Slashdot Mirror
On Plug-ins and Extensible Architectures
gManZboy writes "Developers who want a flexible, configurable, IDE have long preferred plug-in architectures such as Eclipse over what they might view as the bloated, monolithic alternatives. Ever wondered how it all works? Well, ACM Queue just posted an article by someone who has worked on Eclipse since its inception, Dorian Birsan. He gives a great explanation of the Eclipse architecture as well as a thorough analysis of things to watch out for when developing or working with pure plug-in architectures."
The whole plugin environment works a lot like cooking a large meal. Add in extra ingredients, or substituting one ingredient for another can create a whole new experience. You could even use the same 'plugins' for different 'bases' if you provided the functionality correctly... like having pork (Java) as the basis for your sauce or chicken (.Net).
But, it can be a tremendously dangerous[tt] if not done correctly, so you could almost make the analogy of baking instead of cooking. Only specific elements can be used or you could ruin the whole dish... could you relate bloated software that hardly runs with something like a ruined custard or creme brulee??
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Plug-ins are implemented as the plug-ins plug-ins with plug-ins over plug-ins plug-ins plug-ins plug-ins plug-ins.
Furthermore, plug-ins plug-ins plug-ins so that plug-ins plug-ins.
Mine eyes glazeth over.
P.S. plug-ins
P.P.S I just like saying plug-ins. It's a funny word. Plug-ins. Hee!
That was meant to be funny, right? Because few things are as so monolithically all-encompassing as Eclipse.
I should reveal personal bias from the outset: I despite Eclise. Though it sits open in a window just next this one right now, I still loathe it with an utter passion.
I cannot get its editor to put tabs in realistic, predicable places. I don't want my coding environment to start looking like MS Word, underlining things as problems simply because I haven't finished typing thm yet or am concentrating on another part of the design. I had to immediately turn off most of the auto-typing features such as adding brackets or quotes, because I found it vastly distracting. There's a plug-in to search the preferences! My god, that makes it out of control.
I tried to use it at home the other day to import four existing source files and then generate a build.xml file for me. It never even worked out how to import the files with the right directory root, which given a pattern of src/org/eruvia//FileBelongingToPackage.java should have been src, not src/org/eruvia/appname.
Can't stand the thing.
Cheers,
Ian
I just read a earlier a long string of bashes around java & Open Office and then this item about Eclipse.
...
Let me tell you this.
A furiously anti-java, C++ist, debianist friend of mine tried it and found it cool for his C++ development !
It is a living demonstration that all that religious wrath around java is a non-sens.
Compared to the usual "Java is slow, Swing stinks, it closed source for playmobile developers."
Eclipse is fast, GTK native, full open-source with a very well done plugin architecture
You even have a full GCJ port for the zealots :
http://klomp.org/mark/gij_eclipse/
Adding0 0,suspend=n
-Xdebug -Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,server=y,address=80
to the java command when you run the app you want to debug allows Eclipse (& others) to attach on port 8000 (of course you can choose any unused port number)
If you want to debug an applet while it's running in a browser, you can specify the same arguments in the applet control panel.