trivial RCP product) is marked by 
trying one combination,
waiting 10 minutes for the build to grind to a halt and fails with "Java 
exited with error code -13" - or the alternative of watching the build 
unfold in the debugger, which isn't much more fun.

I know the best way to do this would be to read and fully grok the PDE 
Build system, but I'd like to avoid a mind numbing task like that as 
long as I can.  Mostly because I can't believe that's really the _only_ 
way to build plugins.


>> (I tried for ages to get this right - but apparently one needs to be a
>> Mensa member and infinite patience to get even the most trivial things
>> to work with the PDE Build).
>>     
> I would not blame PDE for that. I think it is intrinsic to all build
> related development because it takes so long to get feedback. 
Weeeeell... the patience bit wasn't so much about the time it take to 
run the builds, but the patience it takes to even find out where to get 
started with the PDE Build system config.

Imagine if there were no PDE editors/tools support and you had to figure 
out all the OSGi/plugin/extension/etc stuff on your own - or figure out 
that your plugin doesn't work because you haven't set up the right 
import statement here or there.  These are all trivial with the PDE 
tools - but setting up a PDE Build means grokking every little 
nook/cranny of the system.

Eg. Alex Blewitt's EclipseCon talk/slides gave me the first light bulb 
moment by explaining the architecture of the PDE Build system (ie. 
basically a kind of OOP/Module/Polymorphism built on Ant callback files).
http://www.eclipsecon.org/2006/Sub.do?id=18
Etc.


murphee

Re: [Pluginbuilder-development] Pluginbuilder experiences

[Markus B. <Mar...@gm...>]

>> The properties are already included in the Pluginbuilder nightly and
>> can be set via the Properties tab of the Pluginbuilder Editor.
>>
> Have there been changes in the nightlies? I was watching the CVS for a
> while but there didn't seem to be significant modifications since 0.6?
> (Just wondering if I should move to a nightly update site).
Not many. Apart from the p2 properties the emma.jar has been replaced
due to a bug on 64 Bit Linux (IndexOutOufBoundException).
And the usual smaller fixes. I should release it anyway.

Markus