| Thoughts from the Web Tools Platform Project BoF [message #17222] |
Thu, 05 February 2004 08:30 |
 Lawrence Mandel
Messages: 486
Registered: July 2009 |
Senior Member |
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Hi Everyone,
I attended the Eclipse Web Tools Platform Project BoF today and thought
I'd post some of the ideas and suggestions that were brought up. For those
that attended, please feel free to correct me or post follow-ups for your
views. For those that couldn't attend, we want to hear your opinions as
well so please post them. Let us know your thoughts.
Althought everyone seemed to agree that they would like to see the project
move along as quickly as possible (without rushing and producing a
sub-Eclipse-standard project), the group was split when discussing the
initial focus of the project between end user tools and the project
model.
When discussing end user tools, the thought was that there should be as
much available as early as possible so end users can start using the
project. The project model is important but will be developed and will
migrate as the project matures. Some of the tools that were mentioned
were WSDL, XML, XSD, JSP, HTML, JSP and JavaScript editors and validators,
autogeneration tools for J2EE applications, database connectivity and EJB
tools. It was suggested that the project focus on visual tools for Web
development. It was also pointed out, for comparison, that JDT was not
originally as extensible and useful as it is now and that if JDT had
focused strictly on the model then they would never have shipped anything.
Instead of focusing on having a complete model up-front, JDT focused on
iterating development of their tools and model together. It was suggested
that the Web Tools Platform Project follow the same idea.
The other focus was on the project model or framework for the Web Tools
Platform Project. The real goal here is to have a very reliable and
extendable framework available for tools to be developed on top of. The
main reasons for producing the model up-front were to allow anyone to use
their existing Web application stucture in Eclipse right off the bat and
to reduce the development time that will be required from all the tools to
change the model at a later time.
For those that want to know the score, the vote was 11-7 in favour of
focusing more on the tooling in the beginning. That is, people would like
to see more tools available in the first release of the project then a
fully developed project model (although most considered a flexible and
extendible project model to be important and would like to see this
developed as much as possible while focusing on the tooling.)
Speaking about the structure and scope of the project, most thought that
J2EE tooling should be included and most felt that it is very appropriate
to include tooling for other technologies (such as PHP.) This doesn't mean
that there will be a PHP editor included right off but rather that the
initial focus can be on J2EE tooling and that the Web Tools Platform
Project contain J2EE, Web services and XML subprojects (as examples) and
leave the possibility open for other subprojects such as PHP.
When responding with your thoughts here are some areas to think of wrt the
project (that we discussed at the BoF):
Structure
Scope
Leadership
Schedule
My thoughts are this project needs to get going ASAP. Eclipse has
competition. If Eclipse does not offer the tools that developers require
they will find and use other tools. We need a project leader and a roadmap
and this information needs to be provided on the Eclipse site for the
casual Eclipse user that browses to the Web Tools Platform Project site
for an update. We need to focus on tools development and work on the
flexible model as we go so we can get end users involded with the project
as early on as possible. I think the scope of the project should be broad
in the beginning encompasing all Web development. If the need arises we
can divide up the project at a later date (for example, if we need to
separate out data tools) but we should try and get as many interested
developers involved as possible. I would like to see Eclipse have the
ability to do a wide variety of Web development. Eclipse is a great IDE
but will only continue to be a great IDE if we, the Eclipse developer
community, continute to evolve and upgrade Eclipse. The Web Tools Platform
Project is a great opportunity to really boost the value of Eclipse. Let's
seize it.
Lawrence Mandel
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