I do not think the Subclipse features are defined as best they could.
Currently there are 3 features, one for Windows, OS X and Linux. This in
itself is a problem in that all other Unix OS' are excluded as is Motif. I
believe the reason for this is that the features all included a platform
specific version of JavaHL, now only the Windows version does.
This all could have been solved with one feature. The feature itself
could install on any platform, and the JavaHL component would be limited
to the corresponding platform. This would allow Subclipse to be installed
on any Eclipse platform, and on Windows the JavaHL piece would also
install. If we go back to distributing more JavaHL variants, we can do
so.
The problem of course, is that to rename the feature to a single feature
will cause some temporary pain. Basically, users will have to do a "new
install" to get it, as opposed to just checking for updates. I think it
is worth it to do it now before we get to 1.0.
Finally, there are some branding advantages to having a plugin that is the
same ID as the feature. So the new feature ID should either be the same
as "core", or we ought to create a new plugin to go with the new feature
name.
I guess I propose a feature name of "org.tigris.subversion.subclipse",
with a corresponding feature plugin added as well.
Comments?
Mark
PS - You can see an example of my proposal by just looking at the
feature.xml for org.eclipse.platform and how it handles OS specific
features and fragments.
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Received on Tue Nov 30 07:22:39 2004