[eclipse-dev] Planning Meeting Notes - August Oct 29, 2003

[Mike Wilson <Mike_Wilson@xxxxxxxxxx>]

-------------------
 Discussion Topics
-------------------

Debug:
- The debug team is investigating use of "roles/activities"
to handle scalability
  issues in the debug platform (view/action visibility).
The support looks promising. 
  One issue/question we have encountered is how
to filter multiple functions provided
  by one plug-in. For example, the "Applet"
support (launch config, launch shortcuts,
  etc), is provided as part of the Java debugger.
Many developers would like to filter
  this from the UI. However, since the applet
function is provided by the Java debug
  plug-in, the contributions associated with
the support share the same prefix as the
  rest of the Java debug support. What is the
recommended way to filter such things?
  Should we define a different prefix for the
applet contributions? Should there be
  a way to subdivide plug-ins? For example, the
"Java debugging role" is identified
  by the "org.eclipse.jdt.debug" prefix,
but excludes the 
  "org.eclipse.jdt.debug.applet" prefix.

Core:
- build submissions and rebuilds: recommend that if
something happens so the tests
  aren't run (failed submission, etc) then we
do an automatic rebuild. If the tests
  fail then a rebuild in 24hrs will suffice.
This will hopefully reduce the number
  of rebuilds later in the week.

----------
 Outreach 
----------

- Kai gave a half day tutorial on Sunday at OOPLSA:

  - "Eclipse Extensions—Making the Connections"
  - http://oopsla.org/oopsla2003/files/tut-6.html

- Equinox was presented last Friday at the OSGi World
Congress in Germany.
  - Generated interest especially the scaling
requirements (e.g., 5000 bundles)

--------
 Status
--------

Debug:
- new "string substitution" plug-in is in
the build - org.eclipse.core.variables
  - provides facilities for defining variables
of the form "${var_name}", 
    and replacing variable references in
arbitrary strings with associated
    values
  - variables may have static values (i.e. setter/getter),
or have dynamic values
    resolved by a delegate
- automatic parititioning of arrays now supported
in the debug platform. A new
  extension of IValue was added to the debug
model - IIndexedValue
  - the variables view will automatically partition
indexed values into subranges
    in the variables and expresssions views.
Debug model implementors do not need
    to implement the new interface, but
will get new function if they do.
- new "Organize Favorities" dialog
  - the launch history preference page has been
replaced with an "organize"
    favorites dialog available on the the
run/debug drop-down menus
  - as well, an action has been added to the
context menu of the debug view to
    "add a launch to the favorites".
- filter added to variables/_expression_ views to "Show
Null Array Entries"
  - by default, null array entries are displayed,
but can be filtered by toggling
    this new option on the view drop-down
menu.
- bug fixing

Ant:
- improved UI for manipulating Ant's runtime classpath
(preference page Ant -> Runtime)
  - rather than having two lists - one for defining
the jars associated with an Ant
    installation, and one for a global set
of extra jars - one list is displayed
    with groups/containers of jars.
- bug fixing

JDTCore:
- search for local variables is now supported
- search finds references in javadoc
- grammar for 1.5 is available
- bug fixing (resolved outstanding issue for PDE in
Equinox)

Platform/JDT Text: 
- continued working on Javadoc spell checking:
  - preferences UI
  - content Assist in comments
  - optimization of double metaphone algorithm
/ edit distance
- improved comment formatter:
  - moved everything to edit based formatting
strategies
  - new simplified content formatter
- first cut of background highlight annotation painter
- implemented a radial context menu prototype for
OOPSLA
- implemented occurrences marker for the Java editor
- visibility of vertical ruler annotations can be
configured via editor's Annotation
  preference page
- bug fixing 

Core:
- Preferences:
  - continued talks about the way things should
look
  - hope to have a flushed out doc later this
week
  - API MUST be defined by M5 to make this happen
for 3.0
- Concurrency:
  - working on better deadlock handling.  
    - currently deadlock among ILock instances
is detected and broken, but there is
      no error reporting when it happens.
    - new story will be able to log a detailed
error report and then break deadlock,
      and will treat scheduling rules
as locks.
  - no longer blocking when markers are manipulated
on resources locked by background
    operations (this is good because marker
manipulation is usually done in UI thread).
  - new IWorkspace.run method that takes a scheduling
rule (acts like a fine grained
    resource lock), and a style bit to specify
if periodic notifications are desired.
  - education material needed for UI committers
to move to this API: finer grained
    locking means less chance of colliding
with background activity.
- RCP:
  - support on-demand....fixing bugs for Erich's
demo @Oopsla :-)

JDT/UI:
- bug fixing
- added exception support to change method signature
- continued work with JDT/Core on AST rewriting API
- worked on XML _expression_ evaluation proposal

Search:
- continued work on improved search/replace functionality

SWT:
- numlock and arrowpad keys implemented (SWT.KEYPAD_0,
etc)
- more exploring new look and feel in CTabFolder
- adding setText API to Browser
- bug fixing and more 2.1.2 support

Equinox:
- new fragment model (same as Eclipse) in place now
- reviewing the classloader structure and improving
speed/scalability
- working on OSGi RFCs for the various OSGi spec updates

Rel Eng:
- remove dependencies on Xerces plug-in in internal
tools and org.eclipse.test
- fix NL fragment, feature generators