[che-dev] Java extension is getting bigger

[Thomas Mäder <tmader@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi folks,

We're now adding support for Quarkus. Since the extension contributes 
bundles to the jdt.ls process, it needs to run in the same container as 
jdt.ls. With our current plugin system, we only have the two options of 
either including Quarkus in the Java plugin or to make a separate one 
including Quarkus plus the Java stuff.

The first approach makes it impossible to turn off Quarkus support and 
we will always load the bundles, consuming resources. The second one 
makes it impossible to mix and match extensions that contribute bundles 
to jdt.ls (see 
https://github.com/spring-projects/sts4/blob/master/vscode-extensions/vscode-spring-boot/package.json, 
for example)

There has been discussion about this before: 
https://github.com/eclipse/che/issues/12395. I think we've come to a 
point where we need to solve the problem. There are two approaches I can 
think of:

1. Container merging

The idea here is that we run all plugins that rely on the same image in 
the same container. This would also reduce the number of containers we 
have to run in general. Since there is a non-zero overhead to running a 
container (even if it were just running a copy of the plugin-host 
process), this might also help us run with less resources

2. Shared plugins folder

The second idea is that all plugins in the system live in a shared 
directory that is available under the same path in all containers.

Personally, I like 1#

Could folks like Sergei K or Mario chime in on whether you see a way 
forward on this any time soon? Can you argue for 1 or 2 or do you see 
other solutions?

/Thomas