[wtp-dev] Juno proposed plan for dual platforms, but one stream

[David M Williams <david_williams@xxxxxxxxxx>]

As promised at status and PMC meetings,
I have written down a proposed plan item for Juno related to our proposed
support for 2 platforms in Juno time-frame; it is pasted at end of this
note, as well as in our "standard
format plan". 

As we move forward, this will be part
of our overall WTP plan, as documented at 
http://www.eclipse.org/projects/project-plan.php?projectid=webtools
so the proposal has implications for
all committers (and adopters) of WTP. 

I'm sending this note to wtp-dev in
case there is any broader community or committer discussion that should
take place. 

There are several key assumptions implicit
in this proposed plan.  I will enumerate a few, but am sure there
are others. 

1. The proposed plan assumes our prereqs
are "lined up".  I'm sure there would be ways around it,
but, if, for example, DTP or GEF said they would no longer support 3.8,
then I am not sure there is much sense in us trying to support it (even
though we could, with qualifications). So, we'll see what they plan, and
update our plans as we learn more. 

2. The plan assumes no WTP sub-projects
(that is, no WTP committers) want to use 4.2 specific features or APIs.
If they do, then that would probably mean two distinct builds, two distributions,
etc. Maybe twice the work. One thing that makes the proposed plan feasible
is that it should not be too much extra work to support both platforms
with one WTP stream. If we start to have two WTP streams, then that is
a different level of commitment and the plan would be re-examined at the
point the point split streams become desired. 

So, for now, this is just a proposed
item I wanted to be sure all committers were aware of and felt you can
live with. If not ... such as if you have been patiently waiting to get
some 4.2 specific function into Juno ... be sure to let us know. Otherwise,
it will be just a little extra testing at times, a little releng work,
and us agreeing to accept bugs as valid even if reported on WTP running
on 3.8. 

Let us know if questions for implications
we are not aware of. 

Thanks,  


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Support for Eclipse 3.8 workbench

While Juno plans to provide Eclipse 4.2 as the primary platform, the Eclipse Project will also be providing a 3.8 based version as well. This is done since it is anticipated some adopters may not be able to move to 4.2 right away, and may need to wait for their own "release train" to get lined up. We will support our adopters in a similar way: WTP will support 3.8 as a secondary platform (while 4.2 will be the primary platform). But we do not want to "double our work" so we do anticipate having only one stream of development, that will continue to work with 3.8 and 4.2 platform, using the compatibility layer, and no 4.2 specific APIs. We will occasionally compile against 3.8, to help be sure we do not introduce new API use that breaks on 3.8 but plan on delivering the version compiled against 4.2 (the compiled version should be identical no matter which we compiled against) . We will occasionally test against 3.8 to make sure no 3.8 specific regressions introduced when on that platform, but will focus most testing on 4.2. We will accept WTP bugs as equally valid if they are reported when running on either 3.8 or 4.2. We will provide this type of one-stream, dual-platform support for Juno and its two coordinated maintenance releases.

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