[embed-cdt-dev] Rename bundles and packages - no compatibility for third

[Liviu Ionescu <ilg@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm progressing with renaming bundles to org.eclipse.embedcdt.* and things seem still functional.

The main focus is to preserve compatibility with existing user configurations, such that upgrading to the new version to have no impact on existing projects.

For now I renamed the debug plug-ins and the old debug launchers seem still functional.

I guess that I can do the same for the managed build plug-ins, to accept existing projects.

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However, I have serious difficulties to find similar solutions for integrators. Actually I don't know if there is any way to keep compatibility for other products including features/plug-ins from Embed CDT, without rewriting them.

If their products include our features, they were renamed and will no longer be available.

If they do not refer to our features, they must refer to our plug-ins, which were renamed, so will no longer be available.

Even so, once we rename the Java packages, the classes imported from our packages will no longer be available.


My current understanding is that integrators will have to rewrite their plug-ins/products.


For the moment I tried very hard to decouple most IDs and extension points from the plug-ins names, but since the integrators will have to rewrite their code, preserving the old IDs no longer makes sense, since they can also be rewritten together with the rest of the code.


Conclusion:

The new version will definitely change the major to v6.x. It should preserve compatibility with existing projects and debug launchers, but I don't think that it is realistic to expect it to be compatible with third party plug-ins/products, which will require updates to accommodate the new feature names, the new plug-in names, the new package names, the separate core/ui plug-ins, the different extension points, different other UI IDs, etc.


Any thoughts?

Liviu